"I dare say. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out of doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches, and come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better for you than moping in your rook tower, and hating everything." "It is rather lonely down there," I murmured apologetically, feeling that Miss Lammas was quite right. "Then marry, and quarrel with your wife," she laughed. "Anything is better than being alone." "I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You can try it. You will find it quite impossible." "Will you let me try?" she asked, still smiling. "By all means--especially if it is to be only a preliminary canter," I answered rashly. "What do you mean?" she enquired, turning quickly upon me. "Oh--nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarrelling in the future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will have to resort to immediate and direct abuse." "No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your own fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or of the hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell? Are you poor, like--lots of people? Have you been crossed in love? Have you lost the world for a woman, or any particular woman for the sake of the world? Are you feebleminded, a cripple, an outcast? Are you--repulsively ugly?" She laughed again. "Is there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have got in life?" "No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully unlucky, especially in small things." "Then try big things, just for a change," suggested Miss Lammas. "Try and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out." "If it turned out badly, it would be rather serious." "Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be abused. Abuse the Conservatives--or the Liberals--it does not matter which, since they are always abusing each other. Make yourself felt by other people. You will like it, if they don't. It will make a man of you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl at the sea, if you cannot do anything else. It did Demosthenes no end of good, you know. You will have the satisfaction of imitating a great man." "Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you propose--" "Very well--if you don't care for that sort of thing, care for some other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don't be idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of noise answers nearly as well." "I do care for something--I mean somebody," I said. "A woman? Then marry her. Don't hesitate." "I do not know whether she would marry me," I replied. "I have never asked her."