speeches. I cannot remember if Morris spoke in the debate, but when the parliamentarian resolution was eventually voted down about nine in the evening, he rose and made a deeply earnest appeal for unity and good-will all round. Mrs. Morris had expressed misgivings lest he should lose his temper at the Conference. He had promised her, however, that he would really behave himself and be a model 'good boy,' and he unquestionably kept his word—though, as he admitted, not without difficulty at times.
On our homeward journey he was in high spirits, partly as a reaction from the strain of the long day's wrangling and his self-repression, and partly because, as he said, 'the damned business was over at least for another year.' At supper table he requested May Morris and myself to bear testimony to Mrs. Morris that he had 'never once lost his temper or said a choleric word.' Mrs. Morris expressed herself as very glad of it.
Morris and the rest of our male selves sat up till midnight in the library, chatting over the events of the day and considering how to improve the propaganda work of the League. When the others had gone, Morris proposed that he should accompany me to my bedroom and read a bit of 'Huckleberry Finn' to me before going to sleep. 'It will get the nasty taste of to-day's squabbling out of our minds,' he said. Needless to say I welcomed the proposal gladly, not dreaming what a tempestuous experience it was going to bring upon me.
Closing the bedroom door, and seating himself by the large candle on the dressing-table, Morris began turning over the leaves of the book in order to select a chapter to begin with. Having fixed upon a page, he was about to start off reading when he said abruptly: 'By the way, I forgot to ask you about your visit to the New Gallery Exhibition yesterday afternoon. What did you think of the Burne-Jones' pictures?'
Now the fact was that in those days I knew very little
