cannot understand it:  she is as hard and matter-of-fact as a woman can be:  I dont believe the expression in her singing comes one bit from true feeling.  I heard Ned say to her, ’Thank you, Mrs. Scott:  no Englishwoman has the secret of singing a ballad as you have it.’  I knew very well what that meant. I have not the secret.  Well, Mrs. Scott came over to me and said ’Mr. Conolly is a very pairtinaceous man.  He persuaded me into shewing him the way the little song is sung in Scotland; and I stood up without thinking.  And see now, I have been raguilarly singing a song in company for the first time in my life.’  Of course, it was a ridiculous piece of affectation.  Ned talked about Mrs. Scott all the way home, and played ‘Caller Herrin’ four times next day.  That finished my domestic musical career.  I have never sung for him since, except once or twice when he has asked me to try the effect of some passage in one of his music-books.”

“And do you never sing when you go out, as you used to?”

“Only when he is not with me, or when people force me to.  If he is in the room, I am so nervous that I can hardly get through the easiest song.  He never offers to accompany me now, and generally leaves the room when I am asked to sing.”

“Perhaps he sees the effect his presence has on you.”

“Even so, he ought to stay.  He used to like me to listen to him, at first.”

Miss McQuinch looked at the sunset with exceeding glumness.  There was an ominous pause.  Then she said, abruptly, “You remember how we used to debate whether marriage was a mistake or not.  Have you found out?”

“I dont know.”

“That sounds rather as if you did know.  Are you quite sure you are not in low spirits this evening?  He was bantering you about being out of temper when you came in.  Perhaps you quarrelled at Kew.”

“Quarrel!  He quarrel!  I cannot explain to you how we are situated, Nelly.  You would not understand me.”

“Suppose you try.  For instance, is he as fond of you as he was before you married him?”

“I dont know.”

Miss McQuinch shrugged herself impatiently.

“Really I do not, Nelly.  He has changed in a way—­I do not quite know how or why.  At first he was not very ceremonious.  He used to make remarks about people, and discuss everything that came into his head quite freely before me.  He was always kind, and never grumbled about his dinner, or lost his temper, or anything of that kind; but—­it was not that he was coarse exactly:  he was not that in the least; but he was very open and unreserved and plain in his language; and somehow I did not quite like it.  He must have found this out:  he sees and feels everything by instinct; for he slipped back into his old manner, and became more considerate and attentive than he had ever been before.  I was made very happy at first by the change; but I do not think he quite understood what I wanted.