off in the morning and return in the evening. I envied them the
haste, which I had so often cursed, over breakfast. I envied them,
while I took an hour over lunch, the chop devoured in ten minutes; I
envied them the weariness with which they dragged themselves along
their gravel-paths, half an hour late for dinner. I was thrown
almost entirely amongst women. I had no children, but a niece
thirty-five years old, devoted to evangelical church affairs, kept
house for me, and she had a multitude of female acquaintances, two
or three of whom called every afternoon. Sometimes, to relieve my
loneliness, I took afternoon tea, and almost invariably saw the
curate. I was the only man present. It was just as if, being
strong, healthy, and blessed with a good set of teeth, I were being
fed on water-gruel. The bird-wittedness, the absence of resistance
and of difficulty, were intolerable. The curate, and occasionally
the rector, tried to engage me, as I was a good subscriber, in
discussion on church affairs, but there seemed to me to be nothing
in these which required the force which was necessary for the
commonest day in the City. Mrs. Coleman and the rector were once
talking together most earnestly when I entered the room, and I
instinctively sat down beside them, but I found that the subject of
their eager debate was the allotment of stalls at a bazaar. They
were really excited--stirred I fully admit to their depths. I
believe they were more absorbed and anxious than I was on that
never-to-be-forgotten morning when Mortons and Nicholsons both
failed, and for two hours it was just a toss-up whether we should
not go too.

I went with my niece one day to St. Paul's Churchyard to choose a
gown, but it was too much for me to be in a draper's shop when the
brokers' drug sales were just beginning. I left my niece, walked