a perfect torture. "She knows me," thought I,
"and this sneer at my pretended importance is
intended to overwhelm me."

"As to my country's claims," said I, haughtily,
"I make light of them. All that I have seen
of life only shows me the shallowness of what
is called the public service. I am resolved to
leave it, and for ever."

And for what?"

A life of retirement—obscurity if you will."

"It is what I should do if I were a man."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. I have often reflected over the delight
I have felt in walking through some man's
demesne, revelling in the enjoyment of its leafy
solitude, its dreary shade, its sunlit vistas,
and I have thought, 'If all these things, not one
of which are mine, can bring such pleasure to
my heart, why should I not adopt the same
philosophy in life, and be satisfied with enjoying
without possessing? A very humble lot would
suffice for one, nothing but great success could
achieve the other.'"

"What becomes, then, of that great stimulus
to good they call labour?"

"Oh, I should labour too. I'd work at whatever
I was equal to. I'd sew, and knit, and till
my garden, and be as useful as possible."

"And I would write," said I, enthusiastically,
as though I were plotting out my share in this
garden of Eden. "I would write all sorts of
things: reviews, and histories, and stories, and
short poems, and, last of all, the Confessions of
Algernon Sydney Potts."

"Oh, what a shocking title! How could
such names have met together? That shocking
epithet Potts would vulgarise it all?"

"I really cannot agree with you," said I,
angrily.

"Without," continued she, "you meant it
for a sort of quiz; and that Potts was to be a
creature of absurdity and folly, a pretender and
a snob."

I felt as if I was choking with passion; but I
tried to laugh, and say, "Yes, of course."

"That would be good fun enough," went she
on. "I'd like, if I could, to contribute to that.
You should invent the situations, and leave me
occasionally to supply the reflective part."

"It would be charming, quite delightful."

"Shall we do it, then? Let us try it, by all
means. "We might begin by imagining Potts in
search of this, that, or t'other—love, happiness,
solitude, climate, scenery, anything, in short.
Let us fancy him on a journey, try and
personate him, that would be the real way. Do
you, for instance, be Potts, and I'll be his sister
Susan. It will be the best fun in the world, as
we go along, to see everything, note everything,
and discuss everything Pottswise."

"It would be too ridiculous, too absurd,"
said I, sick with anger.

"Not a bit; we are travelling with our old
grandmother, we are making the tour of Europe,
and keeping our journal. Every evening we
compare notes of what we have seen. Pray do
it; I'm quite wild to try it."

"Really," said I, gravely, "it is a sort of
trifling I should find it very difficult to descend
to. I see no reason, besides, to associate the
name of Potts with what you are pleased to
call snobbery!"

"Could you help it? Could you, with all the
best will in the world, make Potts a man of
distinction? Wouldn't he, in spite of you,
be low, vulgar, inquisitive, and obtrusive?
Wouldn't you find him thrusting himself
forward, twenty times a day, into positions he had
no right to? Wouldn't the creature be a butt,
and a dupe—-"

"Shall I own," burst I in, "that it gives me
no exalted idea of your taste if I find that you
select for ridicule a person on the mere showing
that his name is a monosyllable? And, once
for all, I repudiate all share in the scheme, and
beg that I may not hear more of it."

I turned away as I said this. She resumed
her book, and we spoke no more to each other
till we reached our halting-place for the night.

                        CHAPTER XVII.

I AM forced to the confession, Mrs. Keats
was not what is popularly called an agreeable
old lady. She spoke seldom, she smiled never,
and she had a way of looking at you, a sort
of cold astonishment, seeming to say, "How is
this? explain yourself," that kept me in a perpetual
terror.

My morning's tiff with Miss Herbert had
neither been condoned nor expiated when we
sat down to dinner, as stiff a party of three as
can well be imagined: scarcely a word was
interchanged as we ate.

"If you drink wine, sir, pray order it," said
Mrs. Keats to me, in a voice that might have
suited an invitation to prussic acid.

"This little wine of the country is very pleasant,
madam," said I, courteously, "and I can
even venture to recommend it."

"Not to me, sir. I drink water."

"Perhaps Miss Herbert will allow me?"

"Excuse me, I also drink water."

After a very dreary and painful pause, I dared
to express a faint hope that Mrs. Keats had not
been fatigued by the day's journey.

She looked at me for a second or two before
replying, and then said: "I am really not aware,
sir, that I have manifested any such signs of
weariness as would warrant your inquiry. If I
should have, however—-"

"Oh, I beg you will pardon me, madam,"
broke I in, apologetically; "my question was
not meant for more than a mere ordinary
politeness, a matter-of-course expression of my
solicitude."

"It will save us both some trouble in future,
sir, if I remark that I am no friend to
matter-of-course civilities, and never reply to them."

I felt as though my head and face had been
passed across the open door of a blast furnace.
I was in a perfect flame, and dared not raise my
eyes from my plate.

"The waiter is asking if you will take coffee,