When we were staying with my father, of whom he was particularly fond, he would always sit by him at meals. My father kept very open house, and intimates used to flock in at meal-times. Sometimes, when he would be in a full flow of spirits and gaiety, some outsider would walk in. He would stop suddenly, and his face become like a mask, and my father at first used to ask me, "What is the matter? Is Dick offended? Doesn't he like So-and-so?" and I said, "Oh no; that is his usual habit when a stranger comes in, and he will be like that until he knows him; and if he does not like him he will be always like that to him, and if he is nice he will thaw." He seemed to have a horror of any one seeing the inside of him, and if he was caught saying or doing anything good, he would actually blush, and hide it as if he had been caught committing a crime. In married life we quite agreed about most things, and one was that complete liberty took off all the galling chain, popularly attributed by men to the monotony, dreary respectability, and conventionality of the usual British home circle, which frightens so many men from entering into matrimony, and which forms the antidote to the cosiness, companionship, and security of home, to two people who understand each other; consequently, whenever he showed a tendency to wander, and to go without me, though I was overjoyed when I was told I might go, I never restricted him. I provided every imaginable comfort for him; I transacted all his business at home, so that he might feel that he had left his second self, that nothing would go amiss when he was away. When he returned, he got a warm and joyous welcome, and was asked no questions. He told me what he liked, at his own sweet will, and I knew that he always returned to me with pleasure. He smoked where he liked, he brought whoever he liked into the house, his friends were always welcome, and he knew he need never be ashamed or afraid to ask anybody in to lunch or dinner; in short, his home was his own, and it was comfortable. On my part, I never wanted to go away from him for an hour; but when he sent me, as he often did, on various business for him, I went. But I am glad to think, now that he has gone, that after my business was terminated, no amount of pleasure or engagements, or a need to rest, ever held me back one hour when I might have been with him. I was always on board, or in the train, two hours after the work, whatever it was, was done, but I am equally sure that if I had said to him, "Jemmy, I am hipped, or I am bored, or I want a change," he would have told me to pack up my things and to go off for a week or a fortnight to Paris or London, or anywhere else I liked.