There is, round and about
the fountain, a lovely green lawn, and there are many overhanging trees
and shady corners. An air of peace the garden breathes, and that
although children are for ever racing up and down it, shattering the
stillness of the air with their cries, rivalling the bells of St.
Matthew's round the corner with their piercing notes.
But it is the quality of the Square that nothing can take from it its
peace, nothing temper its tranquillity. In the heat of the days
motor-cars will rattle through, bells will ring, all the bustle of a
frantic world invade its security; for a moment it submits, but in the
evening hour, when the colours are being washed from the sky, and the
moon, apricot-tinted, is rising slowly through the smoke, March Square
sinks, with a little sigh, back into her peace again. The modern world
has not yet touched her, nor ever shall.
II
The Duchess of Crole had three months ago a son, Henry Fitzgeorge,
Marquis of Strether. Very fortunate that the first-born should be a son,
very fortunate also that the first-born should be one of the healthiest,
liveliest, merriest babies that it has ever been any one's good fortune
to encounter.
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