‘It makes me think badly of everybody,’ she declared once to her husband, when he had languidly suggested her ‘turning up’ at the Oaks. ‘I begin to wonder what was the use of Christ dying on the cross to redeem such greedy, foolish folk. I don’t want to despise my fellow-creatures, but I’m obliged to do it when I go to a race. So it’s better I should stay at home and write, and try to think of them all as well as I can.’ And she did stay at home very contentedly; and when he was absent with a party of his own particular ‘friends,’ dispensing to them the elegant luncheon and champagne which her work had paid for, she was either busy with some fresh piece of literary labour, or else taking her sweet presence into the houses of the poor and suffering, and bringing relief, hope and cheerfulness, wherever she went. And on the morning when the sunshine placed a crown on her head, and hurled a javelin of light full in the cold eyes of the marble Antinous, she was in one of her brightest, most radiant moods, satisfied with her lot, grateful for the blessings which she considered were so numerous, and as unconscious as ever that there was anything upside down in the arrangement which had resulted in her being obliged to ‘love, honour, obey,’ keep, and clothe, six feet of beautiful man, by her own unassisted toil, while the said six feet of beautiful man did nothing but enjoy himself. The quaint ‘Empire’ clock, shaped as a world, with a little god of love pointing to the hours numbered on its surface, chimed two from its golden bracket on the wall before she laid down her pen for the day. Then, rising, she stretched her fair, rounded arms above her head, and smiled at the daffodils in the vase close by—bright flowers which seemed fully conscious of the sunshine in that smile. Anon, she moved into the deep embrasure of her wide lattice window, where, stretched out at full length, lay a huge dog of the St Bernard breed, winking lazily with one honest brown eye at the sunbeams that danced about him. ‘Oh, Spartan, you lazy fellow!’ she said, putting her small foot on his rough, brown body, ‘aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ Spartan sighed, and considered the question for a moment, then raised his noble head and kissed the point of his mistress’s broidered shoe. ‘It’s lunch-time, Spartan,’ continued Delicia, stooping down to pat him tenderly. ‘Will master be home to luncheon, or not, Spartan? I’m afraid not, old boy. What do you think about it?’ This inquiry roused Spartan to an attitude of attention. He got up, sat on his big haunches, and yawned profoundly; then he appeared to meditate, conveying into his fine physiognomy an expression of deep calculation that was almost human. ‘No, Spartan,’ went on Delicia, dropping on one knee and putting her arm round him, ‘we mustn’t expect it. We generally lunch alone, and we’ll go and get what the gods have provided for us in the dining-room, at once—shall we?’