th her husband. For she was determined that he should have
no interests in which she did not share. In those first days it was her
dread that he might grow away from her, and instinct told her that now or
never must the effort be made. She, too, studied farming; not from books,
but from him. In their afternoon ride along the shady river road, which
was the event of her day, she encouraged him to talk of his plans and
problems, that he might thus early form the habit of bringing them to
her. And the unsuspecting male in him responded, innocent of the simple
subterfuge. After an exhaustive discourse on the elements lacking in the
valley soil, to which she had listened in silent intensity, he would
exclaim:

"By George, Honora, you're a continual surprise to me. I had no idea a
woman would take an interest in these things, or grasp them the way you
do."

Lordly commendations these, and she would receive them with a flush of
gratitude.

Nor was it ever too hot, or she too busy with household cares, for her to
follow him to the scene of his operations, whatever these might be: she
would gladly stand for an hour listening to a consultation with the
veterinary about an ailing cow. Her fear was lest some matter of like
importance should escape her. She had private conversations with Mr.
Manning, that she might surprise her husband by an unsuspected knowledge.
Such were her ruses.

The housekeeper who had come up from New York was the subject of a
conjugal conversation.

"I am going to send her away, Hugh," Honora announced. "I don't believe
---your mother had one."

The housekeeper's departure was the beginning of Honora's real intimacy
with Starling. Complicity, perhaps, would be a better word for the
commencement of this relationship. First of all, there was an inspection
of the family treasures: the table-linen, the silver, and the china
--Sevres, Royal Worcester, and Minton, and the priceless dinner-set, of
Lowestoft which had belonged to Alexander Chiltern, reserved, for great
occasions only: occasions that Starling knew by heart; their dates, and
the guests the Lowestoft had honoured. His air was ceremonial as he laid,
reverently, the sample pieces on the table before her, but it seemed to
Honora that he spoke as one who recalls departed glories, who held a
conviction that the Lowestoft would never be used again.

Although by unalterable custom he submitted, at breakfast, the menus of
the day to Hugh, the old but