e gardens outside. There were to
be new paths, new walls with a southern exposure, new potting sheds, new
forcing pits, new everything--and in the evenings she often worked late
over the maps and plans she drew for all this. Thorpe's mind found it
difficult to grasp the idea that a lady of such notable qualities could
be entirely satisfied by a career among seeds and bulbs and composts,
but at least time brought no evidences of a decline in her horticultural
zeal. Who knew? Perhaps it might go on indefinitely.

As for himself, he had got on very well without any special inclination
or hobby. He had not done any of the great things that a year ago it
had seemed to him he would forthwith do--but his mind was serenely
undisturbed by regrets. He did not even remember with any distinctness
what these things were that he had been going to do. The routine of
life--as arranged and borne along by the wise and tactful experts who
wore the livery of High Thorpe--was abundantly sufficient in itself. He
slept well now in the morning hours, and though he remained still, by
comparison, an early riser, the bath and the shaving and slow dressing
under the hands of a valet consumed comfortably a good deal of time.
Throughout the day he was under the almost constant observation of
people who were calling him "master" in their minds, and watching to see
how, in the smallest details of deportment, a "master" carried himself,
and the consciousness of this alone amounted to a kind of vocation. The
house itself made demands upon him nearly as definite as those of the
servants. It was a house of huge rooms, high ceilings, and grandiose
fireplaces and stairways, which had seemed to him like a royal palace
when he first beheld it, and still produced upon him an effect of
undigestible largeness and strangeness. It was as a whole not so old as
the agents had represented it, by some centuries, but it adapted itself
as little to his preconceived notions of domesticity as if it had been
built by Druids. The task of seeming to be at home in it had as many
sides to it as there were minutes in the day--and oddly enough, Thorpe
found in their study and observance a congenial occupation. Whether he
was reading in the library--where there was an admirable collection of
books of worth--or walking over the home-farms, or driving in his smart
stanhope with the coachman behind, or sitting in formal costume and
dignity opposite his beautiful wife at the dinner-ta