themselves; and THEY were the gayest crew, for dress and
bearing, I had ever yet beheld. It could mean nothing else but a
wedding, I thought, this holiday attire, this festal and solemn
entry; and, wedding or whatever it was, I meant to be there.
This time I would not be balked by any grim portcullis; this time
I would slip in with the rest of the crowd, find out just what my
little town was like, within those exasperating walls that
had so long confronted me, and, moreover, have my share of the
fun that was evidently going on inside. Confident, yet
breathless with expectation, I turned the page.

Joy! At last I was in it, at last I was on the right side of
those provoking walls; and, needless to say, I looked about me
with much curiosity. A public place, clearly, though not such as
I was used to. The houses at the back stood on a sort of
colonnade, beneath which the people jostled and crowded. The
upper stories were all painted with wonderful pictures. Above
the straight line of the roofs the deep blue of a cloudless sky
stretched from side to side. Lords and ladies thronged the
foreground, while on a dais in the centre a gallant gentleman,
just alighted off his horse, stooped to the fingers of a girl as
bravely dressed out as Selina's lady between the saints; and
round about stood venerable personages, robed in the most
variegated clothing. There were boys, too, in plenty, with tiny
red caps on their thick hair; and their shirts had bunched up and
worked out at the waist, just as my own did so often, after
chasing anybody; and each boy of them wore an odd pair of
stockings, one blue and the other red. This system of attire
went straight to my heart. I had tried the same thing so often,
and had met with so much discouragement; and here, at last, was