She herself never disclosed to anybody what was in her inmost heart. She had a smile for them all. The only matter in which she stood for her own way was that question of going to Scotland--not there, not there! but anywhere else--anything else. She fell into a sort of _petite santé_ during these years. She said she was not ill--not ill at all, only languid and lazy; but gradually fell into the quiescent condition which might be appropriate to a mother of seventy, but not to one of forty. Tom and Janet did not see much difference between these ages, and as for Beaufort, the subdued and gentle charm of his wife’s character was quite appropriate to a cessation from active ventures. He liked her better almost upon her sofa, or taking a quiet walk through the garden leaning upon his arm, her wishes all confined within that peaceful enclosure, happy to watch the moon rise and the sun set, and apparently caring for nothing more. He talked to her of the light and shade, the breadth of the quiet soft landscape, the stars in the sky, or about the new books, and sometimes what was going on--everything he would have said. They were spectators of the uneasy world, which rolled on as if they were outside of it in some little Paradise of their own, watching how men ‘play such pranks before high heaven as make the angels weep.’ He was fond of commenting on all this, on the futility of effort, on the way in which people flung themselves against the impossible, trying to do what no man could ever do, to affect the movement of the spheres. He would smile at statesmen and philanthropists, and all kinds of restless people, from his little throne on the lawn, looking out over the peaceful landscape. And Lady Car would respond with a smile, with a glance that often lingered upon him as he talked, and in which he sometimes felt there was something which he did not quite understand. But what could that be--that something that he did not understand? He understood most things, and talked beautifully. He was the most perfect gentleman; his every tone, his every thought was full of refinement. And Lady Car was well pleased, who could doubt? to lie back in her deep chair and listen. What happiness could a woman--a woman no longer young, not in very good health, an idealist, a minor poet--what could she desire more?