"No, dearie," she said. "Piccadilly's gorn to the dorgs, strite it 'as. Life ain't what it was, nor never will be agin with this squarin' of a plice what was meant to be a circus. It ain't right. Who'd 'ave thought we should leave the Fountain--ever. Some say we can go beck there when they've done messin' it about, but I don't believe it. I'm Mrs. Wise I'm am. There ain't no green in my eye.... "And this job ain't what it once was--not by half. No, dearie! In the old days every kebbie had his buttonhole, and no gent was dressed unless he had one too. And the drivers of the old horse omnibuses! They were rare customers--nice, pleasant men, too, who liked to pass the time of day with you and talk. Now there's no time for talk or flowers." She nodded enigmatically. "Young men don't like to be seen carrying flowers to-day, but I can tell you their fathers didn't mind--and better men they were, if I'm any judge of a man, and I ought to be, seeing I've been sat in Piccadilly Circus all me life...." Then she said something that sent a chill to my heart: "My gels ain't going to waste their lives sitting here, I can tell you. Emma going into pickles, and Maud, she's in millinery." This, of course, is the end! A flower girl's calling is hereditary. It descends through the distaff side. The next generation of "girls" are, it appears, going into commerce, and there will be none to follow on. It is sad. If I were a millionaire I would subsidize them and buy a hansom cab and an old pensioned cab-horse to stand there too. * * * For in the fret and change of these days the flower "girls" of Piccadilly looked so permanent with the surge of London round them, the crowds from the ends of the earth, so indifferent to change, so typical of an easier day, as they sold their flowers in that whirl of gladness and sadness, beauty and ugliness, which is the heart of London; ... the heart of the world. PRINTED BY JARROLD AND SONS LTD. NORWICH