But Mrs. Fisher’s very abstractedness—­and she seemed to be absorbed chiefly in the interesting people she used to know and in their memorial photographs, and quite a good part of the interview was taken up by reminiscent anecdote of Carlyle, Meredith, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, and a host of others—­her very abstractedness was a recommendation.  She only asked, she said, to be allowed to sit quiet in the sun and remember.  That was all Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins asked of their sharers.  It was their idea of a perfect sharer that she should sit quiet in the sun and remember, rousing herself on Saturday evenings sufficiently to pay her share.  Mrs. Fisher was very fond, too, she said, of flowers, and once when she was spending a week-end with her father at Box Hill—­

“Who lived at Box Hill?” interrupted Mrs. Wilkins, who hung on Mrs. Fisher’s reminiscences, intensely excited by meeting somebody who had actually been familiar with all the really and truly and undoubtedly great—­actually seen them, heard them talking, touched them.

Mrs. Fisher looked at her over the top of her glasses in some surprise.  Mrs. Wilkins, in her eagerness to tear the heart out quickly of Mrs. Fisher’s reminiscences, afraid that at any moment Mrs. Arbuthnot would take her away and she wouldn’t have heard half, had already interrupted several times with questions which appeared ignorant to Mrs. Fisher.

“Meredith of course,” said Mrs. Fisher rather shortly.  “I remember a particular week-end”—­she continued.  “My father often took me, but I always remember this week-end particularly—­”

“Did you know Keats?” eagerly interrupted Mrs. Wilkins.

Mrs. Fisher, after a pause, said with sub-acid reserve that she had been unacquainted with both Keats and Shakespeare.

“Oh of course—­how ridiculous of me!” cried Mrs. Wilkins, flushing scarlet.  “It’s because”—­she floundered—­“it’s because the immortals somehow still seem alive, don’t they—­as if they were here, going to walk into the room in another minute—­and one forgets they are dead.  In fact one knows perfectly well that they’re not dead—­not nearly so dead as you and I even now,” she assured Mrs. Fisher, who observed her over the top of her glasses.

“I thought I saw Keats the other day,” Mrs. Wilkins incoherently proceeded, driven on by Mrs. Fisher’s look over the top of her glasses.  “In Hampstead—­crossing the road in front of that house—­you know—­the house where he lived—­”

Mrs. Arbuthnot said they must be going.

Mrs. Fisher did nothing to prevent them.

“I really thought I saw him,” protested Mrs. Wilkins, appealing for belief first to one and then to the other while waves of colour passed over her face, and totally unable to stop because of Mrs. Fisher’s glasses and the steady eyes looking at her over their tops.  “I believe I did see him—­he was dressed in a—­”

Even Mrs. Arbuthnot looked at her now, and in her gentlest voice said they would be late for lunch.