I had to put a strong constraint on myself, or I should have communicated all that was passing in my mind to William before our friends at the farmhouse.  But I knew it was best to wait until we were alone, and I did wait.  What a relief it was when we all got up at last to say good-night!

The moment we were in our own room, I could not stop to take so much as a pin out of my dress before I began.  “My dear,” said I, “I never heard you tell that gambling-house adventure so well before.  What an effect it had upon our friends! what an effect, indeed, it always has wherever you tell it!”

So far he did not seem to take much notice.  He just nodded, and began to pour out some of the lotion in which he always bathes his poor eyes the last thing at night.

“And as for that, William,” I went on, “all your stories seem to interest people.  What a number you have picked up, first and last, from different sitters, in the fifteen years of your practice as a portrait-painter!  Have you any idea how many stories you really do know?”

No:  he could not undertake to say how many just then.  He gave this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time at his eyes with the sponge and lotion.  He did it so awkwardly and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him and applied the lotion tenderly myself.

“Do you think,” said I, “if you turned over one of your stories carefully in your mind beforehand—­say the one you told to-night, for example—­that you could repeat it all to me so perfectly and deliberately that I should be able to take it down in writing from your lips?”

Yes:  of course he could.  But why ask that question?

“Because I should like to have all the stories that you have been in the habit of relating to our friends set down fairly in writing, by way of preserving them from ever being forgotten.”

Would I bathe his left eye now, because that felt the hottest to-night?  I began to forbode that his growing indifference to what I was saying would soon end in his fairly going to sleep before I had developed my new idea, unless I took some means forthwith of stimulating his curiosity, or, in other words, of waking him into a proper state of astonishment and attention.  “William,” said I, without another syllable of preface, “I have got a new plan for finding all the money we want for our expenses here.”

He jerked his head up directly, and looked at me.  What plan?

“This:  The state of your eyes prevents you for the present from following your profession as an artist, does it not?  Very well.  What are you to do with your idle time, my dear?  Turn author!  And how are you to get the money we want?  By publishing a book!”

“Good gracious, Leah! are you out of your senses?” he exclaimed.

I put my arm round his neck and sat down on his knee (the course I always take when I want to persuade him to anything with as few words as possible).