S. meeting in the
drawing-room on Wednesday, so I take the dogs out. I go up Richmond
Hill, along the terrace, into the park. It's the 18th of April--the same
day as it is here. It's spring in England. The ground is rather damp.
However, I cross the road and get on to the grass and we walk along, and
I sing as I always do when I'm alone, until we come to the open place
where you can see the whole of London beneath you on a clear day.
Hampstead Church spire there, Westminster Cathedral over there, and
factory chimneys about here. There's generally a haze over the low parts
of London; but it's often blue over the park when London's in a mist.
It's the open place that the balloons cross going over to Hurlingham.
They're pale yellow. Well, then, it smells very good, particularly if
they happen to be burning wood in the keeper's lodge which is there.
I could tell you now how to get from place to place, and exactly what
trees you'd pass, and where you'd cross the roads. You see, I played
there when I was small. Spring is good, but it's best in the autumn
when the deer are barking; then it gets dusky, and I go back through the
streets, and you can't see people properly; they come past very quick,
you just see their faces and then they're gone--that's what I like--and
no one knows in the least what you're doing--"
"But you have to be back for tea, I suppose?" Hewet checked her.
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