"He's nothing less than supreme, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in
each of his books of a perfection classing them with the greatest
things. Accordingly for me to see him in this familiar way, in his
habit as he lives, and apparently to find the man as delightful as
the artist--well, I can't tell you how much too good to be true it
seems and how great a privilege I think it." I knew I was gushing,
but I couldn't help it, and what I said was a good deal less than
what I felt. I was by no means sure I should dare to say even so
much as this to the master himself, and there was a kind of rapture
in speaking it out to his wife which was not affected by the fact
that, as a wife, she appeared peculiar. She listened to me with her
face grave again and her lips a little compressed, listened as if in
no doubt, of course, that her husband was remarkable, but as if at
the same time she had heard it frequently enough and couldn't treat
it as stirring news. There was even in her manner a suggestion that
I was so young as to expose myself to being called forward--an
imputation and a word I had always loathed; as well as a hinted
reminder that people usually got over their early extravagance. "I
assure you that for me this is a red-letter day," I added.

She didn't take this up, but after a pause, looking round her, said
abruptly and a trifle dryly: "We're very much afraid about the fruit
this year."

My eyes wandered to the mossy mottled garden-walls, where plum-trees
and pears, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked like
crucified figures with many arms. "Doesn't it promise well?"

"No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts."