ire, don't you?" she said; "and your husband has
that wonderful breed of black pigs, hasn't he?"

"No," I said, "we live only sixteen miles off."

"Oh, of course! How stupid of me! You are quite another person, I
see," and she laughed. "But the pig farmers are coming, and I am so
anxious to meet them, as I have a perfect mania for piglets myself. I
want to start a new sort, and I hoped you could tell me about them."

"I am so sorry," I said. "I wish I could help you, but I do not
believe--except casually in the village--that I have ever seen a pig;
they must be delightful companions."

"Yes, indeed! I have large families of the fat white ones, and really
the babies are most engaging, and the very image of my step-children.
I always tell my husband it seems like eating Alice or Laura when he
insists upon having suckling-pig for luncheon. I suppose one would
not mind eating one's step-children, though--would one? What do you
think?"

Her great, blue eyes looked at me pathetically.

I tried to consider seriously the problem of the consumption of
possible step-children; it was too difficult for me.

"I quite hoped to make it pay," she continued--"keeping prize pigs, I
mean; we are so frightfully poor. But I am away so much I fear it does
not do very well. You play bridge, of course?"

This did not seem to have much to do with the pigs.

"No, I do not play."

"You don't play bridge? How on earth do you get through the day?"

"I really do not know."

"Oh, you must learn at once. I can give you the address of a woman in
London who goes out for five pounds an afternoon and who would teach
you in three or four lessons. It does seem funny, your not playing."

I said "Yes."

She did not appear to want many answers from me after this, but
prattled on about people and the world in general, and before half an
hour was over I was left with the impression that society is chiefly
composed of people living upon an agreeable and amusing ground
somewhere at the borderland of the divorce court.

"So tiresome of the husbands!" she concluded. "Before the war
they used to be the most docile creatures; as long as they got a
percentage, and the wives did not worry at their own little affairs,
all went smoothly. Now, since going out there and fighting, they have
come back giving themselves great airs, and talking about wounded
honor, and ridiculous things of that sort that one reads of in early
Victorian books. One does not kno