“Really?” Mrs. Goddard looked at him rather incredulously and then laughed.

“You said you would not laugh,” objected John.

“I cannot help it in the least,” said she.  “It seems so funny.”

“It did not seem funny to me, I can assure you,” replied John rather warmly.  “I thought it very serious.”

“You don’t do it now, do you?” asked Mrs. Goddard, looking up at him quietly.

“Oh no—­a man’s ideals change so much, you know,” answered John, who felt he had been foolishly betrayed into telling his story, and hated to be laughed at.

“I am very glad of that.  How long are you going to stay here, Mr. Short?”

“Until New Year’s Day, I think,” he answered.  “Perhaps you will have time to forget about the poetry before I go.”

“I don’t know why,” said Mrs. Goddard, noticing his hurt tone.  “I think it was very pretty—­I mean the way you did it.  You must be a born poet—­to write verses to a person you did not know and had only seen once!”

“It is much easier than writing verses to moral abstractions one has never seen at all,” explained John, who was easily pacified.  “When a man writes a great deal he feels the necessity of attaching all those beautiful moral qualities to some real, living person whom he can see—­”

“Even if he only sees her once,” remarked Mrs. Goddard demurely.

“Yes, even if he only sees her once.  You have no idea how hard it is to concentrate one’s faculties upon a mere idea; but the moment a man sees a woman whom he can endow with all sorts of beautiful qualities—­why it’s just as easy as hunting.”

“I am glad to have been of so much service to you, even unconsciously—­but, don’t you think perhaps Mrs. Ambrose would have done as well?”

“Mrs. Ambrose?” repeated John.  Then he broke into a hearty laugh.  “No—­I have no hesitation in saying that she would not have done as well.  I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Ambrose for a thousand kindnesses, for a great deal more than I can tell—­but, on the whole, I say, no; I could not have written odes to Mrs. Ambrose.”

“No, I suppose not.  Besides, fancy the vicar’s state of mind!  She would have had to call him in to translate your poetry.”

“It is very singular,” said John in a tone of reflection.  “But, if I had not done all that, we should not be talking as we are now, after ten minutes acquaintance.”

“Probably not,” said Mrs. Goddard.

“No—­certainly not.  By the bye, there is the Hall.  I suppose you have often been there since Mr. Juxon came—­what kind of man is he?”

“He has been a great traveller,” answered his companion.  “And then—­well, he is a scholar and has an immense library—­”

“And an immense dog—­yes, but I mean, what kind of man is he himself?”

“He is very agreeable,” said Mrs. Goddard quietly.  “Very well bred, very well educated.  We find him a great addition in Billingsfield.”