Another duty had devolved upon her also: that of answering the passionate letters that her husband received by every post from all parts of the world--especially America--and which he could never be induced to answer himself. Every morning regularly he would begin his day's work by writing "Yours truly--B. Josselin" on quite a score of square bits of paper, to be sent through the post to fair English and American autograph collectors who forwarded stamped envelopes, and sometimes photographs of themselves, that he might study the features of those who loved him at a respectful distance, and who so frankly told their love; all of which bored Barty to extinction, and was a source of endless amusement to his wife. But even _she_ was annoyed when a large unstamped or insufficiently stamped parcel arrived by post from America, enclosing a photograph of her husband to which his signature was desired, and containing no stamps to frank it on its return journey! And the photographers he had to sit to! and the interviewers, male and female, to whom he had to deny himself! Life was too short! How often has a sturdy laborer or artisan come up to him, as he and I walked together, with: "I should very much like to shake you by the hand, Mr. Josselin, if I might make so bold, sir!" And such an appeal as this would please him far more than the most fervently written outpourings of the female hearts he had touched. They, of course, received endless invitations to stay at country-houses all over the United Kingdom, where they might have been lionized to their hearts' content, if such had been their wish; but these they never accepted. They never spent a single night away from their own house till most of their children were grown up--or ever wanted to; and every year they got less and less into the way of dining out, or spending the evening from home--and I don't wonder; no gayer or jollier home ever was than that they made for themselves, and each other, and their intimate friends; not even at Cornelys's, next door, was better music to be heard; for Barty was friends with all the music-makers, English and foreign, who cater for us in and out of the season; even _they_ read his books, and understood them; and they sang and played better for Barty--and for Cornelys, next door--than even for the music-loving multitude who filled their pockets with British gold. And the difference between Barty's house and that of Cornelys was that at the former the gatherings were smaller and more intimate--as became the smaller house--and one was happier there in consequence. Barty gave himself up entirely to his writing, and left everything else to his wife, or to me, or to Scatcherd. She was really a mother to him, as well as a passionately loving and devoted helpmeet.