“Oh! Indeed I have not been in a bad temper.  I have been most anxious to spend a happy day.”

“And I have been placidly reflective, and not anxious at all.  Is that what has provoked you?”

“I am not provoked.  But you might tell me what your reflections are about.”

“They would fill volumes, if I could recollect them.”

“You must recollect some of them.  From the time we left the station until a moment ago, when we began to talk, you were pondering something with the deepest seriousness.  What was it?”

“I forget.”

“Of course you forget—­just because I want to know.  What a crowded road this is!” She disengaged herself from his arm; and this time he did not resist her.

“That reminds me of it.  The crowd consists partly of people going to the pro-Cathedral.  The pro-Cathedral contains an altar.  An altar suggests kneeling on hard stone; and that brings me to the disease called ‘housemaids’ knee,’ which was the subject of my reflections.”

“A pleasant subject for a fine Sunday!  Thank you.  I dont want to hear any more.”

“But you will hear more of it; for I am going to have the steps of our house taken away and replaced by marble, or slate, or something that can be cleaned with a mop and a pail of water in five minutes.”

“Why?”

“My chain of thought began at the door steps we have passed, all whitened beautifully so as to display every footprint, and all representing an expenditure of useless, injurious labor in hearthstoning, that ought to madden an intelligent housemaid.  I dont think our Armande is particularly intelligent; but I am resolved to spare her knees and her temper in future by banishing hearthstone from our establishment forever.  I shudder to think that I have been walking upon those white steps and flag ways of ours every day without awakening to a sense of their immorality.”

“I cannot understand why you are always disparaging Armande.  And I hate an ill-kept house front.  None of our housemaids ever objected to hearthstoning, or were any the worse for it.”

“No.  They would not have gained anything by objecting:  they would only have lost their situations.  You need not fear for your house front.  I will order a porch with porphyry steps and alabaster pillars to replace your beloved hearthstone.”

“Yes.  That will be clever.  Do you know how easy it is to stain marble?  Armande will be on her knees all day with a bottle of turpentine and a bit of flannel.”

“You are thinking of inkstains, Marian.  You forget that it does not rain ink, and that Nelly will hardly select the porch to write her novels in.”

“Lots of people bring ink on a doorstep.  Tax collectors and gasmen carry bottles in their pockets.”

“Ask them into the drawing-room when they call, my dear; or, better still, dont pay them, so that they will have no need to write a receipt.  Let me remind you that ink shews as much on white hearthstone as it can possibly do on marble.  Yet extensive disfigurements of steps from the visits of tax collectors are not common.”