“Oh, yes, I have seen some of them,” said Mrs. Ambient, looking away, very far from me, rather as if such a vision were before her at the moment Something in her tone seemed to indicate that the vision was scarcely edifying, and I guessed very quickly that she was not in sympathy with the author of _Beltraffio_. I thought the fact strange, but, somehow, in the glow of my own enthusiasm, I did n’t think it important; it only made me wish to be rather explicit about that enthusiasm. “For me, you know,” I remarked, “he is quite the greatest of living writers.” “Of course I can’t judge. Of course he’s very clever,” said Mrs. Ambient, smiling a little. “He’s magnificent, Mrs. Ambient! There are pages in each of his books that have a perfection that classes them with the greatest things. Therefore, for me to see him in this familiar way,--in his habit as he lives,--and to find, apparently, the man as delightful as the artist, I can’t tell you how much too good to be true it seems, and how great a privilege I think it.” I knew that I was gushing, but I could n’t help it, and what I said was a good deal less than what I felt. I was by no means sure that I should dare to say even so much as this to Ambient himself, and there was a kind of rapture in speaking it out to his wife which was not affected by the fact that, as a wife, she appeared peculiar. She listened to me with her face grave again, and with her lips a little compressed, as if there were no doubt, of course, that her husband was remarkable, but at the same time she had heard all this before and couldn’t be expected to be particularly interested in it. There was even in her manner an intimation that I was rather young, and that people usually got over that sort of thing. “I assure you that for me this is a red-letter day,” I added. She made no response, until after a pause, looking round her, she said abruptly, though gently, “We are very much afraid about the fruit this year.” My eyes wandered to the mossy, mottled, garden walls, where plum-trees and pear-trees, flattened and fastened upon the rusty bricks, looked like crucified figures with many arms. “Does n’t it promise well?” I inquired. “No, the trees look very dull. We had such late frosts.” Then there was another pause. Mrs. Ambient kept her eyes fixed on the opposite end of the grounds, as if she were watching for her husband’s return with the child. “Is Mr. Ambient fond of gardening?” it occurred to me to inquire, irresistibly impelled as I felt myself, moreover, to bring the conversation constantly back to him. “He’s very fond of plums,” said his wife. “Ah, well then, I hope your crop will be better than you fear. It’s a lovely old place,” I continued. “The whole character of it is that of certain places that he describes. Your house is like one of his pictures.” “It’s a pleasant little place. There are hundreds like it”