d her elders to peaceful Suffolk, where they had
a house they visited rarely; and her lover and her brother to Thames
Ditton, where these two inseparables took a house-boat, aboard which
they lived in Bohemian and barbaric ease, like rovers of the deep. Here
they fished, and swam, and boated, and grew daily more and more mahogany
coloured beneath the glorious summer sun. They cooked their own steaks,
and ate with ravenous appetites, and enjoyed themselves like the two
wholesome young giants they were, and grew and waxed in muscle, and
appetite, and ruddiness until a city clerk had gone wild with envy,
beholding them. Their demands for beer amazed the landlord of the
historic 'Swan,' and their absorption of steaks left the village butcher
in astonishment.

But in the midst of all this a purpose came upon Barndale quite suddenly
one day as he lay beneath the awning, intent on doing nothing. He had
not always been a wealthy man. There had been a time when he had had
to write for a living, or, at least, to eke a not over-plentiful living
out. At this time his name was known to the editors of most magazines.
He had written a good deal of graceful verse, and one or two pretty
idyllic stories, and there were people who looked very hopefully on
him as a rising light of literature. His sudden accession to wealth
had almost buried the poor taper of his genius when the hands of Love
triumphant took it suddenly at the time of that lazy lounge beneath the
awning, and gave it a chance once more. He was meditating, as lovers
will, upon his own unworthiness and the all-worthy attributes of the
divine Lilian. And it came to him to do something--such as in him
lay--to be more worthy of her. 'I often used to say,' he said now within
himself, 'that if I had time and money I would try to write a
comedy. Well then, here goes. Not one of the flimsy Byron or Burnand
frivolities, but a comedy with heart in it, and motive in it, and
honest, patient labour.'

So, all on fire with this laudable ambition, he set to work at once. The
plot had been laid long since, in the old impecunious hardworking days.
He revised it now and strengthened it. Day after day the passers by upon
the silent highway came in sight of this bronzed young giant under his
awning, with a pipe in his mouth and a vast bottle by his side, and
beheld him enthusiastically scrawling, or gazing with fixed eye at
nothing in particular on the other side of the river. Once or twice
be