As I sometimes chatted to Mr. Meredith on his way through the grounds to the station, he would tell me of "that blessed woman," as he used to call his (second) wife, already then dead, and of how he missed her kind and always sympathetic presence on his return home and in his work. Sometimes the handsome head would droop, and I thought he looked careworn and sad as he spoke of her, and in doing so he lost for the moment all the mannerisms and "effectiveness" which were sometimes rather wearisome in him. As my aunt grew very old she--in the last few years of her life--became unequal to listening and talking to her "gentlemen readers," and to me she deputed the task of telling them so. In the case of George Meredith it was rather painful to me, as I feared the loss of the £300 a year my aunt had so long paid him for his {47} weekly visits might be a serious one to him. But he, too, had aged in all these years, and perhaps his visits to his old friend were becoming rather irksome to him in their regularity. Curiously enough, I shared my aunt's inability to enjoy his work, and to the last I met his mocking inquiry as to my "progress in literature" (i.e. his novels) by a deprecating "Only 'Richard Feverel.'" The house my aunt bought for me was just across her park, and she had a gate made in the park fence so that I might go backwards and forwards to her house more quickly. My house was a comfortable villa with the usual little "front garden" and larger one in the rear. There were excellent stables at the end of this garden. The house, "Wonersh Lodge," had the usual dining-room and drawing-room, with two other sitting-rooms opening severally into the garden, and a large conservatory, which I afterwards made over to Mr. Parnell for his own use. My aunt furnished the house, and we were most comfortable, while my children rejoiced in having the run of the park and grounds after the restraint of town life. Willie was very much in London now, and occupied himself in getting up a company to develop some mining business in Spain. He always drew up a prospectus excellently; on reading it one could hardly help believing--as he invariably did--that here at last was the golden opportunity of speculators. Some influential men put into the Spanish venture sums varying from £1,000 to £10,000. Our old friend Christopher Weguelin took great interest in it, and eventually Willie was offered the post of manager, at La Mines, at a good salary. It was a very acceptable post to Willie, as he loved the life in foreign countries. There was a very good house, and he had it planted round with eucalyptus trees to keep off the {48} fever so prevalent there, and from which the men working the mines suffered greatly. Willie was, however, immune to fever, and never had it. He was away in Spain for over eighteen months this time, and did not come home at all during the period.