t kept her eyes fixed on the
opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband's
return with the child. "Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?" it occurred
to me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to
bring the conversation constantly back to him.

"He's very fond of plums," said his wife.

"Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It's a
lovely old place," I continued. "The whole character of it is that
of certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his
pictures."

"It's a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it"

"Oh, it has got his tone," I said, laughing, and insisting on my point
the more that Mrs. Ambient appeared to see in my appreciation of her
simple establishment a sign of limited experience.

It was evident that I insisted too much. "His tone?" she repeated, with
a quick look at me, and a slightly heightened color.

"Surely he has a tone, Mrs. Ambient"

"Oh, yes, he has indeed! But I don't in the least consider that I am
living in one of his books; I should n't care for that, at all," she
went on, with a smile which had in some degree the effect of converting
her slightly sharp protest into a joke deficient in point "I am afraid I
am not very literary," said Mrs. Ambient. "And I am not artistic."

"I am very sure you are not ignorant, not stupid," I ventured to reply,
with the accompaniment of feeling immediately afterwards that I had been
both familiar and patronizing. My only consolation was in the reflection
that it was she, and not I, who had begun it She had brought her
idiosyncrasies into the discussion.

"Well, whatever I am, I am very different from my husband. If you like
him, you won't like me. You need n't say anything. Your liking me is n't
in the least necessary!"

"Don't defy me!" I exclaimed.

She looked as if she had not heard me, which was the best thing she
could do; and we sat some time without further speech. Mrs. Ambient
had evidently the enviable English quality of being able to be silent
without being restless. But at last she spoke; she asked me if there
seemed to be many people in town. I gave her what satisfaction I could
on this point, and we talked a little about London and of some pictures
it presented at that time of the year. At the end of this I came back,
irrepressibly, to Mark Ambient.

"Does n't he like to be there now? I suppose he does n't find the proper
quiet for his wo