she went
to put the children to bed, and see if Mr. Spottiswoode, who was doing a
quiet turn of business in his office, would have a game of cards before
supper. She had really never heard of a girl being married simply for
her tongue's sake! She perhaps knew the line in the song too--

"Very few marry for talking,"

and had found its truth in her own experience, for she was a shrewd,
observant woman.

Bourhope, it should be understood, was longest subjected to the
influence of Chrissy's story-telling power. Indeed, when he did somewhat
recover from it, his fancy created fine visions of what it would be to
have such a storyteller at Bourhope during the long, dark nights of
winter and the endless days of summer. Bourhope was no ignoramus. He had
some acquaintance with "Winter's Tales" and summer pastorals, but his
reading was bald and tame to this inspiration. He thought to himself it
would really be as good as a company of players purely for his own
behoof, without any of the disadvantages. He stammered a little in
expressing the debt he owed to Chrissy, and she could only eagerly reply
by saying, "Not to me, not to me the praise, Mr. Spottiswoode, but to
the great unknown. Oh! I would like to know him."

Bourhope was stimulated to do at once what he was sure to do ultimately:
he presented his hospitable entertainers with a box at the play. No
doubt it was a great delight to Chrissy; for it was in the days when
actors were respectable artists and play-going was still universal.
Chrissy in her freshness enjoyed the provincials as well as if they had
been first-rate--took the good and left the bad, and sat quite
entranced.

Bourhope, although he was decidedly intellectual for his calling,
watched Chrissy rather than the stage. He read the feeling of the moment
reflected in her sagacious yet sensitive face. Once he turned round and
tried the same experiment with Corrie. He might as well have expected to
borrow a living soul from well-moulded stucco or marble. He now realized
in a more lively manner than ever, that geese may look fair and white
and soft and shapely as swans till they expose their waddling. He tried
in church the process he had learned at the play, and, it must be
confessed, not without effect--Chrissy's expression giving a fair
notion of the good Priorton minister's earnestness and eloquence.

But at length Chrissy, aware of the liberty Bourhope took in thus
making her his study, got restless and