"You see, my dear," Miss Emma explained, volubly assisted by Miss Jane, "you are the only earl's daughter, or indeed _any_ member of the aristocracy--higher than a knight's family--we have ever met socially--if you can speak of this as 'socially'--being actually _thrown together_, in all senses of the word, whenever they're in too great a hurry to couple our train nicely, or when we fall out in a heap at some wayside place like this. We don't flatter ourselves that you'd be likely to select us for acquaintances if you were able to _choose_ at this time; and you mightn't be pleased with our ways at home. We have kippers for breakfast sometimes, and always cold supper Sunday nights." I assured them passionately that if Providence had made them both expressly for my taste, we couldn't be better suited to each other. As for being an "earl's daughter," said I, there was nothing in that except extra charges from dressmakers and hotels, and having things you had never done attributed to you in paragraphs of penny weeklies. Then I drew on all my funds of pathos, describing myself as unwanted and unloved. This did the trick! The twin angels took me to their hearts and promised me a place in their home and scheme. By the time we got on board the boat they had dropped my handle and were calling me "Peggy dear." In London a crowd had come to the station expressly to welcome and cheer us returning wanderers. And London was not the same London we had left a few weeks ago. It was a city under a spell, a London of some strange dream, all the stranger because the only change was in the people. Later, it changed again, becoming almost gay and lively in outer appearance, but at this time the balance was not adjusted. Soldiers and recruits were marching through the streets, which but for them and those who dazedly watched them were almost empty. Instead of the mad herds of motor omnibuses, which had gone charging up and down in "old days," a few moved sedately, with here an ancient horse bus unearthed from oblivion. Of the lively streams of taxis, blue and green and black and gray, the source seemed suddenly more than half to have dried up. Some melancholy four-wheelers and hansoms had made bold to steal out, and were finding customers. Little boys were playing soldiers in the middle of Pall Mall, no longer a maelstrom. There was no din of traffic to drown the frog-like music of their sixpenny drums and penny trumpets. Looking into the doorways of the biggest shops one saw nobody but the attendants, waiting to serve customers who were not there and would not come. Outside the little shops the proprietors were frankly standing, to wonder sadly what had happened to them and to London, and what worse thing was likely to happen next? They talked in low voices to each other, trying to smile or read the latest war edition of some newspaper.