Mrs. Talespinner’s husband, by his perpetual patience, good-humour, and large-mindedness, prevents his wife’s literary engrossment becoming domestically aggressive. Like all women, when they undertake any professional occupation, she is what one may call “shoppy.” She talks continually about her works in process of composition, and regards everything from the point of view of “copy.” Whenever she makes any new acquaintance who perhaps is not conversant with her literary fame, she soon insidiously alludes to her writings, and introduces quotations from them; and then her husband, who is something of a wag in his way, will seriously remark, “You may perhaps have gathered that my wife writes a little,” and then there will be a general laugh, and Mrs. Talespinner’s literary exuberance and self-advertisement will pass as humorous, and become a source of interest instead of boredom to her new acquaintances. And one special virtue of Mrs. Talespinner’s is that she is quite as open to good-humoured chaff as to criticism, and is as ready to laugh at herself as at any one else. She has the _fin-de-siècle_ lack of reverence, and will hold nothing sacred from a joke or a humorous analysis—not even the family dinner. Though she can order as good a dinner as any one of my acquaintance, and has the worldly wisdom to cultivate the constancy of an excellent cook by allowing her to be the autocrat of the kitchen, she sometimes takes it into her head to direct the tradesmen not to call for orders, as the ringing of bells disturbs her flow of thought. Then she quite forgets to send her directions until her husband comes home from the City and hungrily suggests dinner, which is consequently two or three hours late. But he, good-natured man, is quite satisfied to wait, so long as his wife has been content with her day’s work.