'If it were true,' added Ethelberta, smiling. 'But it is as false as--' She could name nothing notoriously false without raising an image of what was disagreeable, and she continued in a better manner: 'The story I was telling is entirely a fiction, which I am getting up for a particular purpose--very different from what appears at present.' 'I am sorry there was such a misunderstanding,' Christopher stammered, looking upon the ground uncertain and ashamed. 'Yet I am not, either, for I am very glad you have not undergone such trials, of course. But the fact is, I--being in the neighbourhood--I ventured to call on a matter of business, relating to a poem which I had the pleasure of setting to music at the beginning of the year.' Ethelberta was only a little less ill at ease than Christopher showed himself to be by this way of talking. 'Will you walk slowly on?' she said gently to the two young men, 'and take the children with you; this gentleman wishes to speak to me on business.' The biggest young man caught up a little one under his arm, and plunged amid the boughs; another little one lingered behind for a few moments to look shyly at Christopher, with an oblique manner of hiding her mouth against her shoulder and her eyes behind her pinafore. Then she vanished, the boy and the second young man followed, and Ethelberta and Christopher stood within the wood-bound circle alone. 'I hope I have caused no inconvenience by interrupting the proceedings,' said Christopher softly; 'but I so very much wished to see you!' 'Did you, indeed--really wish to see me?' she said gladly. 'Never mind inconvenience then; it is a word which seems shallow in meaning under the circumstances. I surely must say that a visit is to my advantage, must I not? I am not as I was, you see, and may receive as advantages what I used to consider as troubles.' 'Has your life really changed so much?' 'It has changed. But what I first meant was that an interesting visitor at a wrong time is better than a stupid one at a right time.' 'I had been behind the trees for some minutes, looking at you, and thinking of you; but what you were doing rather interrupted my first meditation. I had thought of a meeting in which we should continue our intercourse at the point at which it was broken off years ago, as if the omitted part had not existed at all; but something, I cannot tell what, has upset all that feeling, and--' 'I can soon tell you the meaning of my extraordinary performance,' Ethelberta broke in quickly, and with a little trepidation. 'My mother- in-law, Lady Petherwin, is dead; and she has left me nothing but her house and furniture in London--more than I deserve, but less than she had distinctly led me to expect; and so I am somewhat in a corner.' 'It is always so.'