fascinating, and I should like to drive you over to Dorchester to
look at the museum there--there are some questions I should like to
ask you. But we must be off. A delightful evening, cousin Anne; a
delightful evening, Howard. I feel quite rejuvenated--such a lot to
ponder over."

Howard went to the door to see them off, and was rewarded by a
parting smile from Maud, which made him feel curiously elated. He
went back to the drawing-room with that faint feeling of flatness
which comes of parting with lively guests; and yet it somehow gave
him a pleasant sense of being at home.

"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "so now you have seen the Sandys
interior. Dear Frank, how he does chatter, to be sure! but he is
all alive too in his own way, and that is what matters. What did
you think of Maud? I want you to like her--she is a great friend of
mine, and really a fine creature. Not very happy just now, perhaps.
But while dear old Frank never sees past the outside of things--
what a lot of things he does see!--she sees inside, I think. But I
am tired to death. I always feel after talking to Frank as if I had
been driving in a dog-cart over a ploughed field!"






VII

COUNTRY LIFE