So, leading the way, he conducted me up stairs and along a somewhat intricate passage to a room in the oldest part of the house.  It was a quaint apartment, with leaden casements, a low ceiling, an uneven floor—­a room four hundred years old, as Mr. Kingsley told me, but having withal a very habitable look.  “I hope you’ll be comfortable here,” said my host as he turned to go—­“as comfortable as one can be in a cottage.  Have you everything you want?  There will be a tea-dinner or a dinner-tea in about half an hour.”  Then, as he lingered, he asked, “When did you see Forster last?”

“Six weeks ago,” I said—­“in London.  He had just received news of the vacancy at Leeds, and at once determined to offer himself as the Liberal candidate.  He went to Leeds for this purpose, but subsequently withdrew his name.  I gather from his speech at the banquet his supporters gave him afterward that this was a mistake, and that if he had stood he would have been elected.”

“Ah,” said Kingsley, “I should like to see Forster in Parliament.  He is not the man, however, to make head against the tracasseries of an election contest.”

Some other talk we had, and then he left me, coming back before long to conduct me to the drawing-room.  Two gentlemen were there—­one a visitor who soon took leave; the other, the tutor to Mr. Kingsley’s son.  Mrs. Kingsley came in now and shook hands with me cordially, and I had very soon the sense of being at one with them all.  Our having mutual friends did much toward this good understanding, but it was partly that we seemed at once to have so much to talk of on the events of the day, and on English matters in which I took keen interest.

India was naturally our first subject, and the great and absorbing question of the mutiny.  I told what the London news was in regard to it, and how serious was the look of things.  Kingsley said there must be great blame somewhere—­that as to the British rule in India, no man could doubt that it had been a great blessing to the country, but the individual Englishman had come very far short of his duty in his dealings with the subject race:  a reckoning was sure to come. Oakfield was mentioned—­a story by William Arnold of which the scene was laid in India, and which contained evidence of this ill-treatment of the Hindoos by their white masters.  Kingsley spoke highly of this book.  I said I thought it had hardly been appreciated in England.  Kingsley thought the reason was it was too didactic—­there was too much moralizing.  Only the few could appreciate this:  the many did not care for it in a novel.