since given up these things. Don't you
think it is a pity to make a pastime of an art? I soon saw that I was never
likely really to do anything in music or drawing, and out of respect for them I
ceased to - to potter. Please don't think I apply that word to you.«
    »Oh, but it is very applicable,« replied Cecily, with a laugh. »I think you
are quite right; I often enough have the same feeling. But I am full of
inconsistencies - as you are finding out, I know.«
    Mrs. Lessingham displayed good nature in her intercourse with the Denyers.
She smiled in private, and of course breathed to Cecily a word of warning; but
the family entertained her, and Madeline she came really to like. With Mrs.
Denyer she compared notes on the Italy of other days.
    »A sad, sad change!« Mrs. Denyer was wont to sigh. »All the poetry gone!
Think of Rome before 1870, and what it is now becoming. One never looked for
intellect in Italy - living intellect, of course, I mean - but natural poetry
one did expect and find. It is heart-breaking, this progress! If it were not for
my dear girls, I shouldn't be here; they adore Italy - of course, never having
known it as it was. And I am sure you must feel, as I do, Mrs. Lessingham, the
miserable results of cheapened travel. Oh, the people one sees at
railway-stations, even meets in hotels, I am sorry to say, sometimes! In a few
years, I do believe, Genoa and Venice will strongly remind one of Margate.«
    No echo of the cry of Wolf! ever sounded in Mrs. Denyer's conversation when
she spoke of her husband. That Odysseus of commerce was always referred to as
being concerned in enterprises of mysterious importance and magnitude; she would
hint that he had political missions, naturally not to be spoken of in plain
terms. Mrs. Lessingham often wondered with a smile what the truth really was;
she saw no reason for making conjectures of a disagreeable kind, but it was
pretty clear to her that selfishness, idleness, and vanity were at the root of
Mrs. Denyer's character, and in a measure explained the position of the family.
    During the last few days, Barbara had exhibited a revival of interest in the
place in Lincolnshire. Her experiments proved that it needed but a moderate
ingenuity to make Mr. Musselwhite