“Young men must be a great worry in a house,” said Mrs. Mince, sympathetically. Mrs. Marjoy twitched her shoulders. “They are so abominably selfish,” she said. The doctor appeared at this period of the conversation, a kindly and easy-going Briton, artificially cheery and optimistic. He shook hands with Mrs. Mince and sat down on the extreme edge of a chair. His wife gave him the dregs of the teapot, and remarked that he was late. “Met young Strong in the village and had a chat,” he ventured, by way of justification. “Bright young chap; a little too bookish, though.” Mrs. Marjoy sniffed. “The rising generation reads too much,” she said. “Do you remember Bailey, who was always reading novels on a Sunday till I gave him a talking to and he left?” Mr. Marjoy sipped his tea and sighed. He was a suppressed soul, a Prometheus bound upon the rock of matrimony. “Bailey was not half a bad chap,” he said, meekly. Mrs. Marjoy ignored the remark. “What’s Grimes doing?” she asked. “He has been seeing folk all the afternoon.” “James, I believe that fellow’s running after that Ginge girl like Snooks did. I won’t have it, mind. I can never catch Grimes in the surgery. What the man does with himself I can’t think.” “Grimes is all right,” said the doctor. “I must say I like young Strong.” “A prig, my dear—an arrant prig.” The doctor did not contradict her. He had grown wise in season and took his chastenings with reverent patience. It was not his ambition to out-talk his wife. “You take my word for it,” said Mrs. Marjoy, with acrimony, “there will be a scandal here soon. That young Strong is a most dissolute youth; and as for the Gusset girl—well, I will be charitable and conceal my thoughts. I always try to say kind things of people, when they will let me do so by leading decent and respectable lives.” “My dear,” said Mrs. Mince, “you are a model of tact. By-the-way, I hear the church-bell. I must attend vespers. Are you coming to hear Jacob preach?” “I will get my prayer-book,” said the doctor’s dame. VI PERILOUS and fair as Calypso is the imagination to the mind of man. A strong soul girds the elf in tender subjection. Like wine, the imagination fires the senses; they are saffron spray bubbling in an iris bowl, red poppies smothered in an ecstasy of green, stars, diamonds, and the long glimmer of a moonlit sea. Odors beat upon the imaginative brain; colors burn its vision. Like a siren’s voice falls the chant of the wind through the rose-red halls of summer. To the poet the world leaps like a young lover into the bosom of the sunset. Seas clamor and the stars tune their strings.