often
offended with me for no reason, and then a day or so afterwards will
be horribly affectionate, and give me a present to make up for it. I
can never get accustomed to his calling me Ambrosine--it always jars,
as if one suddenly heard a shopman taking this liberty. It is equally
unpleasant as "little woman" or "dearie," both of which besprinkle all
his sentences. He has not a mind that makes it possible to have any
conversation with him. He told me to-day that I was the stupidest cold
statue of a woman he had ever met, and then he shook me until I felt
giddy, and kissed me until I could not see. After a scene of this kind
I feel too limp to move. I creep out into the garden and hide with Roy
in a clump of laurel bushes, where there is a neglected sun-dial that
was once the centre of the old garden, and left there when the new
shrubbery was planted; there is about six feet bare space around it,
and no one ever comes there, so I am safe.

Sometimes from my hiding-place I hear Augustus calling me, but I never
answer, and yesterday I caught sight of him through the bushes biting
his nails with annoyance; he could not think where I had disappeared
to. It comforted me to sit there and make faces at him like a
gutter-child.

I have never had the courage to go back to the cottage. It is just as
it was, with all grandmamma's dear old things in it, waiting for me to
decide where I will have them put. Hephzibah has married her grocer's
man, and lives there as caretaker.

I suppose some day I shall have to go down and settle things, but I
feel as if it would be desecration to bring the Sevres and miniatures
and the Louis XV. _bergere_ here to hobnob with the new productions
from Tottenham Court Road.

Augustus is having some rooms arranged for me, so that I, too, shall
have a "budwar" for myself. He has not consulted my taste; it is all
to be a surprise. And an army of workmen are still in the house, and
I have caught glimpses of brilliant, new, gilt chairs and terra-cotta
and buffish brocade (I loathe those colors) being carried up.

"Then I'll be able to have you more to myself in the evening," said
Augustus. "The drawing-rooms are too big and the mater's budwar is too
small, and you hate my den, so I hope this will please you."

I said "Thank you," without enthusiasm. I would prefer the company
of my mother-in-law or Amelia to being more alone with Augustus. The
crimson-satin chairs are so uncomfortable that now he l