LADY BARBARINA

I

It is well known that there are few sights in the world more brilliant than the main avenues of Hyde Park of a fine afternoon in June.  This was quite the opinion of two persons who on a beautiful day at the beginning of that month, four years ago, had established themselves under the great trees in a couple of iron chairs—the big ones with arms, for which, if I mistake not, you pay twopence—and sat there with the slow procession of the Drive behind them while their faces were turned to the more vivid agitation of the Row.  Lost in the multitude of observers they belonged, superficially at least, to that class of persons who, wherever they may be, rank rather with the spectators than with the spectacle.  They were quiet simple elderly, of aspect somewhat neutral; you would have liked them extremely but would scarcely have noticed them.  It is to them, obscure in all that shining host, that we must nevertheless give our attention.  On which the reader is begged to have confidence; he is not asked to make vain concessions.  It was indicated touchingly in the faces of our friends that they were growing old together and were fond enough of each other’s company not to object—since it was a condition—even to that.  The reader will have guessed that they were husband and wife; and perhaps while he is about it will further have guessed that they were of that nationality for which Hyde Park at the height of the season is most completely illustrative.  They were native aliens, so to speak, and people at once so initiated and so detached could only be Americans.  This reflexion indeed you would have made only after some delay; for it must be allowed that they bristled with none of those modern signs that carry out the tradition of the old indigenous war-paint and feathers.  They had the American turn of mind, but that was very secret; and to your eye—if your eye had cared about it—they might have been either intim