dinner-time, my admiration for Rose's
imaginative faculties assumed huge proportions.

The heathen amongst whom I dwelt were, it appears, Nature's gentlefolk,
hating unreality and humbug as they hated the devil. I think this was
really rather clever of Rose, for it hits off some of my neighbours
exactly, though the devil with whom they are on speaking terms might
possibly seem a mild and blunt-horned personage to some of my London
acquaintances.

There was a good deal more to the same effect, and having driven the
Rusty one to the verge of apoplexy, Rose retired to her own room and
penned her epistle. Seclusion evidently induced reaction, and she
confessed to the depression I have hinted at. I don't wonder, poor
girl. I should hate to be going to work in the crowded city after
having tasted the freedom of the moors. All the same, there are
compensations if you look for them. If you have friends who are
congenial you have more opportunities of seeing them in a place like
London. Everybody goes to London. Perhaps the Cynic will take her to
see the new play at the St. James's Theatre. I shall be very glad, I
am sure, if they become firm friends. My only doubt is of Rose. She
is so thoughtless and flighty, and might do harm without meaning it....

Oh, bother it again! I'm going to bed.

CHAPTER XVIII

CARRIER TED RECEIVES NOTICE TO QUIT

I have not been sleeping very well lately, and my dreams have given me
the creeps and left me so irritable that if I had only a considerate
and philanthropic employer like the one Rose patronises I am sure I
should have been sent away somewhere for a change. Being my own
employer, I stay on and make Mother Hubbard look worried. And the
worst of it is she does not discuss my state of health as a sensible
woman should, but just pets me and tells me it "will all come right in
the end." When I ask her what it is that is to come right she smiles
and relapses into silence. If she were not so gentle and loving and
altogether sweet I should feel inclined to shake her.

Did I not say that the devil had his intimates in Windyridge? I nod to
him myself just now, but Simon Barjona Higgins has gone into business
with him on quite a large scale, and my friend Maria must surely be
casting longing backward glances in the direction of widowhood. It
makes one feel that matrimony is a snare which women are fools to enter
with their eyes open; though I suppose all men are not g