“Meredith of course,” said Mrs. Fisher rather shortly. “I remember a particular week-end”—she continued. “My father often took me, but I always remember this week-end particularly—” “Did you know Keats?” eagerly interrupted Mrs. Wilkins. Mrs. Fisher, after a pause, said with sub-acid reserve that she had been unacquainted with both Keats and Shakespeare. “Oh of course—how ridiculous of me!” cried Mrs. Wilkins, flushing scarlet. “It’s because”—she floundered—“it’s because the immortals somehow still seem alive, don’t they—as if they were here, going to walk into the room in another minute—and one forgets they are dead. In fact one knows perfectly well that they’re not dead—not nearly so dead as you and I even now,” she assured Mrs. Fisher, who observed her over the top of her glasses. “I thought I _saw_ Keats the other day,” Mrs. Wilkins incoherently proceeded, driven on by Mrs. Fisher’s look over the top of her glasses. “In Hampstead—crossing the road in front of that house—you know—the house where he lived—” Mrs. Arbuthnot said they must be going. Mrs. Fisher did nothing to prevent them. “I _really_ thought I saw him,” protested Mrs. Wilkins, appealing for belief first to one and then to the other while waves of colour passed over her face, and totally unable to stop because of Mrs. Fisher’s glasses and the steady eyes looking at her over their tops. “I believe I _did_ see him—he was dressed in a—” Even Mrs. Arbuthnot looked at her now, and in her gentlest voice said they would be late for lunch. It was at this point that Mrs. Fisher asked for references. She had no wish to find herself shut up for four weeks with somebody who saw things. It is true that there were three sitting-rooms, besides the garden and the battlements at San Salvatore, so that there would be opportunities of withdrawal from Mrs. Wilkins; but it would be disagreeable to Mrs. Fisher, for instance, if Mrs. Wilkins were suddenly to assert that she saw Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher was dead; let him remain so. She had no wish to be told he was walking about the garden. The only reference she really wanted, for she was much too old and firmly seated in her place in the world for questionable associates to matter to her, was one with regard to Mrs. Wilkins’s health. Was her health quite normal? Was she an ordinary, everyday, sensible woman? Mrs. Fisher felt that if she were given even one address she would be able to find out what she needed. So she asked for references, and her visitors appeared to be so much taken aback—Mrs. Wilkins, indeed, was instantly sobered—that she added, “It is usual.” Mrs. Wilkins found her speech first. “But,” she said, “aren’t we the ones who ought to ask for some from you?” And this seemed to Mrs. Arbuthnot too the right attitude. Surely it was they who were taking Mrs. Fisher into their party, and not Mrs. Fisher who was taking them into it?