A happier, quieter, freer life could hardly be imagined, at least for her. She spent hours in the National Gallery and the Museum; she walked with Mary Blanchet in Regent's Park, and delighted to find out new vistas and glimpses of beauty among the trees there, and to insist that it was ever so much better than any place in the country. As autumn came on and the trees grew barer and the skies became of a heavier silver gray, Minola found greater charms in their softened half tones than the brighter lights of summer could give. Even when it rained--and it did rain sometimes--who could fail to see the beauty, all its own, of the green of grass, and the darker stems and branches of trees, showing faintly through the veil of the mist and the soft descending shower? It was, indeed, a delightful Arcadian life. Its simplicity can hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that our adventurous pair of women always dined at one o'clock--when they dined at all--off a chop, except on Sundays, when they invariably had a cold fowl. Much as Miss Grey loved London, however, it was still a place made up of men whom she considered herself bound to dislike, and of women who depended far too much on these men. Therefore she made studies of scraps of London life, and amused herself by satirizing them to her friend. "I have accomplished a chapter of London, Mary," she said one evening before their reading had set in. "I have completed my social studies of our neighbors in Gainsborough Place"--a little street of shops near at hand. "I am prepared to give you a complete court guide as to the grades of society there, Mary, so that you may know at once how to demean yourself to each and all." "Do tell me all about it; I should very much like to know." "Shall we begin with the highest or the lowest?" "I think," Miss Blanchet said with a gentle sigh, expressive of no great delight in the story of the lower classes, "I would rather you begin low down, dear, and get done with them first." "Very well; now listen. The lowest of all is the butcher. He is a wealthy man, I am sure, and his daughter, who sits in the little office in the shop, is a good-looking girl, I think. But in private life nobody in Gainsborough Place mixes with them on really cordial terms. Their friends come from other places; from butchers' shops in other streets. They do occasionally interchange a few courtesies with the family of the baker; but the baker's wife, though not nearly so rich, rather patronizes and looks down upon Mrs. Butcher." "Dear me!" said the poetess. "What odd people!"