To this Naomi replied that she thought, all things considered, that I had better get most of the things at the Stores rather than go all the way to Tottenham Court Road. CHAPTER II INTRODUCING THE READER TO MR. AND MRS. WYNNE, A COUNTY CRICKETER, A SUFFRAGETTE, AN HEIR OF THE AGES, AND AN ANGEL Queen Anne's Gate, where my stepsister and her family live, is, I think, save for the lack of sun, the most attractive street in London. My stepsister's house backing on the Park, the windows on that side pick up some kindly oblique rays in the afternoon, but in the morning they are sunless. My stepsister, who is an optimist, says, however, that she would as soon see from her rooms London lit by the sun as have the sun herself. Certainly she has made her own especial sanctuary very charming, and the view over the Park and the water to the cool line of Carlton House Terrace and the grey mist above is very soothing. To the right is the half smoked, half gleaming stone-work of the Government offices. It is a quiet spot, undisturbed by shattering traffic. One sits here within sound of the greater music of the city, but so far removed from it that the cries of the water-fowl and the cooing of outrageously fat pigeons come soothingly to the ear. Now and then a bugle sounds in the neighbouring barracks. Big Ben booms the hours. In the room at the top of the house which I occupied on my return from abroad while Naomi was scouring the neighbourhood for a lodging for me, I used, as I lay awake at night, to hear the water-fowl so clearly that at first it seemed like old days in Norfolk. Now, it is a circumstance worth recording that after Norfolk there is no place where one can so certainly count upon watching the sure strong flight of wild-duck as St. James's Park. It is very interesting, after an intercourse with a family which for some years has been carried on wholly by letter, with perhaps an occasional interchange of photographs, to be set down suddenly in its midst and become one of it. My stepsister of course came more or less naturally enough to me, for we had been friends when we were young, before I went abroad. Moreover, she requires no learning: she is always complete and the same. But her husband I had never seen, and as for the children (as I thought of them), they were just names and anecdotes and faded _cartes de visite_ to me. I, however, thanks to their mother's loyalty, was more to them, for they had been told much about my young days, and I have no doubt that portions at least of my infrequent letters were read aloud as they arrived.