e children, girls, more beautiful than
anything or anybody else in the house--in the world, I think! They
give me tea and cakes, and bread and butter; most delicious
tartines, as thin as wafers, and speak French well, and relate to me
the biographies of their animals, une vraie menagerie which I
afterwards have to visit--immense dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs,
squirrels, white mice, and a gigantic owl, who answers to the name
of Minerva.

"I find myself, ma foi, very happy among these wonderful people, and
preserve an impression of beauty, of bonhomie, of naturalness and
domestic felicity quite unlike anything I have ever been privileged
to see--an impression never to be forgotten.

"But as for _Etoiles Mortes_ and _Les Trepassees de Francois
Villon_, I really have to give them up; the beautiful big dogs are
more important than all the books in the world, even the
master's--even the master himself!

"However, I want no explanation to see and understand how M.
Josselin has written most of his chefs-d'oeuvre from the depths of a
happy consciousness habituated to all that is most graceful and
charming and seductive in real life--and a deeply sympathetic,
poignant, and compassionate sense of the contrast to all this.

"Happy mortal, happy family, happy country where grow (poussent)
such people, and where such children flourish! The souvenir of that
so brief hour spent at Gretna Lodge is one of the most beautiful
souvenirs of my life--and, above all, the souvenir of the belle
chatelaine who filled my hansom with beautiful roses culled by her
own fair hand, which gave me at parting that cordial English
pressure so much more suggestive of _Au revoir_ than _Adieu_!

"It is with sincere regret one leaves people who part with one so
regretfully.

"Alphonse Paroly."

* * * * *

Except that good and happy women have no history, I should almost
like to write the history of Barty's wife, and call it the history
of the busiest and most hard-working woman in Great Britain.

Barty left everything to her--to the very signing of cheques. He
would have nothing to do with any business of any kind.

He wouldn't even carve at lunch or dinner. Leah did, unless _I_ was
there.

It is but fair to say he worked as hard as any man I know. When he