.

Love and lavender.
How well I remember our last evening in Dovermarle Street! At one of our open windows behind the potted ferns and blossoming hydrangeas sat Salemina, Bertie Godolphin, Mrs.Beresford, the Honourable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as possible, sat Willie Beresford and I.Mrs.Beresford had sanctioned a post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out till ten, to see, for the second time, an act of John Hare's Pair of Spectacles.
They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr.
Beresford and I were rather quiet.

(Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk ?) The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had ceased; the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance.

A belated vendor of lavender came along the sidewalk, and as he stopped under the windows the pungent fragrance of the flowers was wafted up to us with his song.
'Who'll buy my pretty lavender?
Sweet lavender, Who'll buy my pretty lavender?
Sweet bloomin' lavender.' The tune comes to me laden with odours.

Is it not strange that the fragrances of other days steal in upon the senses together with the sights and sounds that gave them birth?
Presently a horse and cart drew up before an hotel, a little further along, on the opposite side of the way.