whistle. I pursued my dilatory course up the slope of Putney, but at
length it occurred to me that unpunctuality would after all be an
imperfect expression of reverence, and I retraced my footsteps.

No. 2--prosaic inscription! But as that front-door closed behind me I
had the instant sense of having slipped away from the harsh light of
the ordinary and contemporary into the dimness of an odd, august past.
Here, in this dark hall, the past was the present. Here loomed vivid
and vital on the walls those women of Rossetti whom I had known but as
shades. Familiar to me in small reproductions by photogravure, here
they themselves were, life-sized, `with curled-up lips and amorous
hair' done in the original warm crayon, all of them intently looking
down on me while I took off my overcoat--all wondering who was this
intruder from posterity. That they hung in the hall, evidently no more
than an overflow, was an earnest of packed plenitude within. The room
I was ushered into was a back-room, a dining-room, looking on to a
good garden. It was, in form and `fixtures,' an inalienably Mid-
Victorian room, and held its stolid own in the riot of Rossettis. Its
proportions, its window-sash bisecting the view of garden, its
folding-doors (through which I heard the voice of Watts-Dunton booming
mysteriously in the front room), its mantel-piece, its gas-brackets,
all proclaimed that nothing ever would seduce them from their
allegiance to Martin Tupper. `Nor me from mine,' said the sturdy
cruet-stand on the long expanse of table-cloth. The voice of Watts-
Dunton ceased suddenly, and a few moments later its owner appeared. He
had been dictating, he explained. `A great deal of work on hand just
now--a great deal of work.'... I remember that on my subsequent visits
he was always, at the moment of my arrival, dictating, and always
greeted me with that phrase, `A great deal of work on hand just now.'
I used to wonder what work it was, for he published little enough. But