This was the first really agreeable conversation I had had with Mrs. Menzies-Legh. I walked on alone for some miles, turning it over with pleasure. It was of course pleasant to reflect that I alone of the party had a beneficial influence over her whom her sister was entitled to describe as Betti; and it was also pleasant (though only what was to be expected) that I should exercise a good influence over the entire party. “Soothing” was Mrs. Menzies-Legh’s word. Well, what was happening was that these English people were being leavened hourly and ceaselessly with German yeast; and now that it had been put into so many words I did see that I soothed them, for I had observed that whenever I approached a knot of them, however loudly it had been laughing and talking it sank into a sudden calm--it was soothed, in fact--and presently dispersed about its various duties. But nothing occurred after this that day that was pleasant. I plodded along alone. Rain came down and mud increased, but still I plodded. It was pretended to me that we were unusually unlucky in the weather and that England does not as a rule have a summer of the sort; I, however, believe that it does, regularly every year, as a special punishment of Providence for its being there at all, or how should the thing be so very green? Mud and greenness, mud and greenness, that is all the place is made of, thought I, trudging between the wet hedges after an hour’s rain had set everything dripping. Stolidly I followed, at my horse’s side, whither the others led. In the rain we passed through villages which the ladies in every tone of childish enthusiasm cried out were delightful, Edelgard joining in, Edelgard indeed loudest, Edelgard in fact falling in love in the silliest way with every thatched and badly repaired cottage that happened to have a show of flowers in its garden, and saying--I heard her with my own ears--that she would like to live in one. What new affectation was this, I asked myself? Not one of our friends who would not (very properly) leave off visiting us if we looked as poor as thatch. To get and to keep friends the very least that you must have is a handsome sofa-set in a suitably sized drawing-room. Edelgard till then had been justly proud of hers, which cost a sum so round that it seems written in velvet letters all over it. It is made of the best of everything--wood, stuffing, covers, and springs, and has a really beautiful walnut-wood table in the middle, with its carved and shapely legs resting on a square of carpet so good that many a guest has exclaimed in tones of envy as her feet sank into it, “But dearest Baroness, where and how did you secure so truly glorious a carpet? It must have cost----!” And eyes and hands uplifted complete the sentence.