Still, it was very nice.'

'And who were you with?'

'Oh, with my husband.'

'He's an invalid, isn't he?'

'Well, I'm afraid he suffers very much at times, but he's often well
enough.'

The conversation again came to a pause, and both thought of how happy they
would be were they taking tea together at the inn at Trentham.

But they were now in the centre of the town, close to the Town Hall, a
stupid, square building with two black cannon on either side of the door.
Opposite was a great shop with 'Commercial House' written across the second
story in gold letters. Bright carpets and coarse goods were piled about the
doorway; and from these two houses Piccadilly and Broad Street, its
continuation, ran down an incline, and Church Street branched off, giving
the town the appearance of a two-pronged fork.

All was red brick blazing under a blue sky without a cloud in it; the red
brick that turns to purple; and all the roofs were scarlet--red brick and
scarlet tiles, and not a tree anywhere.

'You don't seem to have a tree in Hanley,' Mr. Lennox said.

'I don't think there are many,' she answered, and they gazed at the bald
rotundities of the pottery ovens.