Diamond-paned windows, half open, admit the sweet summer air; and as for the gardens in front, it would seem as if the inhabitants had nothing to do but work in them, there is such a riotous profusion of colour and bloom.

To add to the effect, there are always pots of flowers hanging from the trees, blue flax and yellow myrtle; and cages of Java sparrows and canaries singing joyously, as well they may in such a paradise.
{The houses are set about the Green: p5.jpg} The shops are idyllic, too, as if Nature had seized even the man of trade and made him subservient to her designs.

The general draper's, where I fitted myself out for a day or two quite easily, is set back in a tangle of poppies and sweet peas, Madonna lilies and Canterbury bells.

The shop itself has a gay awning, and what do you think the draper has suspended from it, just as a picturesque suggestion to the passer-by?
Suggestion I call it, because I should blush to use the word advertisement in describing anything so dainty and decorative.

Well, then, garlands of shoes, if you please! Baby bootlets of bronze; tiny ankle-ties in yellow, blue, and scarlet kid; glossy patent-leather pumps shining in the sun, with festoons of slippers at the corners, flowery slippers in imitation Berlin wool-work.