ou, I perceive," said the Vicar. "A very
feminine view! Now in the interests of ethnology we ought to go
forward--dear me, how full the world is of interesting things!"

They parted in great good-humour. The whole party were to dine at the
Manor next day; and Howard, as he said good-bye to Maud, contrived to
add, "Now you must tell me to-morrow that you have made a beginning."
She gave him a little nod, and a clasp of the hand that made him feel
that he had a new friend.

That evening he talked to his aunt about Maud. He told her all about
their walk and talk. "I am very glad you gave her something to do," she
said--"that is so like a man! That is just where I fail. She is a very
interesting and delightful girl, Howard; and she is not quite happy at
home. Living with Cousin Frank is like living under a waterfall; and
Jack is beginning to have his own plans, and doesn't want anyone to
share them. Well, you amaze me! I suppose you get a good deal of
practice in these things, and become a kind of amateur
father-confessor. I think of you at Cambridge as setting the lives of
young men spinning like little tops--small human teetotums. It's very
useful, but it is a little dangerous! I don't think you have suffered
as yet. That's what I like in you, Howard, the mixture of practical and
unpractical. You seem to me to be very busy, and yet to know where to
stop. Of course we can't make other people a present of experience;
they have to spin their own webs; but I think one can do a certain
amount in seeing that they have experience. It would not suit me; my
strength is to sit still, as the Bible says. But in a place like this
with Frank whipping his tops--he whips them, while you just twirl
them--someone is wanted who will listen to people, and see that they
are left alone. To leave people alone at the right minute is a very
great necessity. Don't you know those gardens that look as if they were
always being fussed and slashed and cut about? There's no sense of life
in them. One has to slash sometimes, and then leave it. I believe in
growth even more than in organisation. Still, I don't doubt that you
have helped Maud, and I am very glad of it. I wanted you to make
friends with her. I think the lack in your life is that you have known
so few women; men and women can never understand each other, of course;
but they have got to live together and work together; and one ought to
live with people whom one does not understand. You and