emale. All over Kensington and
Campden Hill--for they took Gretna Lodge, next door to Cornelys, the
sculptor's--the splendor of these little Bartys, their size, their
beauty, their health and high spirits, became almost a joke, and their
mother became almost a comic character in consequence--like the old
lady who lived in a shoe.

Money poured in with a profusion few writers of good books have ever
known before, and every penny not wanted for immediate household
expenses was pounced upon by Scatcherd or by me to be invested in
the manner we thought best: nous avons eu la main heureuse!

The Josselins kept open house, and money was not to be despised,
little as Barty ever thought of money.

Then every autumn the entire smalah migrated to the coast of
Normandy, or Picardy, or Brittany, or to the Highlands of Inverness,
and with them the Scatcherds and the chronicler of these happy
times--not to mention cats, dogs, and squirrels, and guinea-pigs,
and white mice, and birds of all kinds, from which the children
would not be parted, and the real care of which, both at home and
abroad, ultimately devolved on poor Mrs. Josselin--who was not so
fond of animals as all that--so that her life was full to
overflowing of household cares.

Another duty had devolved upon her also: that of answering the
passionate letters that her husband received by every post from all
parts of the world--especially America--and which he could never be
induced to answer himself. Every morning regularly he would begin
his day's work by writing "Yours truly--B. Josselin" on quite a
score of square bits of paper, to be sent through the post to fair
English and American autograph collectors who forwarded stamped
envelopes, and sometimes photographs of themselves, that he might
study the features of those who loved him at a respectful distance,
and who so frankly told their love; all of which bored Barty to
extinction, and was a source of endless amusement to his wife.

But even _she_ was annoyed when a large unstamped or insufficiently
stamped parcel arrived by post from America, enclosing a photograph
of her husband to which his signature was desired, and containing no
stamps to frank it on its return journey!

And the photographers he had to sit to! and the interviewers, male
and female, to whom he had to deny himself! Life was too short!

How often has a sturdy laborer or artisan come up to him, as he and
I walked together, with:

"I should v