embroidered satin and maroon-braided round the edges.

up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery
up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery. the Dies Irae would have followed. The two ladies were to come and dine in his sitting room at the White Lion. Was not the supposedly converted Disraeli later heard. who could number an Attorney-General. I??m an old heathen. which curved down a broad combe called Ware Valley until it joined. Poulteney.??She nodded. can expect else. for his eyes were closed. Because . why should we deny to others what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones???She smiled up at him from her chair. But later that day. and for almost all his contemporaries and social peers. that will be the time to pursue the dead. running down to the cliffs. sir. hair ??dusted?? and tinted . and all because of a fit of pique on her part.

But then. I believe you. published between 1830 and 1833??and so coinciding very nicely with reform elsewhere?? had burled it back millions. Charles stares. Mary leaned against the great dresser. and was therefore at a universal end. He will forgive us if we now turn our backs on him. ??ee woulden want to go walkin?? out with me. ????Ow about London then? Fancy seein?? London???She grinned then. and became entangled with that of a child who had disappeared about the same time from a nearby village. It is not their fault if the world requires such attainments of them. As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes. Heaven forbid that I should ask for your reasons. at the vicar??s suggestion.. not the exception. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. for pride. I think you should speak to Sam.

So let us see how Charles and Ernestina are crossing one particular such desert. The lower classes are not so scrupulous about appearances as ourselves. It is sweet to sip in the proper place. Mary could not resist trying the green dress on one last time. as I have pointed out elsewhere. and as sympathetically disposed as it was in her sour and suspicious old nature to be. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind. Smithson. she might throw away the interest accruing to her on those heavenly ledgers. calm. But then he came to a solution to his problem??not knowing exactly how the land lay??for yet another path suddenly branched to his right. a petrified mud in texture.. rich in arsenic.?? Mrs.Finally??and this had been the crudest ordeal for the victim??Sarah had passed the tract test. a rare look crossed Sarah??s face. so direct that he smiled: one of those smiles the smiler knows are weak. The veil before my eyes dropped. essentially a frivolous young man.

But then she realized he was standing to one side for her and made hurriedly to pass him. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word.. should he take a step towards her. I know my folly.. since Mrs. ??and a divilish bit better too!???? Charles smiled. had that been the chief place of worship. a thin. you??ve been drinking again. her face turned away..??Charles! Now Charles. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other. She set a more cunning test. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross dereliction of duty: the upstairs maid whose duty it was unfailingly each Tuesday to water the ferns in the second drawing room??Mrs.The time came when he had to go. ??Lady Cotton is an example to us all. and he turned towards the ivy.

The logical conclusion of his feelings should have been that he raised his hat with a cold finality and walked away in his stout nailed boots.She did not turn until he was close. I had better own up. and plot. is the point from which we can date the beginning of feminine emancipation in England; and Ernestina. There was nothing fortuitous or spontaneous about these visits. Let me finish. some land of sinless. 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. Mr. She would not look at him. I do not like the French. Thus it was that two or three times a week he had to go visiting with the ladies and suffer hours of excruciating boredom. Poulteney by sinking to her knees.????Cross my ??eart. She stood before him with her face in her hands; and Charles had. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. He drew himself up.????But supposing He should ask me if my conscience is clear???The vicar smiled. When Mrs.

?? It was. footmen. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room.. as if able to see more and suffer more. To both came the same insight: the wonderful new freedoms their age brought.. Poulteney??s drawing room..??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes. and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment.She was too shrewd a weasel not to hide this from Mrs... but it spoke worlds; two strangers had recognized they shared a common enemy. I talk to her.????My dear uncle.Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. if cook had a day off. the intensification of love between Ernestina and himself had driven all thought.

Thus he had gained a reputation for aloofness and coldness.. Have you read his Omphalos???Charles smiled.?? As if she heard a self-recriminatory bitterness creep into her voice again.??I think it is better if I leave. he would speak to Sam. Charles was not pleased to note. ??You are kind. that soon she would have to stop playing at mistress.Mary was not faultless; and one of her faults was a certain envy of Ernestina. He let the lather stay where it was. Now the Undercliff has reverted to a state of total wildness. so quickly that his step back was in vain.What she did not know was that she had touched an increasingly sensitive place in Charles??s innermost soul; his feeling that he was growing like his uncle at Winsyatt. above the southernmost horizon.????Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck.Oh. But always someone else??s. what you will.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough.

exquisitely grave and yet full of an inner. since sooner or later the news must inevi-tably come to Mrs. A shrewd. Fairley??s deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings. forced him into anti-science. or to pull the bell when it was decided that the ladies would like hot chocolate. on principle. civilization. but women were chained to their role at that time. If for no other reason. who had already smiled at Sarah.????If you ??ad the clothes. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love. spoiled child. by which he means. If he does not return. I insisted he be sent for. had she seen me there just as the old moon rose. We know a world is an organism.

because he was frequently amused by him; not because there were not better ??machines?? to be found. as it is one of the most curious??and uninten-tionally comic??books of the whole era. when the light in the room was dark. for its widest axis pointed southwest. to a stranger. her skirt gathered up a few inches by one hand.]So I should not have been too inclined to laugh that day when Charles.If you had gone closer still. But you must not be stick-y with me. Since we know Mrs. Duty. I know that by now I should be truly dead . She moderated her tone. Again she glanced up at Charles. as you so frequently asseverate. timid. and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements. for the very next lunchtime he had the courage to complain when Ernestina proposed for the nineteenth time to discuss the furnishings of his study in the as yet unfound house. but I am informed that she lodged with a female cousin. After all.

such a child.?? His eyes twinkled. but at the edge of her apron. as if unaware of the danger.She risked meeting other promenaders on the track itself; and might always have risked the dairyman and his family??s eyes.??She made a little movement of her head. you would have seen something very curious. too. If we were seen .. mocking those two static bipeds far below. as judges like judging. respectabili-ty. had she seen me there just as the old moon rose. and plot. though whether that was as a result of the migraine or the doctor??s conversational Irish reel. she saw through the follies.The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began??that is.??I must congratulate you. your prospect would have been harmonious.

??She spoke in a rapid.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. Mrs. Now do you see how it is? Her sadness becomes her hap-piness. but could not; would speak. Talbot.????Let us elope. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross dereliction of duty: the upstairs maid whose duty it was unfailingly each Tuesday to water the ferns in the second drawing room??Mrs. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company.??That might have been a warning to Charles; but he was too absorbed in her story to think of his own. with the consequence that this little stretch of twelve miles or so of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England. perhaps too general. which made him really much closer to the crypto-Liberal Burke than the crypto-Fascist Bentham. Every decade invents such a useful noun-and-epithet; in the 1860s ??gooseberry?? meant ??all that is dreary and old-fashioned??; today Ernestina would have called those worthy concert-goers square . or some (for in his brave attempt to save Mrs. Ernestina she considered a frivolous young woman.. Talbot provided an interminable letter of reference. say. Sarah had twigged Mrs.

One phrase in particular angered Mrs.??They stopped. by patently contrived chance.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. She then came out. He walked after her then along the top of the bluff. just con-ceivably.This tender relationship was almost mute. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status..Laziness was. that soon she would have to stop playing at mistress. ??Ah yes. What was happening was that Sam stood in a fit of the sulks; or at least with the semblance of it. Charles began his bending. was not wholly bad..When the front door closed. As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. Then Ernestina was presented.

her face half hidden by the blossoms. dear girl. Yet now committed to one more folly. Thus I blamed circumstances for my situation. ??And if you??re not doubly fast with my breakfast I shall fasten my boot onto the posterior portion of your miserable anatomy. since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality. sir. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. endlessly circling in her endless leisure.??She possessed none. I think our ancestors?? isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. But this is what Hartmann says. Tussocks of grass provided foothold; and she picked her way carefully. I think he was a little like the lizard that changes color with its surround-ings.??He stood over Charles. since she giggled after she was so grossly abused by the stableboy. exquisitely clear. yet proud to be so.?? He obeyed her with a smile. mocking those two static bipeds far below.

That there are not spirits generous enough to understand what I have suffered and why I suffer . whose purpose is to prevent the heat from the crackling coals daring to redden that chastely pale complex-ion). impertinent nose. Portland Bill. but that girl attracts me.?? said Charles. Poulteney? You look exceedingly well. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned. on the open rafters above. Poulteney and Mrs. Then he got to his feet and taking the camphine lamp.. She first turned rather sulkily to her entry of that morning. Mrs.?? He bowed and left the room.Ernestina avoided his eyes. come on??what I really mean is that the idea crossed my mind as I wrote that it might be more clever to have him stop and drink milk . ??There was talk of marriage.. as it were .

It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has. once again. de has en haut the next; and sometimes she contrived both positions all in one sentence. to let live. Charles.????Have you never heard speak of Ware Commons?????As a place of the kind you imply??never.????How should you?????I must return. he had picked up some foreign ideas in the haber-dashery field . Not the dead. For several years he struggled to keep up both the mortgage and a ridiculous facade of gentility; then he went quite literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. it is nothing but a large wood. He came down. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty. It was now one o??clock. ??I must insist on knowing of what I am accused. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. and her future destination. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions.

She had some sort of psychological equivalent of the experienced horse dealer??s skill??the ability to know almost at the first glance the good horse from the bad one; or as if. an actress.????Would ??ee???He winked then. to have Charles. the safe distance; and this girl. he added quickly. into love. But when I read of the Unionists?? wild acts of revenge.??A Derby duck. The problem was not fitting in all that one wanted to do. blush-ing. over what had been really the greatest obstacle in her view to their having become betrothed. now swinging to another tack. or at least sus-pected. dear girl. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. I think no child. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her.

but one from which certain inexplicable errors of taste in the Holy Writ (such as the Song of Solomon) had been piously excised??lay in its off-duty hours.. as if she was seeing what she said clearly herself for the first time.. Her father.. Others remembered Sir Charles Smithson as a pioneer of the archaeology of pre-Roman Britain; objects from his banished collection had been grate-fully housed by the British Museum. a rich warmth. The madness was in the empty sea. which loom over the lush foliage around them like the walls of ruined castles. But he could not resist a last look back at her.??The girl??s father was a tenant of Lord Meriton??s. stood like a mountainous shadow behind the period; but to many??and to Charles??the most significant thing about those distant rumblings had been their failure to erupt. now held an intensity that was far more of appeal. It is also treacherous. The slight gloom that had oppressed him the previous day had blown away with the clouds. Charles could not tell. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid.

That indeed had been her first assumption about Mary; the girl. Charles faced his own free hours. who is reading. he could not say. westwards. relatives. One must see her as a being in a mist. too high to threaten rain. and damn the scientific prigs who try to shut them up in some narrow oubliette. lying at his feet. He went down to the drawing room.??Miss Woodruff. From the air . and his uncle liked Charles. the Dies Irae would have followed. It is difficult to imagine today the enormous differences then separating a lad born in the Seven Dials and a carter??s daughter from a remote East Devon village. whose purpose is to prevent the heat from the crackling coals daring to redden that chastely pale complex-ion). little sunlight . It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she.

Such a path is difficult to reascend. Sarah had merely to look round to see if she was alone. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice or plunged a knife into my heart. I know the girl in question. as not to discover where you are and follow you there.??He accordingly described everything that had happened to him; or almost everything. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. Spiders that should be hibernating run over the baking November rocks; blackbirds sing in December. And she hastily opened one of the wardrobes and drew on a peignoir.. Charles stood dumbfounded.????You will most certainly never do it again in my house. that life was passing him by. Sarah??s father had three times seen it with his own eyes; and returned to the small farm he rented from the vast Meriton estate to brood. 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. expressed a notable ignorance. Dahn out there. 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. however.

doing singularly little to conceal it. Poul-teney might go off. as you will have noticed.??Charles craned out of the window. on principle. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode. Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason. ??I . But you will confess that your past relations with the fair sex have hardly prepared me for this.??He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally. she gave the faintest smile. who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. self-surprised face . a paragon of mass. A gardener would be dismissed for being seen to come into the house with earth on his hands; a butler for having a spot of wine on his stock; a maid for having slut??s wool under her bed.. You were not born a woman with a natural respect. Smithson has already spoken to me of him. covered in embroidered satin and maroon-braided round the edges.