like depression.  After twenty minutes’ talk she threw herself back against the iron pillar behind her, her White Lady’s hood framing a face so pale and drooping that we all got up to go, feeling that it was cruelty to keep her up a minute longer.  Mrs. Stuart asked her about her Sundays, and whether she ever got out of town.  “Oh,” she said, with a sigh and a look at her uncle, who was standing near, “I think Sunday is the hardest day of all.  It is our ‘at home’ day, and such crowds come—­just to look at me, I suppose, for I cannot talk to a quarter of them.”  Whereupon Mr. Worrall said in his bland commercial way that society had its burdens as well as its pleasures, and that his dear niece could hardly escape her social duties after the flattering manner in which London had welcomed her.  Miss Bretherton answered, with a sort of languid rebellion, that her social duties would soon be the death of her.  But evidently she is very docile at home, and they do what they like with her.  It seems to me that the uncle and aunt are a good deal shrewder than the London public; it is borne in upon me by various indications that they know exactly what their niece’s popularity depends on, and that it very possibly may not be a long-lived one.  Accordingly, they have determined on two things:  first, that she shall make as much money for the family as can by any means be made; and, secondly, that she shall find her way into London society, and secure, if possible, a great parti before the enthusiasm for her has had time to chill.  One hears various stories of the uncle, all in this sense; I cannot say how true they are.

’However, the upshot of the supper-party was that next day Wallace, Forbes, and I met at Mrs. Stuart’s house, and formed a Sunday League for the protection of Miss Bretherton from her family; in other words, we mean to secure that she has occasional rest and country air on Sunday—­her only free day.  Mrs. Stuart has already wrung out of Mrs. Worrall, by a little judicious scaring, permission to carry her off for two Sundays—­one this month and one next—­and Miss Bretherton’s romantic side, which is curiously strong in her, has been touched by the suggestion that the second Sunday should be spent at Oxford.

’Probably for the first Sunday—­a week hence—­we shall go to Surrey.  You remember Hugh Farnham’s property near Leith Hill?  I know all the farms about there from old shooting days, and there is one on the edge of some great commons, which would be perfection on a May Sunday.  I will write you a full account of our day.  The only rule laid down by the League is that things are to be so managed that Miss Bretherton is to have no possible excuse for fatigue so long as she is in the hands of the society.

’My book goes on fairly well.  I have been making a long study of De Musset, with the result that the poems seem to me far finer than I had remembered, and the Confessions d’ un Enfant du Siecle a miserable performance.  How was it it impressed me so much when I read it first?  His poems have reminded me of you at every step.  Do you remember how you used to read them aloud to our mother and me after dinner, while the father had his sleep before going down to the House?’