"All these people in the park to-day," she continued, "are they working-men?"
"Yes: some of them—the better sort. Of course"—Harry looked round and surveyed the crowd—"of course, when you open a garden of this sort for the people, the well-dressed come, and the ragged stay away and hide. There is plenty of ragged stuff round and about us, but it hides. And there is plenty of comfort which walks abroad and shows itself. This end of London is the home of little industries. Here, for instance, they make the things which belong to other things."
"That seems a riddle," said Angela.
"I mean things like card-boxes, pill-boxes, ornamental boxes of all kinds, for confectioners, druggists, and drapers; they make all kinds of such things for wholesale houses. Why, there are hundreds of trades in this great neglected city of East London, of which we know nothing. You see the manufacturers. Here they are with their wives, and their sons, and their daughters; they all lend a hand, and between them the thing is made."
"And are they discontented?" asked Angela with persistence.
"Not they; they get as much happiness as the money will run to. At the same time, if the Palace of Delight were once built——"
"Ah!" cried Angela with a sigh. "The Palace of Delight; the Palace of Delight! We must have it, if it is only to make the people discontented."
They walked home presently, and in the evening they played together, one or two of the girls being present, in the "drawing-room." The music softens—Angela repented her coldness of the afternoon. When the girls were gone, and they were walking side by side beneath moonlight on the quiet green, she made shyly a little attempt at compensation.
"If," she said, "you should find work here in Stepney, you would be willing to stay?"