Ovid remembered that he was going away on a long voyage--and Ovid was a good son.

He bought some of the lace, as a present to his mother at parting; and, most assuredly, he got the worst of the bargain.
His shortest way back to the straight course, from which he had deviated in making his purchase, led him into a by-street, near the flower and fruit market of Covent Garden.

Here he met with the second in number of the circumstances which attended his walk.

He found himself encountered by an intolerably filthy smell.
The market was not out of the direct way to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

He fled from the smell to the flowery and fruity perfumes of Covent Garden, and completed the disinfecting process by means of a basket of strawberries.
Why did a poor ragged little girl, carrying a big baby, look with such longing eyes at the delicious fruit, that, as a kind-hearted man, he had no alternative but to make her a present of the strawberries?
Why did two dirty boyfriends of hers appear immediately afterwards with news of Punch in a neighbouring street, and lead the little girl away with them?
Why did these two new circumstances inspire him with a fear that the boys might take the strawberries away from the poor child, burdened as she was with a baby almost as big as herself?
When we suffer from overwrought nerves we are easily disturbed by small misgivings.