Love Among the Artists

One fine afternoon during the Easter holidays, Kensington Gardens were in their freshest spring green, and the steps of the Albert Memorial dotted with country visitors, who alternately conned their guidebooks and stared up at the golden gentleman under the shrine, trying to reconcile the reality with the description, whilst their Cockney friends, indifferent to shrine and statue, gazed idly at the fashionable drive below. One group in particular was composed of an old gentleman intent upon the Memorial, a young lady intent upon her guide-book, and a young gentleman intent upon the young lady. She looked a woman of force and intelligence; and her boldly curved nose and chin, elastic step, upright carriage, resolute bearing, and thick black hair, secured at the base of the neck by a broad crimson ribbon, made those whom her appearance pleased think her strikingly handsome. The rest thought her strikingly ugly; but she would perhaps have forgiven them for the sake of the implied admission that she was at least not commonplace ; for her costume, consisting of an ample black cloak lined with white fur, and a broad hat with red feather and underbrim of sea green silk, was of the sort affected by women who strenuously cultivate themselves, and insist upon their individuality. She was not at all like her father, the grey-haired gentleman who, scanning the Memorial with eager watery eyes, was uttering occasional ejaculations of wonder at the sum it must have cost. The younger man, who might have been thirty or thereabout, was slight and of moderate stature. His fine hair, of a pale golden color, already turning to a silvery brown, curled delicately over his temples, where it was beginning to wear away. A short beard set off his features, which were those of a man of exceptional sensitiveness and refinement. He was the Londoner of the party; and he waited with devoted patience whilst his companions satisfied their curiosity. It was pleasant to watch them, for he was not gloating over her, nor she too conscious that she was making the sunshine brighter for him; and yet they were quite evidently young lovers, and as happy as people at their age know how to be.