incidents, is merely a setting; and when they talk about them, it
is merely to pass the time, as a man turns to a game. At Hapton,
Musgrave chatted away about his neighbours, his boys' club, his new
organ, his bishop, his work. I used to think him rather a proser;
how I blessed his prosing now! I took long walks with him; he asked
a few perfunctory questions about my books, but otherwise he was
quite content to prattle on, like a little brook, about all that
was in his mind, and he was more than content if I asked an
occasional question or assented courteously. Then we had some good
talks about the rural problems of education--he is a sensible and
intelligent man enough--and some excellent arguments about the
movement of religion, where I found him unexpectedly liberal-
minded. He left me to do very much what I liked. I read in the
mornings and before dinner; and after dinner we smoked or even
played a game of dummy whist. It is a pretty part of the country,
and when he was occupied in the afternoon, I walked about by
myself. From first to last not a single word fell from Musgrave to
indicate that he thought me in any way different, or suspected that
I was not perfectly content, with the blessed result that I
immediately became exactly what he thought me.

I got on no better with my writing; my brain is as bare as a winter
wood; but I found that I did not rebel against that. Of course it
does not reveal a very dignified temperament, that one should so
take colour from one's surroundings. If I can be equable and good-
humoured here, I ought to be able to be equable and good-humoured
at home; at the same time I am conscious of an intense longing to
see Maud and the children. Probably I should do better to absent
myself resolutely from home at stated intervals; and I think it
argued a fine degree of perception in Maud, that she decided not to