what men and women are like from books, or the one or two types I have
met around here. Now, do you think that that is enough to satisfy one? Of
course it is very beautiful here, I know, and sometimes when the sun is
shining and the birds singing and the sea comes up into the creeks,
well, one almost feels content. But the sun doesn't always shine,
Richard, and there are times when I am right down bored, and I feel as
though I'd love to draw my allowance from uncle, pack my trunk, and go up
to London, on my own!"

He laughed. Somehow all that she had said had sounded so natural that
some part of his uneasiness was already passing away.

"Yours," he admitted, "is an extreme case. I really don't know why your
uncle has never taken you up for a month or so in the season."

"We have lived here for four years," she said, "and he has never once
suggested it. He goes himself, of course, sometimes, but I am quite sure
that he doesn't enjoy it. For days before he fidgets about and looks
perfectly miserable, and when he comes back he always goes off for a long
walk by himself. I am perfectly certain that for some reason or other
he hates going. Yet he seems to have been everywhere, to know every one.
To hear him talk with Mrs. Handsell is like a new Arabian Nights to me."

He nodded.

"Your uncle was a very distinguished man," he said. "I was only at
college then, but I remember what a fuss there was in all the papers when
he resigned his seat."

"What did they say was the reason?" she asked, eagerly.