The Tale of Beatrix Potter [antikvár]

BOLTON GARDENS I THE squares of Earl's Court and South Kensington, like those of PimlicOj have survived into the present century without much confidence. The tide of middle-class prosperity has receded, leaving the broad streets and Victorian houses a little shrunken. They are going dov^n in the v^orld, and have reached the shabby-genteel. Their occasional beauty is due to the bloom of decay. In the 'sixties and 'seventies of the last century it v^as very different. The houses, for one thing, were newer then; their steps were whitened each morning by housemaids in lilac print, tradesmen descended the area steps solicitously, and in the mews behind each solid front there were real carriages and coachmen. At regular hours ladies drove out in these carriages and left cards on one another, and the doors were opened by tall parlour-maids with streamers and even by butlers, and tea was drunk amid ferns and cushions in drawing-rooms, while the carriages waited. All this, and more, could be seen by anyone who II