it would be better than governessing; wouldn't it?'

'You say you don't know what Miss Yule writes?'

'Well, I know a little more about her than I did yesterday. I've
had an hour's talk with her this afternoon.'

'Indeed?'

'Met her down in the Leggatt fields. I find she doesn't write
independently; just helps her father. What the help amounts to I
can't say. There's something very attractive about her. She
quoted a line or two of Tennyson; the first time I ever heard a
woman speak blank verse with any kind of decency.'

'She was walking alone?'

'Yes. On the way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I
thought. I don't think she's the kind of girl to make a paying
business of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it's
pretty clear to me that the valley of the shadow of books by no
means agrees with her disposition. Possibly old Yule is something
of a tyrant.'

'He doesn't impress me very favourably. Do you think you will
keep up their acquaintance in London?'

'Can't say. I wonder what sort of a woman that mother really is?
Can't be so very gross, I should think.'