This reply caused some slight embarrassment, which Mr. Perry sought to dissipate by saying: "John Hardy has certainly received invitations from a good many ladies. No doubt he has a way with him." "It is quite time he asked for a key," said Mrs. Perry somewhat severely. "It is not fair on nice girls that he should go from one garden to another as he does. And it is very ill-bred to talk about them to others." "I didn't arst 'im abaht it," said Mr. Eppstein. "'Ask,' pet, not 'arst,'" whispered his wife. Mr. Eppstein accepted the correction. "I didn't ask him," he said. "I fancy he was upset like at getting the chuck, and wanted to sye somethink narsty." "Very likely that was it," said Mr. Perry, covering Mrs. Eppstein's further corrections. "Well, I am sure I hope Lady Grace and Sir Hugo will be happy together, and that it will end in his asking her for a key. He wants a wife, and a home of his own. Our friend, Sir Hugo, is employed in a large drapery establishment, Mr. Howard, where they have the system of living in. You don't know anything about that over the mountains." "And you don't know anything about my lady's garden, either," said Edward, leaning forward to address me across his sister. "I suppose you hardly understand what we have been talking about?" "I have gathered something of what it means," I said, glad to be able to avow my ignorance, for Miriam's benefit, "but I didn't know before. I suppose if a lady asks a man into her garden, it means that she--she likes him?" "She would not do it," said Mrs. Perry, "unless he had first shown that he liked _her_, and would be glad to have the invitation." "Rather a delicate subject for conversation at the dinner-table, isn't it?" put in Mr. Blother, from the carving-table, where he was slicing the salmon. "Why not let the men explain it when the ladies have left the room?" This suggestion was acceded to, and we talked on other subjects as long as the ladies were with us. Mrs. Eppstein seemed anxious that I should understand that, although she had married beneath her, she had not done it for fun, so to speak. She talked a great deal about lifting the richer classes, and her husband seemed quite to fall in with her views upon the subject. I noticed that as dinner progressed he drank considerably more wine than Edward did, though not so much as Mr. Perry, and was inclined to take a larger share in the conversation than at the beginning. The subject of the servants[25] was introduced over dessert, and Eppstein waxed eloquent and indignant at being expected to give up the use of his library after dinner, because the house-maid was reading up for matriculation at the Culbut University, and wanted a quiet room to work in.