To the entranced amazement of a few loungers, she picked up her skirts in the prettiest way imaginable and immediately responded with a pas-seul of her own--her little feet nimble as ever, till the two met, laughing immoderately, in the middle of the highway just as the diligence hove in sight. CHAPTER IV HOME LIFE AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM These latter incidents occurred some time after 1873. When we got back to England after our Dresden wedding we took up our abode almost immediately in the old Adams house in Great Russell Street. The two rooms which Mr. Jameson sub-let to us were all that we could at first obtain above the Dispensary, but they were large and quite sufficient for the Bohemian life which was all that we could then afford; anyway no subsequent home of ours was pleasanter and nothing was ever again so little burthensome. At a long table by the door of the one large dwelling-room the old couple who had been our predecessor’s factotums served our meals; and around the handsome Adams chimney-piece at the other end, or in the panelled window-seats looking on the restful façade of the British Museum, we gathered Joe’s friends--they were all Joe’s friends--for a “pipe and a chat.” And what chats they were! James Sime, the historian, kindliest of men with his Teutonic philosophies and his deep Scottish sentiment and enthusiasm; Churton Collins richly capping his host’s poetical quotations and sometimes boldly challenged for an inaccuracy; W. Minto, afterwards Professor of Literature at Aberdeen, who was just starting his Editorship of _The Examiner_, and pressing Joe into the ranks of his contributors; Camille Barrère, now French Ambassador in Rome, but then a Communist refugee earning a living by London journalism, and of whose friendship and instruction in French Joe tells himself; Frederick Jameson and Beatty Kingston with their friends at piano and violin, to say nothing of the colleagues with whom my husband had just become associated in his work on _The Globe_ and of whom he again tells in his _Eminent Victorians_. Dare I recall the evening when my husband proudly named me to Minto as the writer of a little descriptive article which he had read in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the consequent suggestion that I should do the series of Italian sketches for _The Examiner_ which were afterwards reprinted in a volume with Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations. Of course I should never have done even as much without their kindly encouragement, but to the end of his life I think a good review of any small effort of mine pleased Joe far more than one on his own serious work. But I must admit criticism affected him little--never when it was adverse and, in fact, only when it showed real insight.