“Tell me what you like and what you don’t like—­and that will give me courage to do the same later,” he added boldly.

She laughed outright at that and then sobered quickly.

“I told you that I liked to drive and to do everything,” she said lightly; “what else do you want to know about?”

“What you dislike.”

“But I don’t know of anything that I dislike;” she said thoughtfully—­“perhaps I don’t like England; I am not sure, though.  I had a pretty good time there after all—­only you know, being in mourning was so stupid.  And then, too, I didn’t fit into their ideas.  I really didn’t seem to get the true inwardness of what was expected of me.  Oh, I never dared let them know at home what a failure I was as an Englishwoman.  I mortified my husband’s sisters all the time.  Just think—­after a whole year I often forgot to say ‘Fancy now!’ and used to say ‘Good gracious!’ instead.”

Jack laughed.

“My husband’s sisters were very unhappy about it.  They did want to love me, because I had so much money; but it was tough work for them.  Did you ever know any middle-aged English young ladies?” she asked him suddenly.

“No, I never did,” he said.

“Really, they seem to be a thing apart that can’t grow anywhere but in England.  Every married man has not less than two, nor more than three, and they always are a little gray and embroider very nicely.  Someone told me that as long as there’s any hope they wear stout boots and walk about and hunt, but as soon as it’s hopeless they take to embroidering.”

“It must be rather a blue day for them when they decide definitely to make the change,” said Jack.

“I never thought of that,” said Mrs. Rosscott soberly.  “Of course it must!  I was always very good to them.  I gave them ever so many things that I could have used longer myself, and they used to set pieces of muslin in behind the open-work places and wear them.”

She sighed.

“It’s quite as bad as being a Girton girl,” she said.  “Do you know what a Girton girl is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s a girl from Girton College.  It’s the most awful freak you ever saw.  They’re really quite beyond everything.  They’re so homely, and their hands and feet are so enormous, and their pins never pin, and their belts never belt.  And no one has ever married one of them yet!”

She paused dramatically.

“I won’t either, then,” he declared.

She laughed at that, and touched up the cob a trifle.

“Did you live long in England?” he asked.

“Forever!” she answered with emphasis; “at least it seemed like forever.  Mamma left me there when I was nineteen (she married me off before she left me, of course) and I stayed there until last winter—­until I was out of my mourning, you know—­and then I was on the Continent for a while, and then I returned to papa.”

“How do we strike you after your long absence?”