It had been raining since before dawn--a thin icy rain that
slicked London with a gray sheen. It dripped dolefully from
the trees onto the greasy pavements beneath and sent the
chill striking through to the very bones of the crowds that
were already forming along the route between St. James s
and Buckingham Palace and up Constitution Hill;
It wanted half an hour yet to seven o clock， but there they
were， fighting for good vantage points， arguing and screech-
ing and generally behaving as London crowds always did
whe~ given any excuse at all to forget the narrow meanness
andliflrabness of their lives. And was not the Little Queen s
wed d~ag day as good an excuse as they had had since the end
of the \"French Wars? They were going to enjoy themselves，
come hell come devil， and in they came pouring， from.Hox-
ton and Stepney， from the villages of Fulham and Chelsea，
streaming over the elegant new Waterloo Bridge from South-
wark and Lambeth and CamberwellmLondoners on holiday.
Abby， standing at the window of her bedchamber and
staring out at the mournful patch of graying grass thai was
all that was left of the once rural Paddington Green to which
she had come as a bride， was well aware of the fact that the
day was to be a holiday， and was thoroughly angered by it.
She was as careful and thoughtful an employer as any， she
told herself， and saw to it that her people had good conditions
and were paid promptly. So their calm assumption that the
Queen s wedding gave them leave to depart from the manu-
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