I haven't felt so jolly this long while." Hilda looked up with a smile which she tried not to make too glad.

"I think people were meant to be happy, a little," she said.
They had lunch at Richmond and then walked to Twickenham, where they had sent the carriage.

They drove back, with a glorious sunset behind them, toward the distant gold-washed city.

It was one of those rare afternoons when all the thickness and shadow of London are changed to a kind of shining, pulsing, special atmosphere; when the smoky vapors become fluttering golden clouds, nacreous veils of pink and amber; when all that bleakness of gray stone and dullness of dirty brick trembles in aureate light, and all the roofs and spires, and one great dome, are floated in golden haze.

On such rare afternoons the ugliest of cities becomes the most poetic, and months of sodden days are offset by a moment of miracle.
"It's like that with us Londoners, too," Hilda was saying.