In these days at Eltham I learnt to know George Meredith very well, as I saw him almost every week when he came down to read to my aunt. The old lady did not like triangular conversation, so as soon as they were fairly launched in reading or conversation, I would gladly slip away to my own occupations. To Aunt Ben, Meredith appeared to be a very young man indeed, and in her gentle, high-bred way she loved to tease him about his very great appreciation of his own work--and person. Meredith took her gentle raillery absolutely in good part and would hold forth upon what the literary world "of all time" owed him in his books, and also upon what Lady This-or-that had said in admiration of his good looks at such-and-such a gathering. My aunt used to delight in these tales, which were delivered in the mock serious manner of a boy telling his mother of his prowess, real or imagined; and after a time of listening to him, with only her gently modulated little bursts of laughter to encourage him, she would say, "Oh, my dear Mr. Meredith, your conceit is as wonderful as your genius!"--bringing forth from him the protest, "My dear lady, no! But it is a pleasure to you to hear of my successes and to me to tell you of them." And so I would leave them to their playful badinage and reading. Meredith was very fond of his old friend, and always treated her with the chivalrous and rather elaborate courtesy that he well knew she delighted in. His weekly visits were a great pleasure to her, and although she would not {46} allow him to read anything modern and never anything of his own work, I think he must have enjoyed his reading and talk with this clever old lady, for often the stipulated two hours of the "classics and their discussion" lengthened into the three or four that caused him to miss all the most convenient trains home. One evening as I was going into the house I saw him standing on the terrace gazing after the retreating form of my little girl Carmen, then about six years old. As I came up he pointed at the stiff little back and said, "She was flying along like a fairy Atalanta when I caught her, and said, 'What is your name?' 'Miss Nothin'-at-all!' she replied, with such fierce dignity that I dropped her in alarm." I called the child to come back and speak politely to Mr. Meredith, but, to his amusement, was only rewarded by an airy wave of the hand as she fled down a by-path.