but she did not seem to mind that. I suppose
she thought herself handsome, and marched
about the gardens looking more like an
actress than a West-end lady. She dresses her
children, too, like pictures, without reference
to chronology. A few of the younger—- they
are legion—- wear what these foolish people
call the Gainsborough hair, cut straight over
the forehead, and hanging down in stupid curls
upon the shoulders; and all have long, wild
elf-locks that I long to clip into decency. The
other day the youngest child, a creature just
able to walk, was brought out dressed like a
King Charles Cavalier. Conceive the folly! It
looked like a dancing-dog or a monkey at a fair,
in its little blue velvet cape, which didn't cover
it—- how could it when it was half off?—- trunk
hose, ruffled white boots, and feathered hat
looped up with what I suppose was the drop of
madame's pearl earring. The creature's hair
was long and curled; and in this guise the
unfortunate monkey paraded up and down the
square, with two little sisters in festooned
petticoats and smart hats, all on one side, like the
D'Aulnoy shepherdesses again. Had the idiots
been giving a fancy ball, I wonder? But if
they had, what a shame to make these little
helpless creatures so ridiculous! The eldest
girl is about fifteen, and a pretty, well-mannered
girl enough. She had been something of a
favourite with me, from the graceful way in
which, one day, she ran after me with my
handkerchief, that I had dropped on the grass. She
seemed to me as if she might have been made a
superior kind of person; and her fresh face,
with its frank smile, quite impressed me. Yes,
I had liked the child, and would have been kind
to her; I intended to be so, but yesterday, as I
tell you, there was the mother as Katherine and
Petruchio, the two little girls all in flowers and
chintz, like China shepherdesses, the baby a
King Charles, and Miss Rosa was Dolly Vardon.
Add to this assemblage of vile taste the man in
his velvet coat and Hungarian hat, smoking a
cigar, and I put it to the collective sense of you
all, was this the kind of thing to be encouraged?

Further up is a mysterious house. I have not
been able to penetrate even the outside crust of
the story or tragedy which hangs over it. All I
know is, that something dreadful is going on
there, but what, I cannot make out. The people
keep only one servant, dress shabbily, never open
the drawing-room shutters, and seem to me to
live in the kitchen. They have one child who
looks scared and half starved, and whom I see
them snatch away with quite brutality of
manner, if she is looking out of the window, or
running up the street too far in front of them.
The woman is a pale, weary, desolate-looking
creature, with an eternal cold in her head; the
man, a surly, shabby wretch, who might be a
forger, or a coiner, or a political spy, or a
murderer, or perhaps all of them together, and
something more. He is out a good deal, leaving
early and returning late; but his wife
seldom goes from home. The servant is a young
slipshod girl, and has the same scared look as
the child; and she is never suffered to go out
alone. She seems to me to be a prisoner,
and not over well treated either. What can
they have taken the house for? They do not
occupy one half of it; they do not look as if
they could pay the rent; and they are evidently
of quite a different class and order to anything
which we should consider fitting to such a
neighbourhood. What are the sobs and moans we
hear at night? I have opened my window in
summer on purpose to listen, and have heard
the weeping quite plainly across the square.
What is the mystery? for, sure as I am here,
there is a terrible mystery somewhere—- perhaps
a crime—- and one never knows, in London, what
may be going on among one's next door
neighbours. At all events, these people have,
evidently, no business in such a place as this, and
I wish that they would go; for I expect that
some day we shall see " Our Square" figuring
in the Police Reports.

These are the only out-of-the-way people that
we have: and I think they are enough. For the
rest, there is a pert lawyer with a very tall hat,
who lives two doors from me, and always makes
a point of asking after my health; which I take
to be an unwarrantable liberty. His house is
distressingly neat and clean, and I am sure that
his prim little wife does half the work. As for
the children, they look as if just stepped out of
band-boxes. If they would but laugh and run
about like other children—- but no, they always
look as if afraid of spoiling their new frocks.
People never can be moderate in anything—- they
either let their children run wild, like colts or
leopard cubs, or they curb them into tame mice.
The lawyer is evidently thriving. He goes down
to business in a hideous gig, and his wife walks
out with vulgar scrupulousness as to shoes and
boots. Still I must repeat, I believe she helps to
clean the house, and, indeed, if I must tell the
truth, my housemaid told me so, and told me, too,
that she was only an innkeeper's daughter, and
that they have both risen from nothing. I was
sure of it before I knew it. They have pleb
stamped on every feature.

Next door to me, and between me and the
lawyer, lives an old admiral, blind in one
eye, lame, and deaf, and the most passionate,
ill-tempered person that ever lived. I can hear
him storming and swearing (for the walls are
thin), and stamping his wooden leg heavily on
the floor, frightening his servants and
children, like a tornado broken loose. One day
I sent in rny compliments on a card, and
begged him not to make quite so much noise
the next time he found it necessary to rebuke
his children. I was not very well that day, and
perhaps a little out of temper, but I would do
the same thing again. I was standing at the
door, waiting for Jane to return, and I heard
him say, with such an oath, my dears, quite
shocking! that I was a cat; yes, actually an old
cat, and the magpie and mischief-maker of the
place. As I could not be a cat and a magpie at
once, I sent back Jane with a recommendation
to the admiral " to study natural history before