you are willing to believe it. The vendor beggars, so familiar a sight a
few years ago, have all but disappeared, and you may walk from Waterloo
Station to the Haymarket without so much as meeting a needy soul anxious
to carry your bag. Taxicabs are in great demand. And one odd result of
the scarcity of what the English are pleased to call "petrol," by which
they mean gasoline, is the reappearance of that respectable, but almost
obsolete animal, the family carriage-horse; of that equally obsolete
vehicle, the victoria. The men on the box are invariably in black.
In spite of taxes to make the hair of an American turn grey, in spite
of lavish charities, the wealthy classes still seem wealthy--if the
expression may be allowed. That they are not so wealthy as they were
goes without saying. In the country houses of the old aristocracy the
most rigid economy prevails. There are new fortunes, undoubtedly,
munitions and war fortunes made before certain measures were taken to
control profits; and some establishments, including a few supported by
American accumulations, still exhibit the number of men servants and
amount of gold plate formerly thought adequate. But in most of these
great houses maids have replaced the butlers and footmen; mansions have
been given over for hospitals; gardeners are fighting in the trenches,
and courts and drives of country places are often overgrown with grass
and weeds.

"Yes, we do dine in public quite often," said a very great lady. "It's
cheaper than keeping servants."

Two of her three sons had been killed in France, but she did not mention
this. The English do not advertise their sorrows. Still another
explanation when husbands and sons and brothers come back across the
Channel for a few days' leave after long months in the trenches, nothing
is too good for them. And when these days have flown, there is always