They
were filled with loud-laughing uncleanly women, and skulking hang-dog-
looking men, and the grime-clogged atmosphere was heavy with foul
odours; but she noticed nothing of this. The golden glow the sun made
in his efforts to shine through the clouds of smoke might have been a
visible expression of her own ecstatic feeling, and she would have
thought so at any other time, but now she never saw it.
In a somewhat open and more lonely part of the road she met a tramp, a
great rude, hulking, common fellow, with fine blue eyes. He stopped in
the middle of the road and stared at Ideala as she came up to him,
walking, as usual, with a slight undulating movement that made you
think of a yacht in a breeze, her face up-raised and her lips parted.
He took off his cap as she approached. The gesture attracted her
attention, and, thinking he wanted to beg or ask some question, she
stopped and looked at him inquiringly.
"Well, you _are_ a nice lady!" he exclaimed.
He hadn't the gift of language, but she saw the soul of a man in his
eyes, and she understood him.
"Thank you," she answered, and passed on, unsurprised.
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