“Again Bella interrupts.  ‘Wha was Evangeline?  I forget aboot her.’

“’Oh, don’t you remember?  The golden-’aired ‘eroine with vilet eyes.’

“‘I mind her noo.  The yin wi’ the black hair was the bad yin.’

“’Yes, she was called ’Ermione.  Well, Evangeline finds ’er h’eyes attracted to the picture of a man dressed like a cavalier.’

“‘What’s that?’

“‘I don’t rightly know,’ Mawson confesses.  ’Kind of a fancy dress, I believe, but anyway ’er h’eyes were attracted to the picture, and as she fixed ‘er h’eyes on it the h’eyes in the picture moved.’

“‘Oh, murder!’ says Bella, much thrilled.

“’You may say it.  Murder it was, h’attempted murder, I should say, for of course it would never do to murder the vilet-h’eyed ’eroine.  As it ‘appened ...’ and so on ...

“One of the three months gone!  Perhaps at the beginning of the year I shall have had more than enough of it, and go gladly back to the fleshpots of Egypt and the Politician.

“It is a dear thing a little town, ‘a lovesome thing, God wot,’ and Priorsford is the pick of all little towns.  I love the shops and the kind, interested way the shopkeepers serve one:  I have shopped in most European cities, but I never realised the full delight of shopping till I came to Priorsford.  You can’t think what fun it is to order in all your own meals, to decide whether you will have a ‘finnan-haddie’ or a ‘kipper’ for breakfast—­much more exciting than ordering a ball gown.

“I love the river, and the wide bridge, and the old castle keeping watch and ward, and the pends through which you catch sudden glimpses of the solemn round-backed hills.  And most of all I love the lights that twinkle out in the early darkness, every light meaning a little home, and a warm fireside and kindly people round it.

“To live, as you and I have done all our lives, in houses where all the difficulties of life are kept in oblivion, and existence runs on well-oiled wheels is very pleasant, doubtless, but one misses a lot.  I love the nearness of Hillview, to hear Mawson and B.B. converse in the kitchen, to smell (this is the most comfortable and homely smell) the ironing of clean clothes, and to know (also by the sense of smell) what I am going to have for dinner hours before it comes.

“Of course you will say, and probably with truth, that what I enjoy is the newness of it, that if I knew that my life would be spent in such surroundings I would be profoundly dissatisfied.

“I dare say.  But in the meantime I am happy—­happy in a contented, quiet way that I never knew before.