We took a 'bus down Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly Circus, and had tea in Jermyn Street at a little confectioner's for which we have an affection. The cakes are home made and the tea and bread and butter are good. There is an inner sanctuary with coloured prints of old London on the walls where one can talk cosily, and is admitted to an amusing intimacy with the workings of the establishment. Now and again a man in a white jacket comes and delves into a corner cupboard, and we have glimpses of pots of jam and groceries. Young men and women drop in from neighbouring businesses for tea, and everybody knows everybody else. The waitress has admitted Mrs. D. and me to the family circle, and with a "Same as usual, sir?" goes to fetch our pot of tea and two plates of bread and butter. This afternoon she did not even trouble to make the formal inquiry, but appeared before us with the tea-tray almost as quickly as we had seated ourselves. Piccadilly was like fairyland as we walked down it on our way back to Shepherd Market, and I wished you were with me. The red lights in the rear of the vehicles, and the silver ones in front, were dancing like fireflies in one of the most wonderful gloamings I have ever witnessed. The perfect day, drawing its garments of smoke and rose over the mauve sky, was making its tender, reluctant farewell, whilst above the sadness of its passing hung the evening star, companioned by the most slender of new moons. We turned our money, and felt that Fortune was about to smile on us. In the quiet of Half Moon Street, whom should I encounter but Katherine, in her car? The first intimation I had of her neighbourhood was a white-gloved hand waving a greeting from the window of the car, then a face appeared eloquent of a satirical enjoyment of the picture presented by Mrs. D. and myself with our respective parcels. The incident was over in a flash and Mrs. D. none the wiser. I am reminded to mention it by reason of an odd but peculiarly vivid impression I received of Katherine having suddenly become an old woman. It may have been some trick of light as the car shot by in the dusk, or a moment of prophetic insight on my part. But whatever it was, it made me feel I wanted to take up the cudgels for her and keep the enemy at bay. Blood, after all, is thicker than water, and Katherine has no weapons with which to fight _that_ spectre.