“I used to take the train for Hampstead Heath or Willesden,” she told her brother, “and go off for long, lonely tramps to Finchley or Hendon. I have watched the builder’s progress along roads and lanes I loved. I have seen horrid brick boxes creeping along like some new kind of noxious insect, eating up fields and hedgerows, old hawthorns and old hollies. I could have sat down in the muddy road and cried sometimes, at the thought that soon there would be no country walk left within reach of a Londoner. Once I went off to the north-east, to look for the rural lanes Charles Lamb and his sister loved--the lanes and meadows where they carried their little picnic basket, till they took shelter at a homely inn. Oh, Martin, all those fields and lanes, Charles Lamb’s country--are going, going, or gone! It is heartbreaking! And they are building at Fowey, too, I see. Positively there will be no country anywhere soon. There will be crescents and terraces and little ugly streets at the very Land’s End, and the Logan Rock will be the sign of a public-house.” “Don’t be down-hearted, Chatterbox! I think Cornwall may last our time,” said Disney, laughing at her vehemence. Allegra was a great talker. It seemed as if she had a well-spring of joy and life within her which must find an outlet. When people ventured to hint at her loquacity she declared that her name was in fault. “I have grown up to match my name,” she said; “if I had been christened Penserosa I might have been quite a different person.” Her vivacity gave a new element of brightness to the Angler’s Rest, where Disney had been somewhat oppressed by the sensation of intense repose which had pervaded his _tête-à-tête_ life with Isola. He loved his wife so entirely, so unselfishly, and devotedly, that it was happiness to him to be with her; yet in the three or four weeks that had gone by since his return he had struggled in vain against the feeling that there was something wanting in his home. Isola waited upon him and deferred to him with more than wifely submissiveness. He would have liked a spurt of rebellion once in a way, a little burst of girlish temper, just to show that she was human; but none ever came. His every desire was anticipated. Whatever plan he suggested--to walk, to drive, to visit, or not to visit--the river or the sea--was always the plan that pleased her best, or at least she said so. “I think I shall call you Griselda instead of Isola,” he said one day, taking the fair pale face between his hands and gazing into the mournful depths of the dark violet eyes--inscrutable eyes they seemed to him, when the pupils dilated under his gaze, as if the eyes made a darkness to hide their meaning. “Why?” she asked. A flood of crimson passed over her face like a fire, and left her paler than before. “Because you are only too dutiful. Would you resist if I were to turn tyrant, I wonder?”