o hours during the afternoon. She was by no means in
love with France, and though I tried to soothe her I only succeeded in
making her sarcastic; I thought the Warden ought to have protected me,
but he had known his sister longer than I had, and probably had
forgotten that she could make any one suffer. He took no part in the
conversation, and most obviously did not listen to it. My mother was
disappointed when I told her about the dinner, but I think that she had
expected the Warden to give me advice as well as a meal. She had
formed the highest opinion of him, and said that he was so wise that he
was the only man she knew who could afford to say foolish things. But
when my father heard that the foolish things were said about the Bishop
he did not believe in the folly of them, for he could not forget that
my uncle had once played stump cricket for three hours at a stretch.

When the time came for us to go back to England I could talk French
without putting in one or two English words to fill up every sentence,
but I did not think that Dover Station was the place in which to be
told that I must not be satisfied until I could think in French--though
what the station at Dover is the proper place for, I leave to people
who are cleverer than I am. I was so glad to get home again that the
idea of thinking in French was quite comical. My father and I were
going to shoot together, and when he is shooting he forgets all the
little grievances with which he has riddled his life and he is--though
it makes me blush to confess it--the best companion in the world. If
he could only shoot all the year round I believe that Ritualists and
Radicals would lose their powers of annoying him, and he might even end
by admitting that our long-suffering cook makes curry which is fit to
eat, and no more generous admission than that could be expected from an
Anglo-Indian.

For nearly three weeks we lived in a state of peace and contentment
which none of us thought dull, but during the first week of October I
had a letter from The Bradder in which he said that he was on a walking
tour and should be passing near our house. There was only one answer
for me to give, but I gave it reluctantly, for though I liked him I
thought that if he and my father once started upon politics our calm
season would be interrupted abruptly.

"Does he shoot?" my father asked, and I said that as he was walking for
amusement he would probably only stay a few hou