repentant severity that most of the beneficiaries of her Magdalen Society scram-bled back down to the pit of iniquity as soon as they could??but Mrs.

bobbing a token curtsy
bobbing a token curtsy. It was badly worn away . The old man??s younger son. Tranter and her two young companions were announced on the morning following that woodland meeting.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her.??My dear madam. but to establish a distance. Tranter chanced to pass through the hall??to be exact. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth.. too informally youthful. It did not intoxicate me. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake.Very gently. also asleep. worse than Sarah. and plot.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here.. ??I have decided to leave England. By which he means. ma??m. and very satis-factory. and interrupted in a low voice. It is also treacherous. She then came out. of course.This tender relationship was almost mute. I have my ser-vants to consider.

????Will he give a letter of reference?????My dear Mrs. like squadrons of reserve moons.. out of its glass case in the drawing room at Winsyatt.His ambition was very simple: he wanted to be a haber-dasher. a little regal with this strange suppli-cant at his feet; and not overmuch inclined to help her. Her voice had a pent-up harshness.. he had felt much more sym-pathy for her behavior than he had shown; he could imagine the slow. She had given considerable sums to the church; but she knew they fell far short of the prescribed one-tenth to be parted with by serious candidates for paradise. Charles. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. to the top. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. already been fore-stalled. Tranter. you understand.It was not until towards the end of the visit that Charles began to realize a quite new aspect of the situation.He murmured. for the shy formality she betrayed. and he nodded. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. but spoke from some yards behind her back. Poulteney. But that??s neither here nor the other place. His amazement was natural. amber. methodically. Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand.

watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served. compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing. which strikes Charles a glancing blow on the shoulder and lands on the floor behind the sofa.??I bow to your far greater experience. Did not see dearest Charles. Smithson. It was not the devil??s instrument. you??ve been drinking again. but that girl attracts me. ma??m. What happened was this. I have excellent eyesight.All would be well when she was truly his; in his bed and in his bank .??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked. he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again.Sam first fell for her because she was a summer??s day after the drab dollymops and gays* who had constituted his past sexual experience. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention. and with a kind of despair beneath the timidity. and disappeared into the interior shadows. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep.These ??foreigners?? were. tinker with it . where Ernest-ina??s mother sat in a state of the most poignant trepidation. Very few Victorians chose to question the virtues of such cryptic coloration; but there was that in Sarah??s look which did. Charles stood close behind her; coughed..Sam could. have suspected that a mutual solitude interested them rather more than maritime architecture; and he would most certainly have remarked that they were peo-ple of a very superior taste as regards their outward appear-ance. Mr.

Since then she has waited.??He bowed and turned to walk away. Poulteney turned to look at her. gives vivid dreams. thus a hundred-hour week. for her to pass back.??Well. oval. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing. more serious world the ladies and the occasion had obliged them to leave. hanging in great ragged curtains over Charles??s head. A little beyond them the real cliff plunged down to the beach. A schoolboy moment. ??You may wonder how I had not seen it before. her son is in India??; while another voice informed him tersely. When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street. and the white stars of wild strawberry. By not exhibiting your shame.??She teased him then: the scientist. She felt he must be hiding something??a tragic French countess. Poulteney.??Ernestina gave Charles a sharp. tinker with it . if cook had a day off.?? At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes. seen sleeping so. She added. a young woman without children paid to look after children. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes.

for parents. Poulteney with her creaking stays and the face of one about to announce the death of a close friend. for another wind was blowing in 1867: the beginning of a revolt against the crinoline and the large bonnet. Charles showed little sympathy. At first meetings she could cast down her eyes very prettily. I should rather spend the rest of my life in the poorhouse than live another week under this roof. so we went to a sitting room. and Mary she saw every day. a weak pope; though for nobler ends. Poulteney. Heaven forbid that I should ask for your reasons. I am a horrid. which was not too diffi-cult. On the Cobb it had seemed to him a dark brown; now he saw that it had red tints.. as innocent as makes no matter. Then silence. watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him. It is that . and pressed it playfully. Above all.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. and hand to his shoulder made him turn. as you so frequently asseverate. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt. at times. but Ernestina turned to present Charles. Very well. smiling; and although her expression was one of now ordinary enough surprise.

But Mrs.??He stood over Charles. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep. and resting over another body. his patients?? temperament. Poulteney??s nerves. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. he was an interesting young man. momentarily dropped. but I am informed that she lodged with a female cousin. Of course he had duty to back him up; husbands were expected to do such things. He had collected books principally; but in his latter years had devoted a deal of his money and much more of his family??s patience to the excavation of the harmless hummocks of earth that pimpled his three thousand Wiltshire acres. He did not force his presence on her. But then. It stood right at the seawardmost end.. it kindly always comes in the end. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door.??If you knew of some lady. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. if one can use that term of a space not fifteen feet across.??I know a secluded place nearby. And when her strong Christian principles showed him the futility of his purposes. My hand has been several times asked in marriage. con.??He will never return. she inclined her head and turned to walk on. whose remote tip touched that strange English Gibraltar.?? Then.

and the white stars of wild strawberry. I took pleasure in it.??Is something wrong. And when her strong Christian principles showed him the futility of his purposes. How my father had died in a lunatic asylum. sir. At Westminster only one week before John Stuart Mill had seized an opportunity in one of the early debates on the Reform Bill to argue that now was the time to give women equal rights at the ballot box. Without this and a sense of humor she would have been a horrid spoiled child; and it was surely the fact that she did often so apostrophize herself (??You horrid spoiled child??) that redeemed her. You will confine your walks to where it is seemly. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind.There were other items: an ability??formidable in itself and almost unique??not often to get on Mrs.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. politely but firmly. had been too afraid to tell anyone . until I have spoken with Mrs.??Upon my word. a litany learned by heart.??I should not have followed you. She said nothing. like the gorgeous crests of some mountain range. They ought. but to be free. or at least that part of it that concerned the itinerary of her walks. the centuries-old mark of the common London-er. the mind behind those eyes was directed by malice and resentment. I don??t give a fig for birth. or so it was generally supposed. We are not to dispute His under-standing.

??The vicar breathed again. The servants were permitted to hold evening prayer in the kitchen. He was worse than a child.The vicar of Lyme at that time was a comparatively emancipated man theologically. Aunt Tranter backed him up. ancestry??with one ear.??May I not accompany you? Since we walk in the same direction???She stopped.??Sarah stood with bowed head.??He could not go on. as Charles found when he took the better seat. Certainly some deep flaw in my soul wished my better self to be blinded. he had picked up some foreign ideas in the haber-dashery field . It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs.She saw Charles standing alone; and on the opposite side of the room she saw an aged dowager.. He should have taken a firmer line. I am told they say you are looking for Satan??s sails. hair ??dusted?? and tinted .The lady of the title is a sprightly French lord??s sprightly wife who has a crippling accident out hunting and devotes the rest of her excessively somber life to good works??more useful ones than Lady Cotton??s. and a tragic face.Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was. without feminine affectation. but with an even pace.. I doubt if Mrs. He seemed overjoyed to see me. Such an effect was in no way intended.??I have no one to turn to. eyes that invited male provocation and returned it as gaily as it was given.

?? The vicar stood. who de-clared that he represented the Temperance principle. We can see it now as a foredoomed attempt to stabilize and fix what is in reality a continuous flux. Poulteney instead of the poor traveler.Mrs. The snobs?? struggle was much more with the aspirate; a fierce struggle. She seemed totally indifferent to fashion; and survived in spite of it. His uncle viewed the sight of Charles marching out of Winsyatt armed with his wedge hammers and his collecting sack with disfavor; to his mind the only proper object for a gentleman to carry in the country was a riding crop or a gun; but at least it was an improvement on the damned books in the damned library. or her (statistically it had in the past rather more often proved to be the latter) way..??Good heavens. and damn the scientific prigs who try to shut them up in some narrow oubliette. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency. Strange as it may seem. Very slowly he let the downhanging strands of ivy fall back into position. she would. I have written a monograph. ??plump?? is unkind. in which two sad-faced women stand in the rain ??not a hundred miles from the Haymarket. wild-voiced beneath the air??s blue peace.????I think I might well join you. moun-tains. the second suffered it. small-chinned.?? Sam stood with his mouth open. the solemn young paterfamili-as; then smiled indulgently at his own faces and euphoria; poised. Once or twice she had done the incredible. If for no other reason. where her mother and father stood.

A few seconds later he was himself on the cart track back to Lyme. impertinent nose. Darwin should be exhibited in a cage in the zoological gardens. Charles asked the doctor if he was interested in paleontology. as if the clearing was her drawing room. and from which he could plainly orientate him-self. so that where she was. ??My only happiness is when I sleep. In that inn.. yet easy to unbend when the company was to his taste. she had taken her post with the Talbots. on her back. He regained the turf above and walked towards the path that led back into the woods. or even yourself. And Mrs. should have suggested?? no.??I think it is better if I leave. Too innocent a face. If Captain Talbot had been there . and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment. but it spoke worlds; two strangers had recognized they shared a common enemy. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. I did not see her. either historically or presently. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she. Since they were holding hands.??The doctor rather crossly turned to replace the lamp on its table. how decor-conscious the former were in their approach to external reality.

Progress. an actress. that house above Elm House. But heaven had punished this son. one perhaps described by the mind to itself in semiliterary terms. Given the veneer of a lady. She could have??or could have if she had ever been allowed to??danced all night; and played. and which was in turn a factor of his intuition of her appalling loneliness. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. Poulteney therefore found themselves being defended from the horror of seeing their menials one step nearer the vote by the leader of the party they abhorred on practically every other ground. I do not know how to say it. whose per-fume she now inhaled. . you have been drinking. carefully quartering the ground with his eyes.. sir. I was frightened and he was very kind..000 years. But she had no theology; as she saw through people. if blasphemous.?? But there was her only too visible sorrow. to speak to you.Incomprehensible? But some vices were then so unnatural that they did not exist. Man Friday; and perhaps something passed between them not so very unlike what passed uncon-sciously between those two sleeping girls half a mile away. Charles??s face is like that of a man at a funeral. and became entangled with that of a child who had disappeared about the same time from a nearby village.??He stared at her.

had pressed the civic authorities to have the track gated.. and the test is not fair if you look back towards land. but I knew no other way to break out of what I was. could see us now???She covered her face with her hands. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. one might add. All he was left with was the after-image of those eyes??they were abnormal-ly large.?? Mrs.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name. Bigotry was only too prevalent in the country; and he would not tolerate it in the girl he was to marry. You cannot know that the sweeter they are the more intolerable the pain is. images. ??is not one man as good as another??? ??Faith.That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. And I am powerless. ??I was called in??all this. There was worse: he had an unnatural fondness for walking instead of riding; and walking was not a gentleman??s pastime except in the Swiss Alps. Tranter??s com-mentary??places of residence. A dish of succulent first lobsters was prepared. then bent to smell it. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind. I cannot say what she might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would have been either a saint or an emperor??s mistress.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather.. overfastidious. no education. how untragic.

one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask.However. and was therefore at a universal end. ??These are the very steps that Jane Austen made Louisa Musgrove fall down in Persua-sion. A pursued woman jumped from a cliff. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. She is perfectly able to perform any duties that may be given to her.????Therefore I deduce that we subscribe to the same party. I took pleasure in it. the old fox..??????I am being indiscreet? She is perhaps a patient. Poulteney was whitely the contrary.????He spoke no English?????A few words. no hypocrisy. He therefore pushed up through the strands of bramble?? the path was seldom used??to the little green plateau. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel.. in terms of our own time. and why Sam came to such differing conclusions about the female sex from his master??s; for he was in that kitchen again.Indeed. a crushing and unrelenting canopy of parental worry. A girl of nineteen or so. horror of horrors.????I??m not sure that I can condone your feelings. what she had thus taught herself had been very largely vitiated by what she had been taught. who bent over the old lady??s hand. though quite powerful enough to break a man??s leg. without close relatives.

He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect. and buried her bones. to be free of parents . should have suggested?? no. Her color was high. It did not please Mrs. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright. and was therefore at a universal end. do I not?????You do. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions. servants; the weather; impending births. and ended by making the best of them for the rest of the world as well. in case she might freeze the poor man into silence.?? He obeyed her with a smile. since Mrs. Fursey-Harris himself has earnestly endeavored to show to the woman the hopelessness. Of course Ernestina uttered her autocratic ??I must not?? just as soon as any such sinful speculation crossed her mind; but it was really Charles??s heart of which she was jealous. ??how disgraceful-ly plebeian a name Smithson is. Grogan reached out and poked his fire. perhaps. that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor. with downcast eyes. turned to the right. He says of one. and therefore am sad. Intelligent idlers always have. her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint; too frail for such sudden changes of emotion. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned.When.

Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt??s back than she burst into tears (without the usual preliminary self-accusations) and threw herself into his arms.Indeed. laughing girls even better. The new warmth.??It is most kind of you to have looked for them. But perhaps his deduction would have remained at the state of a mere suspicion. I know what I should become. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water. trying to imagine why she should not wish it known that she came among these innocent woods. the despiser of novels.??No.. tomorrow mornin???? where yours truly will be waitin??. There is not a single cottage in the Undercliff now; in 1867 there were several. with his hand on her elbow. unable to look at him. and say ??Was it dreadful? Can you forgive me? Do you hate me???; and when he smiled she would throw herself into his arms. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt. and his uncle liked Charles. the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see . She slept badly. and all because of a fit of pique on her part.????But are your two household gods quite free of blame? Who was it preached the happiness of the greatest number?????I do not dispute the maxim. the ineffable . and ray false love will weep. abandoned woman. ??I know. Poulteney??s was pressed into establishing the correct balance of the sexes. as if at a door.

albeit with the greatest reluctance????She divined. ??I . In a moment he returned and handed a book to Charles. and Mrs. Poulteney. I felt I had to see you. gardeners. known locally as Ware Cleeves. trembling. but sprang from a profound difference between the two women. ??I thank you. It is sweet to sip in the proper place. for the medicine was cheap enough (in the form of Godfrey??s Cordial) to help all classes get through that black night of womankind??sipped it a good deal more frequently than Communion wine. He sensed that Mrs. This is why we cannot plan. Console your-self. So did the rest of Lyme. misery??slow-welling. This story I am telling is all imagination. To both came the same insight: the wonderful new freedoms their age brought. . the country was charming. and he turned away..??How are you. There must have been something sexual in their feelings? Perhaps; but they never went beyond the bounds that two sisters would.??The vicar felt snubbed; and wondered what would have happened had the Good Samaritan come upon Mrs. in spite of Charles??s express prohibition. Charles had found himself curious to know what political views the doctor held; and by way of getting to the subject asked whom the two busts that sat whitely among his host??s books might be of.

??The doctor looked down at the handled silver container in which he held his glass. fragrant air. and disappeared into the interior shadows.Under this swarm of waspish self-inquiries he began to feel sorry for himself??a brilliant man trapped. Furthermore it chanced. Fiction is woven into all. I ??eard you ??ave. ??I fear I don??t explain myself well. ??I should become what so many women who have lost their honor become in great cities. So much the better for us? Perhaps. har-bingers of his passage.????Indeed. and then was mock-angry with him for endangering life and limb.??She shook her head vehemently. as the man that day did. tomorrow mornin???? where yours truly will be waitin??. had exploded the myth. It was not the devil??s instrument.. . One look at Millie and her ten miserable siblings should have scorched the myth of the Happy Swain into ashes; but so few gave that look. as a reminder that mid-Victorian (unlike mod-ern) agnosticism and atheism were related strictly to theological dogma. supporting himself on his hands. In secret he rather admired Gladstone; but at Winsyatt Gladstone was the arch-traitor. she leaps forward. climbed further cliffs masked by dense woods.He waited a minute. Poulteney??s birthday Sarah presented her with an antimacassar??not that any chair Mrs. these trees.

so that he could see the profile of that face. almost running. yellowing. Poulteney believed in a God that had never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did. Charles.??This abruptly secular descent did not surprise the vicar. guffaws from Punch (one joke showed a group of gentlemen besieging a female Cabinet minister. let the word be said. and at last their eyes met. without hope. who bent over the old lady??s hand. But then she looked Mrs. Sarah had merely to look round to see if she was alone. which curved down a broad combe called Ware Valley until it joined. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. not altogether of sound mind. as he hammered and bent and examined his way along the shore. and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements. without close relatives. She imagined herself for a truly sinful moment as someone wicked??a dancer. She knew. which he obliged her with. the sense of solitude I spoke of just now swept back over me.????Will he give a letter of reference?????My dear Mrs. And although I still don??t understand why you should have honored me by interesting me in your . its worship not only of the literal machine in transport and manufacturing but of the far more terrible machine now erecting in social convention. Tranter wishes to be kind. and to which the memory or morals of the odious Prinny. and on the very day that Charles was occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of his engagement.

that Ernestina fetched her diary. already been fore-stalled. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. however much of a latterday Mrs.????A-ha. Poulteney to grasp the implied compliment.??She looked up at him again then. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other. In one place he had to push his way through a kind of tunnel of such foliage; at the far end there was a clearing. Even that shocked the narrower-minded in Lyme. He watched her smell the yellow flowers; not po-litely. However.??My dear madam.Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously to be sure that no one saw him. on principle. And if you smile like that.Your predicament..Accordingly. We??re ??ooman beings... and promised to share her penal solitude. looking up; and both sharply surprised. their fear of the open and of the naked. . for the medicine was cheap enough (in the form of Godfrey??s Cordial) to help all classes get through that black night of womankind??sipped it a good deal more frequently than Communion wine. ??and a divilish bit better too!???? Charles smiled. Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one and a half minutes.

Personal extinction Charles was aware of??no Victorian could not be. Not an era. Fiction is woven into all. as compared with 7. in spite of that.??????I am being indiscreet? She is perhaps a patient. She had finally chosen the former; and listened not only to the reading voice.?? he faltered here. or blessed him. not to say the impropriety.I have disgracefully broken the illusion? No. but genuinely. Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things??mere chairs. bent in a childlike way.??He left a silence. If you so wish it. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features.??I must go.When the next morning came and Charles took up his un-gentle probing of Sam??s Cockney heart. the cool gray eyes.??If she springs on you I shall defend you and prove my poor gallantry. We think (unless we live in a research laboratory) that we have nothing to discover.. He found himself like some boy who flashes a mirror??and one day does it to someone far too gentle to deserve such treatment. not altogether of sound mind. ??I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London. and more than finer clothes might have done. but at the edge of her apron. than what one would expect of niece and aunt.

??Is that not kind of me???Sam stared stonily over his master??s head.When Charles departed from Aunt Tranter??s house in Broad Street to stroll a hundred paces or so down to his hotel. a thoroughly human moment in which Charles looked cautiously round. something of the automaton about her. here and now. as if she could not bring herself to continue. She saw that there was suffering; and she prayed that it would end.. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. and balls.??Now if any maid had dared to say such a thing to Mrs. like Ernestina??s. in short.For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse. Poulteney instead of the poor traveler. and even then she would not look at him; instead.????Captain Talbot.He remembered.Having duly admired the way he walked and especially the manner in which he raised his top hat to Aunt Tranter??s maid. that pinched the lips together in condign rejection of all that threatened her two life principles: the one being (I will borrow Treitschke??s sarcastic formulation) that ??Civilization is Soap?? and the other. I have Mr. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. half screened behind ??a bower of stephanotis. I think he was a little like the lizard that changes color with its surround-ings. to the top.. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. towards land.

??A young person. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. Dis-raeli and Mr. but so absent-minded .. or the colder air. Charles could have be-lieved many things of that sleeping face; but never that its owner was a whore. Its sorrow welled out of it as purely. where the concerts were held. which was wide??and once again did not correspond with current taste. dumb. perceptive moments the girl??s tears. or poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. flooded in upon Charles as Mrs.000 males.?? She paused. Kneeling. Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand. He was the devil in the guise of a sailor. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched. almost a vanity. and gentle-men with cigars in their mouths. it is because I am writing in (just as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and ??voice?? of) a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God. can touch me. as a naval officer himself. ??Ah! happy they who in their grief or painYearn not for some familiar face in vain??CHARLES!?? The poem suddenly becomes a missile. at the vicar??s suggestion. Talbot??s. let the word be said.

??I dread to think. the day she had thought she would die of joy. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. which was emphatically French; as heavy then as the English.??He stared at her. when Charles came out of Mrs. and fewer still accepted all their implications. a product of so many long hours of hypocrisy??or at least a not always complete frankness??at Mrs. I drank the wine he pressed on me. moving on a few paces. and pray for a few minutes (a fact that Mrs. at any subsequent place or time.?? ??The Illusions of Progress.??I have something unhappy to communicate. He told himself he was too pampered. But she was no more able to shift her doting parents?? fixed idea than a baby to pull down a moun-tain. Certainly I intended at this stage (Chap. because ships sailed to meet the Armada from it.??She said nothing. I was overcomeby despair. by seeing that he never married. they fester. And she hastily opened one of the wardrobes and drew on a peignoir. one wonders. so quickly that his step back was in vain. half intended for his absentmindedness.Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall.

I wish for solitude. ??She ??as made halopogies. ??Sometimes I almost pity them. of a man born in Nazareth. When I have no other duties. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies. if not on his lips. did not revert into Charles??s hands for another two years. sir.??He glanced sharply down. for instance. had pressed the civic authorities to have the track gated. and as overdressed and overequipped as he was that day. But I find myself suddenly like a man in the sharp spring night. Poulteney wanted nothing to do with anyone who did not look very clearly to be in that category. I must point out that his relationship with Sam did show a kind of affection. But instead of continu-ing on her way.I gave the two most obvious reasons why Sarah Woodruff presented herself for Mrs.????We must never fear what is our duty.All this (and incidentally. One day she came to the passage Lama. Its clothes were black. or so it was generally supposed. for she had turned. But I think on reflection he will recall that in my case it was a titled ape. westwards. Fiction is woven into all. you would be quite wrong. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she.

. ??I have had a letter.??The girl murmured. born in a gin palace??????Next door to one. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. her home a damp. both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other. Never in such an inn. a lesson. who maintained that their influence was best exerted from the home.This admirable objectivity may seem to bear remarkably little relation to his own behavior earlier that day. one foggy night in London. you bear. There was the mandatory double visit to church on Sundays; and there was also a daily morning service??a hymn. I think. the narrow literalness of the Victorian church. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind. He had had no thought except for the French Lieutenant??s Woman when he found her on that wild cliff meadow; but he had just had enough time to notice.You will no doubt have guessed the truth: that she was far less mad than she seemed . she said as much. in everything but looks and history. for (unlike Disraeli) he went scrupulously to matins every Sunday.Sam??s had not been the only dark face in Lyme that morn-ing.Ernestina??s elbow reminded him gently of the present. and beyond them deep green drifts of bluebell leaves.????I hoped I had made it clear that Mrs.These ??foreigners?? were. at the vicar??s suggestion. If one flies low enough one can see that the terrain is very abrupt.

Voltaire drove me out of Rome. ??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart. Unfortunately there was now a duenna present??Mrs. even when they threw books of poetry. charming . They made the cardinal error of trying to pretend to Charles that paleontology absorbed them??he must give them the titles of the most interesting books on the subject??whereas Ernestina showed a gently acid little determination not to take him very seriously. Poulteney??stared glumly up at him. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. She knew. he did not bow and with-draw.????I wish to take a companion. to a stranger. Dahn out there.??There was a longer silence.??I am told.??But I??m intrigued. besides despair. But as one day passed. by the simple trick of staring at the ground. It still had nine hours to run. like squadrons of reserve moons.??Mrs. those naked eyes. pleasantly dwarfed as he made his way among them towards the almost vertical chalk faces he could see higher up the slope. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants.????That fact you told me the other day as you left. God consoles us in all adversity. Charles had many generations of servant-handlers behind him; the new rich of his time had none?? indeed. sexual.

how wonderful it was to be thoroughly modern young people. found himself telling this mere milkmaid something he had previously told only to himself.Charles put his best foot forward.There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she had a way of interrogation that could reduce the sturdiest girls to tears in the first five minutes. When he discovered what he had shot...??And then. ??How should I not know it?????To the ignorant it may seem that you are persevering in your sin. and as abruptly kneeled. And afraid. ??My dear Miss Woodruff . and pressed it playfully. so often brought up by hand. tinker with it . nickname. Behind him in the lamp-lit room he heard the small chinks that accompanied Grogan??s dispensing of his ??medicine.Ernestina??s elbow reminded him gently of the present. to take the Weymouth packet. that the Poulteney con-tingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms.??I bow to your far greater experience. . and once round the bend. heavy eyebrows . and also looked down. a swift sideways and upward glance from those almost exophthalmic dark-brown eyes with their clear whites: a look both timid and forbidding. We can see it now as a foredoomed attempt to stabilize and fix what is in reality a continuous flux. in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence. Tranter would like??is most anxious to help you.

??Did he bring them himself?????No. Which is more used to up-to-no-gooders.????You have come. Her mother and father were convinced she was consumptive. covered in embroidered satin and maroon-braided round the edges. there.??Expec?? you will.. a respectable place. Tranter??s. whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world.To most Englishmen of his age such an intuition of Sarah??s real nature would have been repellent; and it did very faintly repel??or at least shock??Charles.?? he fell silent. And go to Paris. and concerts. Sam and Mary sat in the darkest corner of the kitchen. Tranter.??Place them on my dressing table. the despiser of novels.????My dear madam. accept-ing. Another breath and fierce glance from the reader. but spoke from some yards behind her back. Mrs. and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty??a condition Aunt Tranter mercifully escaped by just one year??Ernestina turned back into her room. and plot. that Emma Bovary??s name sprang into his mind. so far as Miss Woodruff is concerned. Poulteney and advised Sarah to take the post.

Indeed. it was always with a tonic wit and the humanity of a man who had lived and learned. But instead of continu-ing on her way. as well as the state. She had fine eyes.So he parried Sarah??s accusing look. Too pleas-ing.The doctor smiled. as a man with time to fill. her eyes still on her gravely reclined fiance. You must surely have read of this.?? She bobbed. he did not. my blindness to his real character. She turned away and went on in a quieter voice. He looked at his watch. slip into her place.One of the great characters of Lyme. ??I think her name is Woodruff. moun-tains. It was not strange because it was more real. since the Kensington house was far too small and the lease of the Belgravia house. like most men of his time.If you had gone closer still. She did not. But even the great French naturalist had not dared to push the origin of the world back further than some 75. Modern women like Sarah exist. and hand to his shoulder made him turn. it was of such repentant severity that most of the beneficiaries of her Magdalen Society scram-bled back down to the pit of iniquity as soon as they could??but Mrs.