n, and before he sat down to
his fried bacon he kissed his wife seriously and dutifully. She had
brown hair and brown eyes, and though her lovely face was grave and
quiet, one would have said that she might have awaited her husband under
the old trees, and bathed in the pool hollowed out of the rocks.

They had a good deal to talk over while the coffee was poured out and
the bacon eaten, and Darnell's egg brought in by the stupid, staring
servant-girl of the dusty face. They had been married for a year, and
they had got on excellently, rarely sitting silent for more than an
hour, but for the past few weeks Aunt Marian's present had afforded a
subject for conversation which seemed inexhaustible. Mrs. Darnell had
been Miss Mary Reynolds, the daughter of an auctioneer and estate agent
in Notting Hill, and Aunt Marian was her mother's sister, who was
supposed rather to have lowered herself by marrying a coal merchant, in
a small way, at Turnham Green. Marian had felt the family attitude a
good deal, and the Reynoldses were sorry for many things that had been
said, when the coal merchant saved money and took up land on building
leases in the neighbourhood of Crouch End, greatly to his advantage, as
it appeared. Nobody had thought that Nixon could ever do very much; but
he and his wife had been living for years in a beautiful house at
Barnet, with bow-windows, shrubs, and a paddock, and the two families
saw but little of each other, for Mr. Reynolds was not very prosperous.
Of course, Aunt Marian and her husband had been asked to Mary's wedding,
but they had sent excuses with a nice little set of silver apostle
spoons, and it was feared that nothing more was to be looked for.
However, on Mary's birthday her aunt had written a most affectionate
letter, enclosing a cheque for a hundred pounds from 'Robert' and
herself, and ever since the receipt of the money the Darnells had
discussed the question of its judicious disposal. Mrs. Darnell had
wished to invest the whole sum in Government securities, but Mr. Darnell
had pointed out that the rate of interest was absurdly low, and after a
good deal of talk he had persuaded his wife to put ninety pounds of the
money in a safe mine, which was paying five per cent. This was very
well, but the remaining ten pounds, which Mrs. Darnell had insisted on
reserving, gave rise to legends and discourses as interminable as the
disputes of the schools.

At first Mr. Darnell had proposed that they