They were dear old ladies from some distant country-side, with bonnets and fronts, and reticules, as though they had just walked out of _Cranford_, and after gazing with close attention at the plane trees near them they turned and looked at all the other plane trees in Whitehall, which presented an equally plucked and peeled appearance.
Then the one addressed as Susan laughed out--a happy, chuckling laugh.
'Oh, I see! My dear Ellen, how clever people are now! They're _camouflaged_--that's what it is--can't you see ?--all the way down, because of the raids!' The admiring fervour of the voice was too much for Chicksands.

He hurried past them, head down, and ran up the steps of the Ministry of Munitions.

From that point of vantage he turned, shaken with amusement, to see the pair advancing slowly towards Westminster, their old-fashioned skirts floating round them, still pointing eagerly at the barkless trees.

Had they come from some piny region where the plane is not?
Anyway the tension of the day was less.
He repeated the tale to Aubrey Mannering a few minutes later, when they had turned together into Birdcage Walk.

But Aubrey scarcely gave it the ghost of a smile.