so heavy, indeed, that though the master often offered it
to me I could never write with it. With this pen, however, he himself did
all his work. That work he generally cleared away before lunch, and
locked up in his bedroom wardrobe, so that by the time a visitor arrived
there was never any litter in the sitting-room.

The road, viewed from the writing-table window, was at times fairly
lively. Nursemaids and children, bicyclists and others passed constantly
to and fro. Stylish carriages also rolled by during the afternoon, and at
intervals a little green omnibus went its way at a slow jog-trot. The
detached villa residences on the other side of the road were, however,
singularly lifeless. One day M. Zola remarked to me: 'I have never seen a
soul in those houses during all the months I have been here. They are
occupied certainly, for the window blinds are pulled up every morning and
lowered every evening, but I can never detect who does this; and I have
never seen anybody leave the houses or enter them.'

At last one afternoon he told me that one of these villas had woke up,
for on the previous day he had espied a lady in the garden watering some
flowers.

Rather lower down the road there was a livelier house, one which had a
balconied window, which was almost invariably open, and here servants and
children were often to be seen. 'That,' said M. Zola, 'is the one little
corner of life and gaiety, amidst all the other silence and lack of life.
Whenever I feel dull or worried I look over there.'

As a rule the Queen's Hotel itself is, as I have already mentioned, a
very quiet place; but now and again a wedding breakfast was given there.
Broughams and landaus would then roll over the gravel sweep, and M. Zola
and I would at times lean out of the windows and exchange opinions with
respect to the bridal pair and the guests. What surprised and amused him,
on one occasion when a wedding party came to the hotel, was to notice
that all the coachmen of the carriages wore yellow flowers and favours;
for in France yellow is not only associated with jealousy, but also with
conjugal faithlessness.

'If those flowers ware to be taken as an omen,' said M. Zola to me, 'that
happy pair will soon be in the Divorce Court.'

During the latter part of his stay at Norwood, when the door between his
bedroom and sitting-room remained open, one could see on a chest of
drawers in the former apartment a pair of life-size porcelain cats,
colo