out of its chimneys with never the breath of a breeze to bend it, or
even to set its columns swaying over the high roofs. There was a great
calm. But, with it all, the weather was terribly cold.

That rare beauty which Dusk may bring to the Metropolis was that evening
vouchsafed. Streets that were mean put off their squalor, ways that were
handsome became superb. Grime went unnoticed, ugliness fell away. All
things crude or staring became indistinct, veiled with a web of that
soft quality which only Atmosphere can spin and, having spun, hang about
buildings of a windless eve.

As Night drew on, Magic came stealing down the blurred highways. Lamps
became lanterns, shedding a muffled light, deepening and charging with
mystery the darkness beyond. Old friends grew unfamiliar. Where they had
stood, fantastic shapes loomed out of the mist and topless towers rose
up spectral to baffle memory. Perspective fled, shadow and stuff were
one, and, save where the radiance of the shops in some proud
thoroughfare made gaudy noon of evening, the streets of Town were
changed to echoing halls and long, dim, rambling galleries, hung all
with twinkling lights that stabbed the gloom but deep enough to show
their presence, as do the stars.

So, slowly and with a dazzling smile, London put on her cloak of
darkness. By eight o'clock you could not see two paces ahead.

On Wednesday morning the fog was denser than it had been the night
before. There was no sign of its abatement, not a puff of wind elbowed
its way through the yellow drift, and the cold was intense. The prospect
of leaving a comfortable home at nine in the evening to undertake a
journey of some two miles, clad in habiliments which, while highly