f did not,
in the flash of first sight. Neat, insignificant, pleasing, was what she
appeared to me, rather than pretty, and far rather than glorious. In an
age of fringes, her brow was severely bare. She looked 'practical.' But
an instant later, when she smiled, I saw that she was pretty, too. And
presently I thought her delightful. William had met me in a 'governess
cart,' and we went to see him unharness the pony. He did this in a
fumbling, experimental way, confusing the reins with the traces, and
profiting so little by his wife's directions that she began to laugh.
And her laugh was a lovely thing; quite a small sound, but exquisitely
clear and gay, coming in a sequence of notes that neither rose nor fell,
that were quite even; a trill of notes, and then another, and another,
as though she were pulling repeatedly a little silver bell... As I
describe it, perhaps the sound may be imagined irritating. I can only
say it was enchanting.

I wished she would go on laughing; but she ceased, she darted forward
and (William standing obediently aside, and I helping unhelpfully)
unharnessed the pony herself, and led it into its small stable.
Decidedly, she was 'practical,' but--I was prepared now to be lenient to
any quality she might have.

Had she been feckless, no doubt I should have forgiven her that, too;
but I might have enjoyed my visit less than I did, and might have been
less pleased to go often again. I had expected to 'rough it' under
William's roof. But everything thereunder, within the limits of a strict
Arcadian simplicity, was well-ordered. I was touched, when I went to my
bedroom, by the precision with which the very small maid had unpacked
and disposed my things. And I wondered where my hostess had got the lore
she had so evidently imparted. Certainly not from William. Perhaps (it
only now strikes me) from a handbook. For Mary was great at handbooks.
She had handbooks about gardening, and others about poultry, and one
about 'the stable,' and others on cognate themes. From these she had
filled up the gaps left in her education by her father, who was a
widower and either a doctor or a solicitor--I forget which--in one of
the smallest towns of an adjoining county. And I daresay she may have
had, somewhere hidden away, a manual for young hostesses. If so, it must
have been a good one. But to say this is to belittle Mary's powers of
intuition. It was they, sharpened by her adoration of William, and by
her intensi