Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/197

The Heart's Desire when he had explored all the lower end of his street of enchantment, he found it possible, by climbing on the backs of up-bound carriages, to reach the remoter parts of the asphalted street, going sometimes even so far as the Park, where it seemed that miles and miles of green and growing things stretched away into the distance.

But he liked best of all to stand on the crowded sidewalk and listen to the women with silk skirts rustling by, to smell the perfume, and to hear the clank of the chains on the carriage horses as they came champing up to the stone steps. He liked to stand and get whiffs of music from the houses and to see the beautiful beings all clad in glittering things going in and out. He had a weakness, too, for bright colours and flowers, and the glimmer of the gilt furniture through some of the bio; hotel windows filled him with a nameless hunger. They certainly did not have that sort of thing down at Perkins Place, and as the time went on he even grew to think of his home with a certain disdain. His love for the odorous livery 185