140 LETTERS TO MARCO xxi 



distributed. Is it possible it was the thoughts 

 of food that acted on her eyes, as I suppose 

 they do in the case of cats ? 



I daresay you remember that many of the 

 little children we used to paint from when 

 we were at Benson called themselves "love 

 children." " Please, sir, she's a love child." 

 Married women amongst the labouring classes 

 around here have sometimes one or two 

 illegitimate children by their husbands as 

 well as legitimate ones ; they speak of these 

 quite complacently as born in "lovelock," as 

 distinct from "wedlock." This rural im- 

 morality seems to me to smack a good deal 

 of the old mediaeval days when houses had 

 only one sleeping-room for all comers, as in 

 the days of Chaucer. I well remember 

 sleeping in a cottage in Warwickshire in 'a 

 room with only a curtain drawn between my 

 bed and another part of the room where my 

 host and his wife slept ; and I believe a good 

 deal of this sort of thing goes on still in 

 rough country lodgings. 



