What here is still more colorful and picturesque, frequently there is a striking and amusing mixture of races in the costume of an individual figure. A Manchu lady, it may be, of waxen, enigmatic features, draped in flowing black silken trousers, hobbles along on high-heeled, pearl-colored American shoes. And there a slim reed of an Oriental maiden, with a complexion like a California orange, whisks by in the smartest of tailored suits--without a hat, her gleaming black hair done in Chinese fashion, long ornamented rods thrust through it, a vivid pendant of bright blossoms at one side of the head. Sitting there, I thought of the nature of public parks and what pleasant places they are. Splendid thing, elaborate park "systems," whereby you may go for miles through a grimy city, and move among groves and meadows and bosky dells, with inspiriting glimpses of mirror-like ponds and flashing streams all the way. And of course I enjoy the great parks of a great city. But more appealing to me than the gorgeous spectacle of Hyde Park, or Van Cortlandt, or Fairmont, or Jackson, or Forest Park are the little places tucked here and there in the seething caldron of the town. These are a lovely department of the streets--they are the little parlors of the streets. Here calls are made, and infants sun themselves--they have, these parklets, their social and their domestic life, under the democratic heavens. Now soon is a time to watch with joy these plots of open space in the city's rushing life. Spring is more winsome on Boston Common and at Union Square than in the country. A tuft of green shoots seen against canyon walls of steel and stone--one must be in the city to savor the tenderness of spring. And when summer comes and (in our eastern climate) all the town swelters under a blanket of gritty dust and heavy heat, then one comes upon one of these small areas of greenery with the refreshment of spirit with which at the meal hour one greets the appearance of a nice, cool, green salad. I arose from my seat in Portsmouth Square and wandered off for the rest of the day through the Streets. CHAPTER XI BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE The note, which came altogether as a surprise, read: "My husband suggests that if you have nothing better to do perhaps you would look in upon us on Wednesday evening at about eight-thirty." Mrs. Chesterton further said, in giving the address, that they had a little apartment lent to them for the last week of their stay here. She had asked Mr. Woollcott to come, too, and Gerald Stanley Lee.... "We can only promise you smokes and talk." I wondered, as I hurried for the 'bus, whether I'd have time to get my shoes polished. It was precisely the hour appointed when I reached what I took to be the door. The hall-man declared that he had "gone out." I insisted that the hall-man telephone up. "No answer," he said, after a bit, and hung up. Now what do you think of that! Well, I'd take a walk and return a little later.