policemen kept the entrances to the yard with a benevolent vigilance which was not harsh with the little Irish children coming up from the Marsh in their best to enjoy the sight of other people's pleasure.
“Isn't it a perfect Class Day?” cried young Mavering, as he crossed Kirkland Street with Miss Pasmer, and glanced down its vaulted perspective of elms, through which the sunlight broke, and lay in the road in pools and washes as far as the eye reached. “Did you ever see anything bluer than the sky to-day? I feel as if we'd ordered the weather, with the rest of the things, and I had some credit for it as host. Do make it a little compliment, Miss Pasmer; I assure you I'll be very modest about it.”
“Ah, I think it's fully up to the occasion,” said the girl, catching the spirit of his amiable satisfaction. “Is it the usual Class Day weather?”
“You spoil everything by asking that,” cried the young man; “it obliges me to make a confession—it's always good weather on Class Day. There haven't been more than a dozen bad Class Days in the century. But you'll admit that there can't have been a better Class Day than this?”
“Oh yes; it's certainly the pleasantest Class Day I've seen;” said the girl; and now when Mavering laughed she laughed too.
“Thank you so much for saying that! I hope it will pass off in unclouded brilliancy; it will, if I can make it. Why, hallo! They're on the other side of the street yet, and looking about as if they were lost.”
He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, and waved it at the others of their party.
They caught sight of it, and came hurrying over through the dust.
Mrs. Saintsbury said, apparently as the sum of her consultations with Mrs. Pasmer: “The Tree is to be at half-past five; and after we've seen a few spreads, I'm going to take the ladies hone for a little rest.”
“Oh no; don't do that,” pleaded the young man. After making this protest he seemed not to have anything to say immediately in support of it. He merely added: “This is Miss Pasmer's first Class Day, and I want her to see it all.”
“But you'll have to leave us very soon to get
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