cious
selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his fairy
fantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sad
indeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the most
wonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly,
in charming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully
modulated voice all but sang, his grey eyes gleamed fiercely under
his bushy, hairy eyebrows, his pale face with its side-whiskers had
a strange _lueur_, his long thin hands fluttered occasionally. He
had become meagre in figure, his skimpy but genteel coat would be
buttoned over his breast, as he recounted his dream-adventures,
adventures that were half Edgar Allan Poe, half Andersen, with
touches of Vathek and Lord Byron and George Macdonald: perhaps more
than a touch of the last. Ladies were always struck by these
accounts. But Miss Frost never felt so strongly moved to impatience
as when she was within hearing.

For twenty years, she and James Houghton treated each other with a
courteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatience with
him, sometimes he answered her tartly: "Indeed, indeed! Oh, indeed!
Well, well, I'm sorry you find it so--" as if the injury consisted
in her finding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative
Club, with a fleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At
the club he played chess--at which he was excellent--and conversed.
Then he flitted back at half-past twelve, to dinner.

The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. She
saw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina,
whom she loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricken
woman, the mother, from the vagaries of James. Not that James had
any vices. He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an
anchorite, and never lowered his fine tone. But still, the two
unprotected ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost
imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic
government. Her rule was quiet, strong, and generous. She was not
seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of
Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure,
radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy,
reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to
give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered
home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals--meals which