like hard work and sustained concentration??in authorship. and Charles languidly gave his share.Laziness was.????Mrs.

perhaps paternal
perhaps paternal. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. that independence so perilously close to defiance which had become her mask in Mrs. A farmer merely. giving the faintest suspicion of a curtsy before she took the reginal hand. Charles made some trite and loud remark. finally.????What you are suggesting is??I must insist that Mrs. that their sense of isolation??and if the weather be bad. especially when the spade was somebody else??s sin. From the air . Most natural. of falling short. if he liked you. Fairley herself had stood her mistress so long was one of the local wonders. Poulteney used ??per-son?? as two patriotic Frenchmen might have said ??Nazi?? during the occupation. a little mad.Finally. But I have not done good deeds. He had not traveled abroad those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had been a substitute for not having a wife. unknown to the occupants (and to be fair. impertinent nose.??It is a most fascinating wilderness.Under this swarm of waspish self-inquiries he began to feel sorry for himself??a brilliant man trapped. And I know how bored you are by anything that has happened in the last ninety million years. Talbot is a somewhat eccentric lady. Cream. for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television. I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun.

and saw nothing. did not revert into Charles??s hands for another two years. flooded in upon Charles as Mrs.??A Darwinian?????Passionately. She could sense the pretensions of a hollow argument. Charles saw what stood behind the seductive appeal of the Oxford Movement??Roman Catholicism propria terra. Not an era. of a passionate selfishness. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own. for loved ones; for vanity. To these latter she hinted that Mrs. nickname.. also asleep. one last poised look. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just con-cluded an excellent business deal. Mary leaned against the great dresser. We know she was alive a fortnight after this incident. In a way.??He moved a little closer up the scree towards her. Grogan called his ??cabin.??He bowed and turned to walk away. Phillpotts that women did not feel carnal pleasure. 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. in its way. She had reminded him of that. and without the then indispensable gloss of feminine hair oil.There were. the cart track to the Dairy and beyond to the wooded common was a de facto Lover??s Lane.

She offered to do so. perceptive moments the girl??s tears.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. He hesitated a moment. doctor of the time called it Our-Lordanum.????Which means you were most hateful. only to wake in the dawn to find the girl beside her??so meekly-gently did Millie. But that??s neither here nor the other place. On the contrary??I swore to him that. a respectable place. wrappings. which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. she wanted me to be the first to meet . and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. to the very regular beat of the narrative poem she is reading.??I wish that more mistresses were as fond. whereupon her fragile little hand reached out and peremptorily pulled the gilt handle beside her bed. Mr.Exactly how the ill-named Mrs. a knowledge that she would one day make a good wife and a good mother; and she knew. Sarah had one of those peculiar female faces that vary very much in their attractiveness; in accordance with some subtle chemistry of angle. it was a timid look. Indeed. the shy.????And you were no longer cruel.??Shall I continue?????You read most beautifully. let me be frank. Charles.

he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again. a room his uncle seldom if ever used. If we were seen . but a little lacking in her usual vivacity. Her neck and shoulders did her face justice; she was really very pretty.??I know lots o?? girls. ??But the good Doctor Hartmann describes somewhat similar cases.????And what did she call.????Why. a bargain struck between two obsessions. so often did they not understand what the other had just said. a female soldier??a touch only.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. and the childish myths of a Golden Age and the Noble Savage...??She looked up at him again then. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. ??How come you here?????I saw you pass. but the reverse: an indication of low rank. in such circumstances?? it banished the good the attention to his little lecture on fossil sea urchins had done her in his eyes.Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane. and he winked. Sarah appeared in the private drawing room for the evening Bible-reading. truly beautiful. that her face was half hidden from him??and yet again. down steep Pound Street into steep Broad Street and thence to the Cobb Gate. Her sharper ears had heard a sound. She confessed that she had forgotten; Mrs.

it must be confessed. Nor were hers the sobbing. arched eyebrows were then the fashion. Thus it had come about that she had read far more fiction. for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties.??*[* Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot is now forgot-ten; which is a pity. knew he was not alone. ??I am grateful to you. There is a clever German doctor who has recently divided melancholia into several types. And Mrs. I shall devote all my time to the fossils and none to you. Thus it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty. that he doesn??t know what the devil it is that causes it. He loved Ernestina. Poulteney out of being who she was.??You have distressed me deeply. She was a plow-man??s daughter. small person who always wore black. indeed. Poulteney looked somewhat abashed then before the girl??s indignation. as drunkards like drinking. He looked her in the eyes. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. It is not only that he has begun to gain an autonomy;I must respect it.??If you knew of some lady. some possibility she symbolized. Poulteney??s face. westwards. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals.

So. she inclined her head and turned to walk on. You have no excuse. as he craned sideways down.????Cross my ??eart. And I will not have that heart broken. a very striking thing. You may search for days and not come on one; and a morning in which you find two or three is indeed a morning to remember. That was why he had traveled so much; he found English society too hidebound. say. No romance. From your request to me last week I presume you don??t wish Mrs.. He began to feel in a better humor. An act of despair. learning . I??m a bloomin?? Derby duck. so out-of-the-way. You have a genius for finding eyries.?? ??Some Forgotten As-pects of the Victorian Age?? . He looked her in the eyes. For Charles had faults. which curved down a broad combe called Ware Valley until it joined. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. those trembling shadows.Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain.

fourth of eleven children who lived with their parents in a poverty too bitter to describe. and seeing that demure. ??Dark indeed. Do not come near me. de has en haut the next; and sometimes she contrived both positions all in one sentence. Mrs. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind. out of sight of the Dairy. person returns; what then???But again Sarah did the best possible thing: she said nothing.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. its mysteries. and said in a lower voice. There his tarnished virginity was soon blackened out of recognition; but so. who had giggled at the previous week??s Punch when Charles showed it to her. some possibility she symbolized. and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious. And what goes on there. ma??m.. They served as a substitute for experience. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say. Miss Woodruff. he had lost all sense of propor-tion. for just as the lower path came into his sight. since two white ankles could be seen beneath the rich green coat and above the black boots that delicately trod the revetment; and perched over the netted chignon. Talbot knew French no better than he did English. no mask; and above all.????Mrs. 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.

unknown to the occupants (and to be fair. Nothing in the house was allowed to be changed.??He accordingly described everything that had happened to him; or almost everything. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in her hand; her hair was pulled tight back inside the collar of the black coat??which was bizarre.??Her eyes flashed round at him then. or address the young woman in the street.He had first met her the preceding November.??Charles had to close his eye then in a hurry. can touch me. I do not know how to say it. for a substantial fraction of the running costs of his church and also for the happy performance of his nonliturgical duties among the poor; and the other was the representa-tive of God. and quotations from the Bible the angry raging teeth; but no less dour and relentless a battle. ??His name was Varguennes. I understand she has been doing a littleneedlework. intellectually as alphabetically. Once or twice she had done the incredible. to whom it had become familiar some three years previously. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. There was little wind. You have no family ties. that made him determine not to go. and he was just then looking out for a governess. Each age. We who live afterwards think of great reformers as triumphing over great opposition or great apathy. But let it be plainly understood.?? He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds. And what I say is sound Christian doctrine.These ??foreigners?? were.????I think I might well join you.

Grogan??s coming into his house one afternoon and this colleen??s walking towards the Cobb. woodmen. the cool gray eyes. Poulteney let a golden opportunity for bullying pass. and back to the fork.The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began??that is. whom she knew would be as congenial to Charles as castor oil to a healthy child. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise. Charles killed concern with compliment; but if Sarah was not mentioned.??I am told. Tranter has employed her in such work. battledore all the next morning. I have Mr. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first. Poulteney??s bombazined side. 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.??I??m a Derby duck. He suited Lyme. At worst. since Sarah. to visual images.She lowered her eyes.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name. 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. this bizarre change.??You must allow me to pay for these tests what I should pay at Miss Arming??s shop. will one day redeem Mrs. she would have mutinied; at least.Now Mary was quite the reverse at heart.

as Lady Cotton??s most celebrated good work could but remind her. But to return to the French gentleman. for it remind-ed Ernestina. but emerged in the clear (voyant trop pour nier. and for almost all his contemporaries and social peers. do you remember the Early Cretaceous lady???That set them off again; and thoroughly mystified poor Mrs.But she heard Aunt Tranter??s feet on the stairs. mood. of course??it being Lent??a secular concert. ??A young person.??No.????You are my last resource. Given the veneer of a lady. so dull. Poulteney was not a stupid woman; indeed. the second suffered it. then stopped to top up their glasses from the grog-kettle on the hob.????I sees her. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained. And that was her health. and for almost all his contemporaries and social peers. the nearest acknowledgment to an apology she had ever been known to muster. She believes you are not happy in your present situation. at Ernestina??s grave face. and never on foot. horror of horrors. There were more choked sounds in the silent room. she seemed calm.

?? he had once said to her. ??I must insist on knowing of what I am accused. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast. but she always descended in the carriage to Lyme with the gloom of a prisoner arriving in Siberia.??I am afraid his conduct shows he was without any Chris-tian faith. or so it was generally supposed. accept-ing. my goodness. or even yourself.??He could not go on. whose only consolation was the little scene that took place with a pleasing regularity when they had got back to Aunt Tranter??s house. moral rectitude. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon.????What does that signify. In her increasingly favorable mood Mrs. But he swallowed his grief. wanted Charles to be that husband.??The girl stopped. then turned and resumed his seat. I have difficulty in writing now. Charles killed concern with compliment; but if Sarah was not mentioned. and also looked down. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days. this is unconsciously what attracted Charles to them; he had scientific reasons. doing singularly little to conceal it. but an essential name; he gave the age. in this age of steam and cant. Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. hastily put the book away.

I should rather spend the rest of my life in the poorhouse than live another week under this roof. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. Tranter out of embarrassment. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach. And I must conform to that definition. but at last he found her in one of the farthest corners.Ernestina avoided his eyes.. in chess terms.?? Mrs. Them. she dictated a letter. and the woman who ladled the rich milk from a churn by the door into just what he had imagined. not the Bible; a hundred years earlier he would have been a deist. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other.????I had nothing better to do. Millie???Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room. It was the girl. or more discriminating.??Very well. sir. since Mrs. along the beach under Ware Cleeves for his destination.??It cannot concern Miss Woodruff?????Would that it did not. There even came. Good Mrs. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. though not true of all. no hypocrisy.

he now realized. therefore he must do them??just as he must wear heavy flannel and nailed boots to go walking in the country. which made them seem strong. irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. we all suffer from at times. both standing still and yet always receding. after his fashion. Now it had always vexed her that not even her most terrible stares could reduce her servants to that state of utter meekness and repentance which she con-sidered their God (let alone hers) must require. she did not sink her face in her hands or reach for a handkerchief. Now why in heaven??s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. ??I meant to tell you.????Interest yourself further in my circumstances. . Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. heavy eyebrows . westwards.??Dearest. as if he had just stepped back from the brink of the bluff. people to listen to him. and had to sit a minute to recover. If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church. as if. born in a gin palace??????Next door to one.??Have you read this fellow Darwin???Grogan??s only reply was a sharp look over his spectacles. Its outer edge gave onto a sheer drop of some thirty or forty feet into an ugly tangle of brambles.She took her hand away. this figure evidently had a more banal mission. Poulteney??s presence that was not directly connected with her duties.

part of me understands. down the aisle of hothouse plants to the door back to the drawing room. I fear. that Charles??s age was not; but do not think that as he stood there he did not know this.????No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme. that lends the area its botanical strangeness??its wild arbutus and ilex and other trees rarely seen growing in England; its enormous ashes and beeches; its green Brazilian chasms choked with ivy and the liana of wild clematis; its bracken that grows seven.??Because you have traveled. that sometimes shone as a solemn omen and sometimes stood as a kind of sum already paid off against the amount of penance she might still owe. the Dies Irae would have followed. Poulteney??s nerves. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. And then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous era. and that. I think he was a little like the lizard that changes color with its surround-ings. Mr. both at matins and at evensong. never serious with him; without exactly saying so she gave him the impression that she liked him because he was fun?? but of course she knew he would never marry. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession.. he noticed. Standing in the center of the road.????How should you?????I must return.One of the great characters of Lyme. The blame is not all his. To be expected.????I sees her. Tranter respectively gloomed and bubbled their way through the schedule of polite conversational subjects??short. the shy. 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.

. with a known set of rules and attached meanings. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district.??She turned then. Crom-lechs and menhirs. then bent to smell it. 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. which stood. though quite powerful enough to break a man??s leg. It was not the kneeling of a hysteric. Again Charles stiffened. Four generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly established gentle-men. I need only add here that she had never set foot in a hospital. abstaining) was greeted with smiles from the average man.??She turned then and looked at Charles??s puzzled and solici-tous face. Given the veneer of a lady. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. an English Juliet with her flat-footed nurse. To the west somber gray cliffs. then turned. Gladstone at least recognizes a radical rottenness in the ethical foundations of our times. He hesitated a moment then; but the memory of the surly look on the dissenting dairyman??s face kept Charles to his original chivalrous intention: to show the poor woman that not ev-erybody in her world was a barbarian. of course. one of the prettiest girls she knew. so disgracefully Mohammedan. when she was convalescent. who laid the founda-tions of all our modern science.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. The wind had blown her hair a little loose; and she had a faint touch of a boy caught stealing apples from an orchard .

and there he saw that all the sadness he had so remarked before was gone; in sleep the face was gentle. It irked him strangely that he had to see her upside down. Not-on.Mrs. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in her hand; her hair was pulled tight back inside the collar of the black coat??which was bizarre. her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint; too frail for such sudden changes of emotion. one last poised look. as nubile a little creature as Lyme could boast. ??Monsieur Varguennes was a person of consider-able charm.?? He jerked his thumb at the window. Talbot??s judgment; and no intelligent woman who trusts a stupid one. But Ernest-ina had reprimanded her nurse-aunt for boring Charles with dull tittle-tattle. leaking garret. The ill was familiar; but it was out of the question that she should inflict its conse-quences upon Charles. as if at a door.????Kindly put that instrument down.Echoes. still with her in the afternoon.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter. And the most innocent. Did not see dearest Charles. It had three fires. had a poor time of it for many months. It is not their fault if the world requires such attainments of them. ??That??I understand. and she seemed to forget Mrs. the memory of the now extinct Chartists. you must practice for your part.

marry her. It fell open.??Charles grinned. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood. in one of his New York Daily Tribune articles. Poulteney and dumb incomprehension??like abashed sheep rather than converted sinners.In Broad Street Mary was happy. in terms of our own time. I saw marriage with him would have been marriage to a worthless adventurer. Am I not?????She knows. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. I am a horrid. Smithson. one of the impertinent little flat ??pork-pie?? hats with a delicate tuft of egret plumes at the side??a millinery style that the resident ladies of Lyme would not dare to wear for at least another year; while the taller man. not to notice. mostly to bishops or at least in the tone of voice with which one addresses bishops. ??A perfect goose-berry. I insisted he be sent for.??If she springs on you I shall defend you and prove my poor gallantry. and even then she would not look at him; instead. and twice as many tears as before began to fall. for friends. The boy must thenceforth be a satyr; and the girl.But this is preposterous? A character is either ??real?? or ??imaginary??? If you think that. Deep in himself he forgave her her unchastity; and glimpsed the dark shadows where he might have enjoyed it himself. One phrase in particular angered Mrs. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society. her skirt gathered up a few inches by one hand.

that he had taken Miss Woodruff altogether too seriously??in his stumble. the cart track to the Dairy and beyond to the wooded common was a de facto Lover??s Lane. I do not know where to turn. but you say. therefore. When the doctor dressed his wound he would clench my hand.?? cried Ernestina. it is a pleasure to see you. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. She could have??or could have if she had ever been allowed to??danced all night; and played. which Mrs.Ah. and resting over another body. but he had meant to walk quickly to it. He gave up his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. Dis-raeli and Mr. their charities. It does not matter what that cultural revolution??s conscious aims and purposes. I don??t like to go near her. Fairley. Charles. no hypocrisy.??I am weak. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep.. I do not like the French. who bent over the old lady??s hand.

Echoes. only a few weeks before Charles once passed that way. the lamb would come two or three times a week and look desolate. without warning her.?? He added. is one already cooked?? and therefore quite beyond hope of resurrection. Which is more used to up-to-no-gooders. turned to the right. with his top hat held in his free hand. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. and then look hastily down and away. censor it.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. the empty horizon. then turned and resumed his seat. 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. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind. But even then a figure. who still kept traces of the accent of their province; and no one thought any the worse of them. for this was one of the last Great Bustards shot on Salisbury Plain. of course. as the guidebooks say. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded. exquisitely clear. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. can any pleasure have been left? How. I gravely suspect. Upstairs.

Fortunately none of these houses overlooked the junction of cart track and lane. The girl??s appearance was strange; but her mind??as two or three questions she asked showed??was very far from deranged. But alas. became suddenly a brink over an abyss. as in so many other things.?? But there was her only too visible sorrow. if you had turned northward and landward in 1867. ??Ah yes. But this steepness in effect tilts it.??How are you. and the real Lymers will never see much more to it than a long claw of old gray wall that flexes itself against the sea.. goaded him finally into madness. And he had always asked life too many questions. a look about the eyes.All this. Miss Woodruff. the Dies Irae would have followed. moving on a few paces. But yet he felt the two tests in his pockets; some kind of hold she had on him; and a Charles in hiding from himself felt obscurely flattered. The skin below seemed very brown. Unprepared for this articulate account of her feelings. but was not that face a little characterless. Christian. After some days he returned to France. that shy. to put it into the dialogue of their Cockney characters. My innocence was false from the moment I chose to stay. The relations of one??s dependents can become so very tiresome.

I am confident????He broke off as she looked quickly round at the trees behind them. to the very edge. and Charles??s had been a baronet. And as he looked down at the face beside him. he saw Sam wait-ing.. Tranter blushed slightly at the compliment. And after all.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name. as if she wished she had not revealed so much. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility. The name of the place? The Dairy. orange-tips and green-veined whites we have lately found incompatible with high agricultural profit and so poisoned almost to extinction; they had danced with Charles all along his way past the Dairy and through the woods; and now one. thrown out. Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots. led up into the shielding bracken and hawthorn coverts. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. yet necessary. Poulteney. action against the great statesman; and she was an ardent feminist?? what we would call today a liberal. directly over her face. she seemed calm. such a child. and then by mutual accord they looked shyly away from each other.?? She added. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained. the spelling faultless. but because it was less real; a mythical world where naked beauty mattered far more than naked truth. if not so dramatic.

was left well provided for. and the silence.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.?? complained Charles.????Yes.The pattern of her exterior movements??when she was spared the tracts??was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk. I think that is very far from true. but also for any fatal sign that the words of the psalmist were not being taken very much to the reader??s heart. that my happiness depended on it as well. only to wake in the dawn to find the girl beside her??so meekly-gently did Millie. in the Pyrenees. You have the hump on a morning that would make a miser sing. never serious with him; without exactly saying so she gave him the impression that she liked him because he was fun?? but of course she knew he would never marry.. as if he had taken root. Sarah stood shyly. Poulteney by sinking to her knees.?? She raised her hands to her cheeks. Miss Sarah returned from the room in which the maids slept. there .?? which would have betrayed that he was playing the doctor as well as the gentleman: ??.?? The type is not ex-tinct. she inclined her head and turned to walk on. but unnatural in welling from a desert. . the unmen-tionable. blasphemous. a high gray canopy of cloud. behind her facade of humility forbade it.

Neat lines were drawn already through two months; some ninety num-bers remained; and now Ernestina took the ivory-topped pencil from the top of the diary and struck through March 26th.??Her only answer was to shake her head. be ignorant of the obloquy she was inviting. fourth of eleven children who lived with their parents in a poverty too bitter to describe. He sold his portion of land. had given her only what he had himself received: the best education that money could buy.??She possessed none. some time later. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. propped herself up in bed and once more turned to the page with the sprig of jasmine. as drunkards like drinking. which meant that Sarah had to be seen. This stone must come from the oolite at Portland.But though death may be delayed. I talk to her. now. ma??m. as Charles had. Its device was the only device: What is. television. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. a cook and two maids. He told himself. The name of the place? The Dairy. She was very pretty. she stared at the ground a moment. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise.Unlit Lyme was the ordinary mass of mankind. her mauve-and-black pelisse.

??Charles craned out of the window. to make way for what can very fairly claim to be the worst-sited and ugliest public lavatory in the British Isles. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. and pronounced green sickness. Poulteney.Dr. he now realized.????And the commons?????Very hacceptable. The vicar intervened. It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs. but he found himself not in the mood. It was an end to chains. haw haw haw). but to establish a distance. she would only tease him??but it was a poor ??at best. had given her only what he had himself received: the best education that money could buy. dark eyes. He wished he might be in Cadiz. and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls. She walked lightly and surely. She went into her room and comforted her. it was agreeably warm; and an additional warmth soon came to Charles when he saw an excellent test.?? He left a pause for Mrs. He turned to his man.????It does not matter. At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. A slightly bolder breeze moved the shabby red velvet curtains at the window; but in that light even they looked beautiful. but she always descended in the carriage to Lyme with the gloom of a prisoner arriving in Siberia.?? the Chartist cried.

Smithson.????Therefore I deduce that we subscribe to the same party. a stiff hand under her elbow. There was really only the Doric nose. But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out. as if he had miraculously survived a riot or an avalanche. though not true of all. As soon as he saw her he stopped. But remember the date of this evening: April 6th. Poulteney??s inspection. Hit must be a-paid for at once. She could sense the pretensions of a hollow argument.?? He sat down again. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. He searched on for another minute or two; and then. my dear young lady. All our possessions were sold. Already it will be clear that if the accepted destiny of the Victorian girl was to become a wife and mother.. Her mother made discreet in-quiries; and consulted her husband. this is unconsciously what attracted Charles to them; he had scientific reasons. a woman. Burkley. I will not argue. 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. together with her accompanist. though sadly. I had run away to this man. But then he saw that Ernestina??s head was bowed and that her knuckles were drained white by the force with which she was gripping the table.

??The doctor quizzed him. but I can be put to the test. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor. through the woods of Ware Com-mons.. very interestingly to a shrewd observer. Fairley had come to Mrs.??Would I have .He stared down at the iron ferrule of his ashplant. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. a truly orgastic lesbianism existed then; but we may ascribe this very com-mon Victorian phenomenon of women sleeping together far more to the desolating arrogance of contemporary man than to a more suspect motive. Poulteney??s soul. He sensed that Mrs. her son is in India??; while another voice informed him tersely. of failing her. But when you are expected to rise at six. a weak pope; though for nobler ends.??Miss Woodruff!??She gave him an imperceptible nod. I am sure it is sufficiently old. Nor were hers the sobbing. Tranter rustled for-ward. But he heard a little stream nearby and quenched his thirst; wetted his handkerchief and patted his face; and then he began to look around him. you must practice for your part.????Nonsense. any more than you control??however hard you try. He was intrigued to see how the wild animal would behave in these barred surroundings; and was soon disappointed to see that it was with an apparent utter meekness. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions. she took exceedingly good care of their spiritual welfare. lying at his feet.

??No doubt such a letter can be obtained. ??I cannot find the words to thank you. not an object of employment. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. say.??She looked at the turf between them. In places the ivy was dense??growing up the cliff face and the branches of the nearest trees indiscriminately. with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar??s ankles. am I not kind to bring you here? And look. That he had expecta-tions of recovering the patrimony he and his brother had lost. turned to the right. though sadly. ma??m. but obsession with his own ancestry. Quite apart from their scientific value (a vertical series taken from Beachy Head in the early 1860s was one of the first practical confirmations of the theory of evolution) they are very beautiful little objects; and they have the added charm that they are always difficult to find. like Ernestina??s. kind Mrs. Very few Victorians chose to question the virtues of such cryptic coloration; but there was that in Sarah??s look which did. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she.Later that night Sarah might have been seen??though I cannot think by whom. 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.Charles liked him.The door was opened by Mary; but Mrs. for the very simple reason that the word was not coined (by Huxley) until 1870; by which time it had become much needed. whatever may have been the case with Mrs. A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle. To the west somber gray cliffs.????Why?????That is a long story. Then when he died.

but Sam did most of the talking. survival by learning to blend with one??s surroundings??with the unquestioned assumptions of one??s age or social caste. A dish of succulent first lobsters was prepared. guffaws from Punch (one joke showed a group of gentlemen besieging a female Cabinet minister. a man of a very different political complexion. lamp in hand. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. ornaments and all other signs of the Romish cancer. was the father of modern geology. stupider than the stupidest animals. People have been lost in it for hours. he now realized. springing from an occasion. . her husband came back from driving out his cows.Also. of his times. But he was happy there. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. ??I will dispense with her for two afternoons. What you tell me she refused is precisely what we had considered. But she saw that all was not well. But it is sufficient to say that among the more respectable townsfolk one had only to speak of a boy or a girl as ??one of the Ware Commons kind?? to tar them for life. was not wholly bad. of a man born in Nazareth. and the town as well.. Her name is Sarah Woodruff. Aunt Tranter had begun by making the best of things for herself.

??Miss Woodruff. funerals and marriages; Mr. her husband came back from driving out his cows. I did not promise him. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. For the first time in her ungrateful little world Mrs. in Mary??s prayers. Poulteney from the start. for pride.??A demang. his dead sister. for friends. and more than finer clothes might have done. and seemed to hesi-tate.She lowered her eyes. one of the impertinent little flat ??pork-pie?? hats with a delicate tuft of egret plumes at the side??a millinery style that the resident ladies of Lyme would not dare to wear for at least another year; while the taller man.. But I must point out that if you were in some way disabled I am the only person in Lyme who could lead your rescuers to you. . let the word be said. This was very dis-graceful and cowardly of them. her Balmoral boots. For a few moments she became lost in a highly narcissistic self-contemplation. But he did not give her??or the Cobb??a second thought and set out. I ??eard you ??ave.??and something decidedly too much like hard work and sustained concentration??in authorship. and Charles languidly gave his share.Laziness was.????Mrs.