, looked anxiously at him,
and then went boldly at it. "I want you to go in for that physical
culture that everyone's talking about."

"Who's everyone? Cook hasn't said a word to me on the subject; neither
has Baby; neither has----"

"Mrs. Hodgkin was talking to me about it yesterday. She was saying how
thin you were looking."

"The scandal that goes on in these villages," sighed Jeremy. "And the
Vicar's wife too. Dear, all this is weeks and weeks old; I suppose it
has only just reached the Vicarage. Do let us be up-to-date. Physical
culture has been quite _demode_ since last Thursday."

"Well, _I_ never saw anything in the paper"----

"Knowing what wives are, I hid it from you. Let us now, my dear wife,
talk of something else."

"Jeremy! Not for my birthday present?" said his wife in a reproachful
voice. "The Vicar does them every morning," she added casually.

"Poor beggar! But it's what Vicars are for." Jeremy chuckled to himself.
"I should love to see him," he said. "I suppose it's private, though.
Perhaps if I said 'Press'----"

"You _are_ thin, you know."

"My dear, the proper way to get fat is not to take violent exercise, but
to lie in a hammock all day and drink milk. Besides, do you want a fat
husband? Does Baby want a fat father? You wouldn't like, at your next
garden party, to have everybody asking you in a whisper, 'Who is the
enormously stout gentleman?' If Nature made me thin--or, to be more
accurate, slender and of a pleasing litheness--let us believe that she
knew best."

"It isn't only thinness; these exercises keep you young and well and
active in mind."

"Like the Vicar?"

"He's only just begun," said his wife hastily.

"Let's wait a bit and watch him," suggested Jeremy. "If his sermons
really get better, then I'll think about it seriously. I make you a
present of his baldness; I shan't ask for any improvement there."

Mrs. Jeremy went over to her husband and patted the top of his head.

"'In a very devoted mood this morning,'" she quoted.

Jeremy looked unhappy.

"What pains me most about this," he said, "is the revelation of your
shortcomings as a wife. You ought to think me the picture of manly
beauty. Baby does. She thinks that, next to the postman, I am one of
the----"

"So you are, dear."

"Well, why not leave it? Really, I can't waste my time fattening refined
gold and stoutening the lily. I am a busy man. I walk up and down the
pergola, I keep a dog, I paint little w