Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/168

 duction. Then you could write a series of articles about them for the 'Journal,' half critical and half biographical. You can make them slightly funny if you do it so subtly that no one but you and I know it, and I'd like a careless sketch-book picture of each, or a drawing of the house. They'll treat you very nicely, invite you to have tea, and ask whether or not the Indians are bothersome in your part of the States. You will flatter them sagaciously and listen to their stories, and if they tell you that your land is uncultured, you will not go to the mat with them over it. Of course, you must be well up on their works.'

'Whom shall I see?'

'The Brownings first, if you sail direct to Italy. Perhaps you haven't heard of Mr. Browning. He is Elizabeth Barrett's husband, and a coming man, in his own devious way. Then, of course, England.'

'England!' Her heart stood still, and she thought of Anthony Jones.

'Yes, of course. Tennyson and Dickens, and Harriet Martineau and Maria Champion and Thackeray surely, and a dozen others. We'll pay part of your expenses.'

He laughed at the pleasure he saw awaken in her face that had of late been so thoughtful, perhaps a little sad. It was not her mother's death; though she had evidently felt this keenly, something had happened earlier. For some reason her days of storm and stress had come upon her and because he, in a more passionate decade of his life, had also known these pains, he sympathized with her. Why they had come