now and then in the Guardian, and that lets me in for a lot of correspondence.  I even, I must confess, sometimes address questions to important people about their public utterances, and I have an interesting volume of replies, mostly from secretaries.  Then I am always at work on my Somersetshire genealogies, and that means a mass of letters.  The veriest trifles, of course, they will seem to a man like yourself; but I fail in mental grasp—­I keep hammering away at details; that is my line; and after all it keeps one alert and alive.  You know my favourite thesis—­it is touch with human nature that I value, and I am brought into contact with many minds.  I don’t exaggerate the importance of my work, but I enjoy it; and after all, that is the point!  I daresay it would be more dignified if I pretended to be a disappointed man,” said the Vicar, with a smile which won Howard’s heart, “but I am not—­I am a very happy man, as busy as the fabled bee!  I shouldn’t relish a change.  There was some question, I may tell you, at one time, of my becoming Archdeacon, but it was a relief to me when it was settled and when Bedington was appointed.  I woke up in the morning, I remember, the day after his appointment was announced, and I said to myself—­ ‘Why, it’s a relief after all!’ I don’t mean that I shouldn’t have enjoyed it, but it would have meant giving up some part of my work.  I really have the life I like, and if my dear wife had been spared to me, I should be the happiest of men; but that was not to be—­and by the way, I must recollect to show you some of her drawings.  But I must not inflict all this upon you—­and by the way,” said the Vicar, “Mrs. Graves did me the honour of telling me yesterday her intentions with regard to yourself, and I told her I was heartily glad to hear it.  It is an immense thing for the place to have some one who will look into things a little, and bring a masculine mind to bear on our simple problems.  For myself, it will be an untold gain to be brought in touch with a more intellectual atmosphere.  I foresee a long perspective of stimulating discussions.  I will venture to say that you will be warmly welcomed here, and indeed you seem quite one of us already.  But now we must go and get our luncheon—­we have much to discuss; and you will not mind Maud being present, I know; the children are devoted to each other, and though I have studied their tastes and temperaments very closely, yet ‘crabbed age and youth’ you know, and all that—­she will be able, I think, to cast some light on our little problem.”

They went together into the drawing-room, a pleasant old-fashioned room—­“a temple of domestic peace,” said the Vicar, “a pretty phrase of Carlyle’s that!  Maud has her own little sitting-room—­the old schoolroom in fact—­which she will like to show you.  I think it very necessary that each member of a family should if possible have a sanctum, a private uninvaded domain—­but in this room the separate strains unite.”