A slight colour rose in her cheek at the name of Bridman. "I was a child _then_, though an old one, and now--" As she paused I said, "Now a woman, and a happy one I hope, dear Alice." She turned her large blue eyes full upon me, something like a sigh rose in her throat, and she only said, in so low a voice that I could hardly catch the sound, "God is everywhere!" After this answer I did not feel courage to speak to her of Henry, of her own relations, of the circumstances attending her marriage, of anything, in short, that could cause her pain or disturbance, and I therefore asked her how she spent her time in London. "That will be easily described," she said; "for in London one day exactly resembles another,--in its employment, at least." "Does it really?" I exclaimed; for this was certainly not my idea of a London life. "Yes," she replied. "I get up every day at six o'clock; and, after attending to some of my household concerns, I walk to Church, at St. Margaret's, where there is a service every morning. It feels almost like the country to walk at that hour." "You must have found it piercingly cold in the winter?" "It was cold enough sometimes; but lately it has been so mild that I walk slowly by the balconies to smell longer the mignonette which fills them. After Church comes breakfast; and then I go to the square." "To walk there?" "Yes; a kind of a walk." "Alone?" "Oh, no; I have plenty of companions--but never mind that. I will tell it you all another time." "No; tell it me now; it interests me so much." "It will make you think me a child still, though we said I was a woman just now. Well, then, first there are the birds,--the black, starved, unhappy-looking London birds; you cannot think how pleased they are with the seed and the crumbs which I take them every morning. I have chosen a particular old thorn-tree for our meeting-place; its leaves are beginning now to peep out, and it will be a great day for the birds and me when its white blossoms appear. As it is, they flock to it quick enough when I come into the square, and seem almost to call to me to make haste." "You love them, Alice, as you used to love your Passion Flower?" "Not exactly; I loved my Passion Flower because it did me good; my birds I love because I do _them_ good. But I have greater friends than these in the square; friends that run to me too when I come in--the darling children." "How do you love _them_, Alice?" "Oh, as God's own chosen ones, whose Angels behold his face in Heaven. They seem so very _near_ Heaven. Will you come some day into the square with me, Miss Middleton?" "Call me Ellen, and I will go with you wherever you like."