The Woman's Way by Charles Garvice

Derrick reached London on one of those mornings when she is at her very best, and he felt his heart grow warm within him as he strode the familiar pavements, and inhaled the air which seemed to him laden, not with smoke but with the flowers which were blooming bravely in the parks and squares. He had seen some beautiful places during his wanderings, but it seemed to him that none of them could compare with this London which every Englishman, abuse it as he may, regards sometimes with an open and avowed affection, sometimes with a sneaking fondness.

Derrick was so full of the love of life, so thrilling with that sense of youth and health for which millionaires would barter all their gold, that it seemed to him difficult to believe that he was the same man who, only a few months ago, had paced the same streets, weighed down by misery and despair; indeed, as he thought of all that had happened, the events took to themselves the character of a phantasmagoria in which Mr.