"Why,  Hugh,"  Maude  exclaimed,  "you  ought  to  have
been  a  writer ! "

"You've  only  just  begun  to  fathom  my  talents,"  I  replied
laughingly.  "Did  you  think  you'd  married  just  a  dry  old
lawyer?"

"I  believe  you  capable  of  anything,"  she  said.  .  ..
I  grew  more  and  more  to  depend  on  her  for  little  things.
246  A  FAR  COUNTRY

She  was  a  bom  housewife.  It  was  pleasant  to  have  her  do
all  the  packing,  while  I  read  or  sauntered  in  the  queer  streets
about  the  inns.  And  she  took  complete  charge  of  my  ward-
robe.
She  had  a  talent  for  drawing,  and  as  we  went  southward
through  England  she  made  sketches  of  the  various  houses
that  took  our  fancy  —  suggestions  for  future  home-building ;
we  spent  hours  in  the  evenings  in  the  inn  sitting-rooms
incorporating  new  features  into  our  residence,  continually
modifying  our  plans.  Now  it  was  a  Tudor  house  that  carried
us  away,  now  a  Jacobean,  and  again  an  early  Georgian  with
enfolding  wings  and  a  wrought-iron  grill.  A  stage  of  be-
wilderment succeeded.
Maude,  I  knew,  loved  the  cottages  best.  She  said  they
were  more  "homelike."  But  she  yielded  to  my  liking  for
grandeur.
"My,  I  should  feel  lost  in  a  palace  like  that!"  she  cried,
as  we  gazed  at  the  Marquis  of  So-and-So's  country-seat.
"Well,  of  course  we  should  have  to  modify  it,"  I  admitted.
