together in front; her chin rested on a cinque-cento ruff. The first
thing I did after bidding her good-morning was to ask her for news of
her little nephew--to express the hope she had heard he was better.
She was able to gratify this trust--she spoke as if we might expect
to see him during the day. We walked through the shrubberies
together and she gave me further light on her brother's household,
which offered me an opportunity to repeat to her what his wife had so
startled and distressed me with the night before. WAS it the sorry
truth that she thought his productions objectionable?

"She doesn't usually come out with that so soon!" Miss Ambient
returned in answer to my breathlessness.

"Poor lady," I pleaded, "she saw I'm a fanatic."

"Yes, she won't like you for that. But you mustn't mind, if the rest
of us like you! Beatrice thinks a work of art ought to have a
'purpose.' But she's a charming woman--don't you think her charming?
I find in her quite the grand air."

"She's very beautiful," I produced with an effort; while I reflected
that though it was apparently true that Mark Ambient was mismated it
was also perceptible that his sister was perfidious. She assured me
her brother and his wife had no other difference but this--one that
she thought his writings immoral and his influence pernicious. It
was a fixed idea; she was afraid of these things for the child. I
answered that it was in all conscience enough, the trifle of a
woman's regarding her husband's mind as a well of corruption, and she
seemed much struck with the novelty of my remark. "But there hasn't
been any of the sort of trouble that there so often is among married