renouncing them with national deliberation. The most mysterious fact
concerning them is that they are, with all their multitude, so difficult
to get, and are so very bad when you have got them. Having said this, I
remember with fond regret particular advantages in every lodging of my
acquaintance.

[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]




IX

CERTAIN TRAITS OF THE LONDON SPRINGTIME


The painting-up which the apartments, as they always call themselves,
undergo inside and out, in preparation for the season, is a rite to
which all London bows during April as far as it can afford it. The
lodging-house may restrict itself to picking out in fresh green its
front door and window-frames, or perhaps reddening its area railing; but
private houses pretending to be smart clothe themselves from eave to
basement in coats of creamy white, or other blond tints susceptible of
the soonest harm from the natural and artificial climates of London.
While the paint is fresh, or "wet," the word by which you are warned
from its contact everywhere, it is undeniably pleasing; it gives the
gray town an air of girlish innocence, and, with the boxes of brilliant
flowers at every window-sill, promises a gayety which the season
realizes in rather unusual measure. It is said that the flowers at the
windows must be renewed every month, against the blight of the London