There are but a score of days in the whole year when the hour after sunset is warm like this.

It's such a pity to waste one indoors.

The young people"-- and he pointed to Sylvia and Michael--"will gaze into each other's hearts, and Mamma's will beat in unison with Lady Ursula's, and I will sit and look at the sky and become profoundly sentimental, like a good German." Hermann and Michael bestirred themselves, and presently the whole little party had encamped on chairs placed in an oasis of rugs (this was done at the special request of Mrs.Falbe, since Lady Ursula had caught a chill that developed into consumption) in the small, high-walled garden.
Beyond at the bottom lay the road along the embankment and the grey-blue Thames, and the dim woods of Battersea Park across the river.

When they came out, sparrows were still chirping in the ivy on the studio wall and in the tall angle-leaved planes at the bottom of the little plot, discussing, no doubt, the domestic arrangements for their comfort during the night.

But presently a sudden hush fell upon them, and their shrillness was sharp no more against the drowsy hum of the city.