What was to be done? He was already keenly alive to the discomfort of walking across Hyde Park in a procession of ragged children, with such a figure of fun as Grey at their head, looking, in his long rusty, straight-cut black coat, as if he had come fresh out of Noah’s ark. He didn’t care about it so much while they were on the turf in the out-of-the-way parts, and would meet nobody but guards, and nurse-maids, and trades-people, and mechanics out for an evening’s stroll. But the Drive and Rotten-row lay before them, and must be crossed. It was just the most crowded time of the day. He had almost made up his mind once or twice to stop Grey and the procession, and propose to sit down for half an hour or so and let the children play, by which time the world would be going home to dinner. But there was no play left in the children; and he had resisted the temptation, meaning, when they came to the most crowded part, to look unconscious, as if it were by chance that he got into such company, and had in fact nothing to do with them. But now, if he listened to the child’s plea, and carried her, all hope of concealment was over. If he did not, he felt that there would be no greater flunkey in the Park that evening than Thomas Brown, the enlightened radical and philosopher, amongst the young gentlemen riders in Rotten-row, or the powdered footmen lounging behind the great glaring carriages in the drive. So he looked down at the child once or twice in a state of puzzle. A third time she looked up with her great eyes, and said, “Oh, please carry me a bit!” and her piteous, tired face turned the scale. “If she were Lady Mary or Lady Blanche,” thought he, “I should pick her up at once, and be proud of the burden. Here goes!” And he took her up in his arms, and walked on, desperate and reckless. Notwithstanding all his philosophy, he felt his ears tingling and his face getting red, as they approached the Drive. It was crowded. They were kept standing a minute or two at the crossing. He made a desperate effort to abstract himself wholly from the visible world, and retire into a state of serene contemplation. But it would not do, and he was painfully conscious of the stare of lack-lustre eyes of well-dressed men leaning over the rails, and the amused look of delicate ladies, lounging in open carriages, and surveying him and Grey and their ragged rout through glasses.