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. By the light of the street
lamp under which it stopped we could see that it held a piano and
two persons beside the driver. The man was masked, and wore a soft
felt hat and a velvet coat. He seated himself at the piano and
played a Chopin waltz with decided sentiment and brilliancy; then,
touching the keys idly for a moment or two, he struck a few chords
of prelude and turned towards the woman who sat beside him. She
rose, and, laying one hand on the corner of the instrument, began to
sing one of the season's favourites, 'The Song that reached my
Heart.' She also was masked, and even her figure was hidden by a
long dark cloak the hood of which was drawn over her head to meet
the mask. She sang so beautifully, with such style and such
feeling, it seemed incredible to hear her under circumstances like
these. She followed the ballad with Handel's 'Lascia ch'io pianga,'
which rang out into the quiet street with almost hopeless pathos.
When she descended from the cart to undertake the more prosaic
occupation of passing the hat beneath the windows, I could see that
she limped slightly, and that the hand with which she pushed back
the heavy dark hair under the hood was beautifully moulded. They
were all mystery that couple; not to be confounded for an instant
with the common herd of London street musicians. With what an air
of the drawing-room did he of the velvet coat help the singer into