It was amusing to watch George Meredith on his excursion from the front door to the dressing-room at the foot of the stairs, where my aunt kept three pairs of slippers for the use of her "gentlemen readers" lest their boots should soil the carpets. To reach this little room he had--if in a good mood and conforming to his old friend's regulations--to walk straight ahead past the room, and make a detour round a pillar of (imitation) green marble and a table, back to the door. On days of rebellion against these forms and ceremonies he would hesitate for {44} a moment just inside the door, and, with a reckless uplifting of his head, begin a hasty stride across the sacred places; a stride which became an agitated tip-toeing under the scandalized gaze of the footman. Before he began to read to my aunt the following dialogue invariably took place:-- "Now, my dear lady, I will read you something of my own." "Indeed, my dear Mr. Meredith, I cannot comprehend your works." "I will explain my meaning, dear Mrs. Wood." "You are prodigiously kind, dear Mr. Meredith, but I should prefer Molière to-day." While Willie and I were still living in London we went down one day to see a furnished house we wished to rent for a few weeks, and, remembering my Aunt Ben's injunction to convey her "felicitations to her dear Mr. Meredith," we called on him. I had not before met George Meredith, and had only read one of his works--and that "behind the door" when I was very young, owing to some belated scruple of my elders. I remember, as we neared the house, asking Willie the names of Meredith's other works, so that I might be ready primed with intelligent interest, and Willie's sarcastic little smile, as he mentioned one or two, adding, "You need not worry yourself; Meredith will soon enlighten us as to his books. They say it's the one thing he ever talks about." But we spent a delightful afternoon with Mr. Meredith, who showed us all his literary treasures and the little house at the end of the garden where he wrote. While we sat in the lovely little garden drinking tea our host descanted on the exquisite haze of heat that threw soft shadows about the house and gave the great trees {45} in the background the appearance of an enchanted forest. George Meredith was "reader" to Chapman and Hall in those days, and he spoke to me appreciatively of the work of my mother and sister, who published with Chapman and Hall.