The prevailing colours in the court off Lombard Street, London
city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was
very bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-
coloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff
coloured.
He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He was a
little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could hear
the children upstairs singing to a regular measure, and clapping out the
time with their hands.
"Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, listening
at the corner, "and yet I saw the performing hands again as I came by.
What are the children singing? Why, good Lord, they can never be singing
the multiplication table?"
They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysterious face had
a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set the children right.
Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. The measure at length stopped,
and was succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short
song which he made out to be about the current month of the year, and
about what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards.
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