XXV GIRLISH CONFIDENCES

XXVI THE CONCERT

XXVII UNKNOTTING AND KNOTTING




CHAPTER I

BEGINNING OF THE IDYLL


In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can
break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of
our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be.
The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls,
as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding
us, by certain symptoms, that though we never cry there is concealed
somewhere within our bodies a fount of happy tears.

The town park is an idyll in the otherwise prosaic municipal history of
the Borough of Bursley, which previously had never got nearer to romance
than a Turkish bath. It was once waste ground covered with horrible
rubbish-heaps, and made dangerous by the imperfectly-protected shafts of
disused coal-pits. Now you enter it by emblazoned gates; it is
surrounded by elegant railings; fountains and cascades babble in it;
wild-fowl from far countries roost in it, on trees with long names; tea