you should meet the
people who will be your friends on equal terms, and give them as
little as possible to talk about."

"I should not mind their talking about me," said Sheila with her eyes
still cast down, "but it is your wife they must not talk about; and if
you will tell me anything I do wrong I will correct it."

"Oh, you must not think it is anything so serious as that. You will
soon pick up from the ladies you will meet some notion of how you
differ from them; and if you should startle or puzzle them a little at
first by talking about the chances of the fishing or the catching of
wild-duck, or the way to reclaim bogland, you will soon get over all
that."

Sheila said nothing, but she made a mental memorandum of three things
she was not to speak about. She did not know why these subjects should
be forbidden, but she was in a strange land and going to see strange
people, whose habits were different from hers. Moreover, when her
husband had gone she reflected that these people, having no fishing
and no peat-mosses and no wild-duck, could not possibly be interested
in such affairs; and thus she fancied she perceived the reason why she
should avoid all mention of those things.

When in the evening Sheila came down dressed and ready to go out,
Lavender had to admit to himself that he had married an exceedingly
beautiful girl, and that there was no country gawkiness about her
manner, and no placid insipidity about her proud and handsome face.
For one brief moment he triumphed in his heart, and had some wild
glimpse of his old project of startling his small world with this
vision from the northern seas. But when he got into the hired
brougham, and thought of the people he was about to meet, and of the
manner in which they would carry away such and such impressions of the
girl, he lost faith in that admiration. He would much rather have
had Sheila unnoticeable and unnoticed--one who would quietly take her
place at the dinner-table, and attract no more special attention than
the flowers, for example, which every one would glance at with some
satisfaction, and then forget in the interest of talking and dining.
He was quite conscious of his own weakness in thus fearing social
criticism. He knew that Ingram would have taken Sheila anywhere in her
blue serge dress, and been quite content and oblivious of observation.
But then Ingram was independent of those social circles in which a
married man must move, and in which his