1. _A Wall-flower_ 85 2. _The First Extra_ 86 3. _At a Dinner Party_ 87 _Philosophy_ 88 _A Game of Lawn Tennis_ 90 _To E._ 91 _Illustrations._ [Illustration: text decoration] A London Plane-Tree: The Temple Church. By J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE. _Frontispiece._ Odds and Ends. By J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE. _Facing p. 83._ A London Plane-Tree. _A London Plane-Tree._ [Illustration: text decoration] Green is the plane-tree in the square, The other trees are brown; They droop and pine for country air; The plane-tree loves the town. Here from my garret-pane, I mark The plane-tree bud and blow, Shed her recuperative bark, And spread her shade below. Among her branches, in and out, The city breezes play; The dun fog wraps her round about; Above, the smoke curls grey. Others the country take for choice, And hold the town in scorn; But she has listened to the voice On city breezes borne. _London in July._ [Illustration: text decoration] What ails my senses thus to cheat? What is it ails the place, That all the people in the street Should wear one woman’s face? The London trees are dusty-brown Beneath the summer sky; My love, she dwells in London town, Nor leaves it in July. O various and intricate maze, Wide waste of square and street; Where, missing through unnumbered days, We twain at last may meet! And who cries out on crowd and mart? Who prates of stream and sea? The summer in the city’s heart-- That is enough for me. _A March Day in London._ [Illustration: text decoration] The east wind blows in the street to-day; The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey. ’Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire, Of cold despair and of hot desire, Which chills the flesh to aches and pains, And sends a fever through all the veins. From end to end, with aimless feet, All day long have I paced the street. My limbs are weary, but in my breast Stirs the goad of a mad unrest. I would give anything to stay The little wheel that turns in my brain; The little wheel that turns all day, That turns all night with might and main.