clasped
round his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to
repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines:

"In Ockington, in Devonsheer,
My vather he lived vor many a yeer;
And I his son with him did dwell,
To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well.
Diddle-diddle!"

"You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for a man who has to knock
about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to
everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person,
and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him
in his own house--that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment
that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage--but a
man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife."

Another pause.

"It happened on a zartin day
Four-score o' the sheep they rinned astray:
Says vather to I, 'Jack, rin arter 'm, du!'
Sez I to vather, 'I'm darned if I du!'
Diddle-diddle!"

"Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get
careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you
believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your
own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go
out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got
careless--as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of
impression they might--would make you vexed that the world could not
off-hand value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don't you
see?"

This was the answer:

"Purvoket much at my rude tongue,
A dish o' brath at me he vlung,
Which so incensed me to wrath,
That I up an' knack un instantly to arth.
Diddle-diddle!"

"As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic
notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you
seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall
praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward
Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as
a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been
to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her
own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been
out of this island; and that almost her sole socie