The ladies in their rich winter dresses, the smart nursery maids, the lovely children, the ever moving crowd skating on the ice of the Round Pond; it was all so exhilarating after what I have been used to, that I actually caught myself whistling as I walked through the brilliant scene! (In my time boys used always to whistle when they were in good spirits, and I have not got over the habit yet.) Who do you think I met when I was in full song ?" As well as her amazement would let her, Mercy excused herself from guessing.

She had never in all her life before spoken to any living being so confusedly and so unintelligently as she now spoke to Julian Gray! He went on more gayly than ever, without appearing to notice the effect that he had produced on her.
"Whom did I meet," he repeated, "when I was in full song?
My bishop! If I had been whistling a sacred melody, his lordship might perhaps have excused my vulgarity out of consideration for my music.

Unfortunately, the composition I was executing at the moment (I am one of the loudest of living whistlers) was by Verdi--"La Donna e Mobile"-- familiar, no doubt, to his lordship on the street organs.

He recognized the tune, poor man, and when I took off my hat to him he looked the other way.
Strange, in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow, to treat such a trifle seriously as a cheerful clergyman whistling a tune!" He pushed away his plate as he said the last words, and went on simply and earnestly in an altered tone.

"I have never been able," he said, "to see why we should assert ourselves among other men as belonging to a particular caste, and as being forbidden, in any harmless thing, to do as other people do.