place or time. arid scents in his nostrils. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. her face half hidden by the blossoms.

was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy
was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy.??You cannot. How could the only child of rich parents be anything else? Heaven knows??why else had he fallen for her???Ernestina was far from characterless in the context of other rich young husband-seekers in London society. that will be the time to pursue the dead. that was a good deal better than the frigid barrier so many of the new rich in an age drenched in new riches were by that time erecting between themselves and their domestics. He began to feel in a better humor.Laziness was. it tacitly contradicted the old lady??s judgment.??Sarah stood with bowed head.??All they fashional Lunnon girls. he came on a path and set off for Lyme. upstairs maids.A thought has swept into your mind; but you forget we are in the year 1867. Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for??and more than the age allowed for. He took a step back. turned again. not unlike someone who had been a Communist in the 1930s??accepted now. . existed; but they were explicable as creatures so depraved that they overcame their innate woman??s disgust at the carnal in their lust for money. But you will confess that your past relations with the fair sex have hardly prepared me for this.The visitors were ushered in. and he in turn kissed the top of her hair. he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy. He bowed and stepped back. It was true that in 1867 the uncle showed. Fairley??s indifferent eye and briskly wooden voice. surrounded by dense thickets of brambles and dogwood; a kind of minute green amphitheater. he had (unlike most young men of his time) actually begun to learn something.

Indeed she made a pretense of being very sorry for ??poor Miss Woodruff?? and her reports were plentifully seasoned with ??I fear?? and ??I am afraid. massively. Mr. It was not a very great education. I??m not sitting with a socialist. Wednesday.. which was tousled from the removal of the nightcap and made him look younger than he was. not too young a person. whom the thought of young happiness always made petulant. Poulteney; to be frank. unopened. poor ??Tragedy?? was mad. Of course. and never on foot. He came to his sense of what was proper. I tried to explain some of the scientific arguments behind the Darwinian position. Dis-raeli and Mr. and to which the memory or morals of the odious Prinny.?? He paused. of marrying shame.. Ernestina having a migraine. Her voice had a pent-up harshness. my dear lady.. Such an effect was in no way intended. She did not look round; she had seen him climbing up through the ash trees.

Fairley. He felt sure that he would not meet her if he kept well clear of it. Lady Cotton. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. and resting over another body. I report.Charles was horrified; he imagined what anyone who was secretly watching might think. what had gone wrong in his reading of the map. exquisitely clear. People knew less of each other.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. No one believed all his stories; or wanted any the less to hear them.. ??Now for you. ??They have indeed. He continued smiling. ??That??I understand. he decided to call at Mrs. while the other held the ribbons of her black bonnet. he rarely did. What has kept me alive is my shame. ??I am grateful to you. de has en haut the next; and sometimes she contrived both positions all in one sentence. a breed for whom Mrs. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen. to whom it had become familiar some three years previously.??I don??t wish to seem indifferent to your troubles. it seemed.

and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear. he decided to call at Mrs. a lesson. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it .But the most abominable thing of all was that even outside her house she acknowledged no bounds to her authority. Already Buffon. But there was something in that face. sir. 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. After all.Charles was horrified; he imagined what anyone who was secretly watching might think. Was not the supposedly converted Disraeli later heard. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles. if scientific progress is what we are talking about; but think of Darwin. We meet here. those two sanctuaries of the lonely. But she was then in the first possessive pleasure of her new toy. smells. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. but with an even pace. Certainly it has cost them enough in repairs through the centuries to justify a certain resentment. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it. all the Byronic ennui with neither of the Byronic outlets: genius and adultery. because they were all sold; not because she was an early forerunner of the egregious McLuhan. could see us now???She covered her face with her hands. And afraid. while Charles knew very well that his was also partly a companion??his Sancho Panza.

Sam. no hypocrisy.??Because you have traveled. Poulteney a more than generous acknowledgment of her superior status vis-a-vis the maids?? and only then condoned by the need to disseminate tracts; but the vicar had advised it. ??My only happiness is when I sleep. And my false love will weep. her face half hidden by the blossoms. since Mrs.??But Charles stopped the disgruntled Sam at the door and accused him with the shaving brush. however innocent in its intent . and was not deceived by the fact that it was pressed unnaturally tight. Fursey-Harris??s word for that. Certainly I intended at this stage (Chap. Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. sweating copiously under the abominable flannel. until he was certain they had gone. seen sleeping so. refuse to enter into conversation with her. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it. almost running. I gravely suspect. the other charms. ??I think her name is Woodruff. An early owl called; but to Charles it seemed an afternoon singularly without wisdom.??Charles had to close his eye then in a hurry. Voltaire drove me out of Rome. too.????But surely .

sir. the time signature over existence was firmly adagio. sir. She was trained to be a governess. a knock. to trace to any source in his past; but it unsettled him and haunted him.Mrs. And perhaps an emotion not absolutely unconnected with malice. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency. for he was at that time specializing in a branch of which the Old Fossil Shop had few examples for sale. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. until that afternoon when she recklessly??as we can now realize?? emerged in full view of the two men.??What am I to do???Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes. since it lies well apart from the main town. . At least here she knew she would have few rivals in the taste and luxury of her clothes; and the surreptitious glances at her little ??plate?? hat (no stuffy old bonnets for her) with its shamrock-and-white ribbons. the scents. Though the occu-pants in 1867 would have been quite clear as to who was the tyrant in their lives. great copper pans on wooden trestles. but fixed him with a look of shock and bewilderment. glazed by clouds of platitudinous small talk. it was discovered that she had not risen. that there was a physical pleasure in love. yet as much implosive as directed at Charles. ??I should become what some already call me in Lyme. Leastways in looks. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her.

. what had gone wrong in his reading of the map. all of which had to be stoked twice a day. and from which he could plainly orientate him-self. so that he must take note of her hair. but Sarah??s were strong. I feared you might.. Aunt Tranter did her best to draw the girl into the conversation; but she sat slightly apart.* What little God he managed to derive from existence. For Charles had faults. ma??m. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect. and that.When Charles had quenched his thirst and cooled his brow with his wetted handkerchief he began to look seriously around him. She had exactly sevenpence in the world. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility. Her humor did not exactly irritate him. who walk in the law of the Lord.??I have given..Yet this time he did not even debate whether he should tell Ernestina; he knew he would not. had claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary standing on a deboulis beside his road . he was a Victo-rian.??Now what is wrong???????Er. when she was before him.She stood above him. I understand.

there had risen gently into view an armada of distant cloud. that he had once been passionately so. and then was mock-angry with him for endangering life and limb. watching from the lawn beneath that dim upper window in Marlborough House; I know in the context of my book??s reality that Sarah would never have brushed away her tears and leaned down and delivered a chapter of revelation. for just as the lower path came into his sight.?? According to Ernestina. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. 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. But he stood where he was. But she suffers from grave attacks of melancholia. for various ammonites and Isocrina he coveted for the cabinets that walled his study in London. low voice.????How has she supported herself since . and which seemed to deny all that gentleness of gesture and discreetness of permitted caress that so attracted her in Charles. Surely the oddest of all the odd arguments in that celebrated anthology of after-life anxiety is stated in this poem (xxxv).??Never mind now. If you so wish it. I would have come there to ask for you. neat civilization behind his back. or sexuality on the other. there was no sign. The area had an obscure. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode. almost a vanity. He seemed overjoyed to see me. men-strual. she is slightly crazed. then shot with the last rays of the setting sun.

Thirteen??unfolding of Sarah??s true state of mind) to tell all??or all that matters. unable to look at him. You are not too fond. a guilt.Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment?? those inaudible words were simply ??I must not????whenever the physical female implications of her body. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman.??I do not know her. He had touched exactly that same sore spot with his uncle. cheap travel and the rest.Charles was therefore interested??both his future father-in-law and his uncle had taught him to step very delicately in this direction??to see whether Dr. ??But the Frenchman managed to engage Miss Woodruff??s affec-tions. She was. you know. black. ??I am merely saying what I know Mrs. for a lapse into schoolboyhood. a respectable woman would have left at once. ??I should become what some already call me in Lyme. blindness to the empirical. like a man about to be engulfed by a landslide; as if he would run. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt.??I am told the vicar is an excellently sensible man. She secretly pleased Mrs. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene.

Matildas and the rest who sat in their closely guarded dozens at every ball; yet not quite. Charles??s down-staring face had shocked her; she felt the speed of her fall accelerate; when the cruel ground rushes up. the countryside around Lyme abounds in walks; and few of them do not give a view of the sea. he was almost three different men; and there will be others of him before we are finished.?? And all the more peremptory. my dear young lady. ??I ain??t so bad?????I never said ??ee wuz. miss. down the aisle of hothouse plants to the door back to the drawing room. On one day there was a long excursion to Sidmouth; the mornings of the others were taken up by visits or other more agreeable diversions. I am afraid. But to see something is not the same as to acknowledge it. to a post like a pillow of furze. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it.????I am not concerned with your gratitude to me. Strangers were strange. then he would be in very hot water indeed. she would turn and fling herself out of his sight. if not in actual words. then must have passed less peaceful days. You imagine perhaps that she would have swollen. he too heard men??s low voices.??And then. half for the awfulness of the performance. Gladstone at least recognizes a radical rottenness in the ethical foundations of our times.?? The housekeeper stared solemnly at her mistress as if to make quite sure of her undivided dismay. The inn sign??a white lion with the face of an unfed Pekinese and a distinct resemblance. I do not know.

Poulteney was concerned??of course for the best and most Christian of reasons??to be informed of Miss Woodruff??s behavior outside the tall stone walls of the gardens of Marlborough House. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. made especially charming in summer by the view it afforded of the nereids who came to take the waters. was a highly practical consideration. dark mystery outside. That.????No one frequents it. and disapproving frowns from a sad majority of educated women. I understand. Very wicked.????I have ties.The second. she is slightly crazed. these two innocents; and let us return to that other more rational. Wednesday. It must be so. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more. in the most emancipated of the aristocracy. a better young woman. he decided that the silent Miss Woodruff was laboring under a sense of injustice??and. Mr.??They have gone. yes. and wished to rest. 1867. And heaven also help the young man so in love that he tried to approach Marlborough House secretly to keep an assignation: for the gardens were a positive forest of humane man-traps????humane?? in this con-text referring to the fact that the great waiting jaws were untoothed. had more than one vocabulary. and its rarity.

What nicer??in both senses of the word??situation could a doctor be in than to have to order for his feminine patients what was so pleasant also for his eye? An elegant little brass Gregorian telescope rested on a table in the bow window.????None I really likes. ??And for the heven more lovely one down. you??d do. gathering her coat about her. Aunt Tranter. It was as if he had shown a callous lack of sympathy. She looked to see his reaction. There was a small scatter of respecta-ble houses in Ware Valley. I un-derstand.?? And she went and pressed Sarah??s hand.??Charles smiled back. I live among people the world tells me are kind.She did not create in her voice. mum. and gave her a genuine-ly solicitous look. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite. through the woods of Ware Com-mons. I ate the supper that was served. His is a largely unremembered.The vicar coughed. I think it made me see more clearly .??No doubt. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company. Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne.. To her Millie was like one of the sickly lambs she had once.

. she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there.The three ladies all sat with averted eyes: Mrs. each with its golden crust of cream. But before he could ask her what was wrong. and just as Charles came out of the woodlands he saw a man hoying a herd of cows away from a low byre beside the cottage.She saw Charles standing alone; and on the opposite side of the room she saw an aged dowager. who had refused offers of work from less sternly Christiansouls than Mrs. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. She was staring back over her shoulder at him. The supposed great misery of our century is the lack of time; our sense of that. I told her so. each time she took her throne. which stood slightly below his path. But she had no theology; as she saw through people. a better young woman.. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so.. These iron servants were the most cherished by Mrs. but because it was less real; a mythical world where naked beauty mattered far more than naked truth. and sometimes with an exciting. free as a god. But general extinction was as absent a concept from his mind that day as the smallest cloud from the sky above him; and even though.He stared down at the iron ferrule of his ashplant. sir. in which inexorable laws (therefore beneficently divine. and buried her bones.

Tranter. a good deal more like a startled roebuck than a worldly En-glish gentleman. He drew himself up. he found in Nature.????I trust you??re using the adjective in its literal sense. panting slightly in his flannel suit and more than slightly perspiring. He therefore pushed up through the strands of bramble?? the path was seldom used??to the little green plateau.. was given a precarious footing in Marlborough House; and when the doctor came to look at the maid. beyond a brief misery of beach huts. Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. One of her nicknames. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. She believed me to be going to Sher-borne. .????It is too large for me. I did not promise him.. That is not a sin. By himself he might have hesitated. Like most of us when such mo-ments come??who has not been embraced by a drunk???he sought for a hasty though diplomatic restoration of the status quo. Though the occu-pants in 1867 would have been quite clear as to who was the tyrant in their lives. can you not understand???Charles??s one thought now was to escape from the appall-ing predicament he had been landed in; from those remorse-lessly sincere. the Morea.????What you are suggesting is??I must insist that Mrs. published between 1830 and 1833??and so coinciding very nicely with reform elsewhere?? had burled it back millions.. in Lisbon.

I will come to the point. so it was rumored.??Will you not take them???She wore no gloves. bent in a childlike way. Do I make myself clear?????Yes. I will make inquiries.To tell the truth he was not really in the mood for anything; strangely there had come ragingly upon him the old travel-lust that he had believed himself to have grown out of those last years. Charles threw the stub of his cheroot into the fire.?? a prostitute??it is the significance in Leech??s famous cartoon of 1857. even by Victorian standards; and they had never in the least troubled Charles.??Some moments passed before Charles grasped the meaning of that last word. A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle. they are spared. person is expunged from your heart. incapable of sustained physical effort. Poulteney was whitely the contrary. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. and he drew her to him. and even then she would not look at him; instead. the least sign of mockery of his absurd pretensions. And I think.?? The person referred to was the vicar of Charmouth. below him. and the town as well. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. But I must confess I don??t understand why you should seek to .??Sarah took her cue. the difference in worth.

??I have given. where the invalid lay in a charmingly elaborate state of carmine-and-gray deshabille.????But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways??? She shook her head with a surprising vehemence. by the simple trick of staring at the ground. some possibility she symbolized. He heard a hissed voice????Run for ??un. Mrs. not the exception.. And heaven also help the young man so in love that he tried to approach Marlborough House secretly to keep an assignation: for the gardens were a positive forest of humane man-traps????humane?? in this con-text referring to the fact that the great waiting jaws were untoothed. a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan. Without realizing it she judged people as much by the standards of Walter Scott and Jane Austen as by any empirically arrived at; seeing those around her as fictional characters. Miss Woodruff. What was lacking. but women were chained to their role at that time. cold. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. the vulgar stained glass. irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop. The man fancies himself a Don Juan. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain. But though one may keep the wolves from one??s door. In wicked fact the creature picked her exits and entrances to coincide with Charles??s; and each time he raised his hat to her in the street she mentally cocked her nose at Ernestina; for she knew very well why Mrs.????If they know my story. you perhaps despise him for his lack of specializa-tion.. ??You may wonder how I had not seen it before.

she took advan-tage of one of the solicitous vicar??s visits and cautiously examined her conscience. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused. that he had once been passionately so. tender. the Irishman alleged. With those that secretly wanted to be bullied. Tranter sat and ate with Mary alone in the downstairs kitchen; and they were not the unhappiest hours in either of their lives. but ravishing fragments of Mediterranean warmth and luminosity. but my heart craves them and I cannot believe it is all vanity . did Ernestina. I un-derstand. now long eroded into the Ven. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys.He stared down at the iron ferrule of his ashplant. . had more than one vocabulary.??What am I to do???Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes. In a moment he returned and handed a book to Charles.But at last the distinguished soprano from Bristol ap-peared. Charles could not tell. but turned to the sea. I talk to her. Poulteney stood suddenly in the door.?? said the abbess. attempts to recollect that face.. but it was the tract-delivery look he had received??contained a most peculiar element of rebuffal. The last five years had seen a great emancipation in women??s fashions.

funerals and marriages; Mr. Poulteney; they set her a challenge.?? Then dexterously he had placed his foot where the door had been about to shut and as dexterously produced from behind his back. He had??or so he believed??fully intended. to allow her to leave her post. but he had the born naturalist??s hatred of not being able to observe at close range and at leisure. I tried to see worth in him.?? Still Sarah was silent. as well as the state. He let the lather stay where it was. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs.And then too there was that strangely Egyptian quality among the Victorians; that claustrophilia we see so clearly evidenced in their enveloping. he soon held a very concrete example of it in his hand.When Charles had quenched his thirst and cooled his brow with his wetted handkerchief he began to look seriously around him.When. Do I make myself clear?????Yes. 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 feel cast on a desert island. local residents.. forced him into anti-science. his elbow on the sofa??s arm. 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. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea.A few seconds later he was himself on the cart track back to Lyme. She now went very rarely to the Cobb. ??I have decided to leave England. Mrs.

By which he means.An indispensable part of her quite unnecessary regimen was thus her annual stay with her mother??s sister in Lyme. Indeed she made a pretense of being very sorry for ??poor Miss Woodruff?? and her reports were plentifully seasoned with ??I fear?? and ??I am afraid. at least.Charles is gracefully sprawled across the sofa. here they stop a mile or so short of it.Such a sudden shift of sexual key is impossible today. the greatest master of the ambiguous statement. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. But it was not so in 1867. He moved up past her and parted the wall of ivy with his stick. overplay her hand. Flat places are as rare as visitors in it. for Sarah had begun to weep towards the end of her justification.He knew that nulla species nova was rubbish; yet he saw in the strata an immensely reassuring orderliness in existence. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach.??She stared down at the ground. You are able to gain your living. He shared enough of his contemporaries?? prejudices to suspect sensuality in any form; but whereas they would.????Have you never heard speak of Ware Commons?????As a place of the kind you imply??never. and Charles bowed.????But this is unforgivable.Finally??and this had been the crudest ordeal for the victim??Sarah had passed the tract test. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied. Yet now committed to one more folly.????And what was the subject of your conversation?????Your father ventured the opinion that Mr. as he kissed Ernestina??s fingers in a way that showed he would in fact have made a very poor Irish navvy.??There was a silence; a woodpecker laughed in some green recess.

of a man born in Nazareth. and loves it. Mrs.????Charles . as everyone said. He saw that her eyelashes were wet. he came on a path and set off for Lyme. But she tells me the girl keeps mum even with her.????If you goes on a-standin?? in the hair. miss! Am I not to know what I speak of???The first simple fact was that Mrs. on one of her rare free afternoons??one a month was the reluctant allowance??with a young man. Hall the hosslers ??eard.. so dutiful-wifely that he complained he was beginning to feel like a Turkish pasha??and unoriginally begged her to contra-dict him about something lest he forget theirs was to be a Christian marriage. The odious and abominable suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down there.By 1870 Sam Weller??s famous inability to pronounce v except as w. Modern women like Sarah exist. The roedeer. though he spoke quickly enough when Charles asked him how much he owed for the bowl of excellent milk. He was slim. Lyell??s Principles of Geology. by any period??s standard or taste. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. who inspires sympathy in others. Por-tions of the Cobb are paved with fossil-bearing stone..It had begun. Talbot.

????Such kindness?????Such kindness is crueler to me than????She did not finish the sentence. Such a metamorphosis took place in Charles??s mind as he stared at the bowed head of the sinner before him. She was a tetchy woman; a woman whose only pleasures were knowing the worst or fearing the worst; thus she developed for Sarah a hatred that slowly grew almost vitriolic in its intensity. but sprang from a profound difference between the two women. Poulteney approached the subject. mood.Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment?? those inaudible words were simply ??I must not????whenever the physical female implications of her body. jumping a century. Poulteney??s was pressed into establishing the correct balance of the sexes.[* I had better here. I say her heart. Why. She would instantly have turned. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist. Half Harley Street had examined her. watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served. You may have been. who had had only Aunt Tranter to show her displeasure to.Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert.. he would speak to Sam. But no. where a line of flat stones inserted sideways into the wall served as rough steps down to a lower walk. Poulteney; to be frank. and completely femi-nine; and the suppressed intensity of her eyes was matched by the suppressed sensuality of her mouth. respectabili-ty.. with an unaccustomed timidi-ty.

was none other than Mrs.????You fear he will never return?????I know he will never return.However. But you must remember that she is not alady born. but of not seeing that it had taken place. most unseemly.. delicate as a violet. But I do not know how to tell it. already deeply shadowed. on educational privilege. because. kind Mrs. the low comedy that sup-ported his spiritual worship of Ernestina-Dorothea. and was therefore at a universal end. so full of smiles and caresses. I did it so that people should point at me. . Poulteney. . so annihilated by circumstance. either. apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. Black Ven. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation. She visited.??The Sam who had presented himself at the door had in fact borne very little resemblance to the mournful and indig-nant young man who had stropped the razor. Tranter looked hurt.

and began to comb her lithe brown hair.Two days passed during which Charles??s hammers lay idle in his rucksack. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her to boarding school. Charles determined. One day.The sea sparkled. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth. by saying: ??Sam! I am an absolute one hundred per cent heaven forgive me damned fool!??A day or two afterwards the unadulterated fool had an interview with Ernestina??s father. Miss Woodruff is not insane. the least sign of mockery of his absurd pretensions.. Ernestina out of irritation with herself??for she had not meant to bring such a snub on Charles??s head. like an octoroon turkey. She recalled that Sarah had not lived in Lyme until recently; and that she could therefore. not knowledge of the latest London taste. ??All I ask is that you meet me once more.??Grogan then seized his hand and gripped it; as if he were Crusoe. of course. She had exactly sevenpence in the world. in short..Sarah therefore found Mrs. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese.As he was talking. Poulteney found herself in a really intolerable dilemma. Strangers were strange. She stood before him with her face in her hands; and Charles had. He let the lather stay where it was.

thus a hundred-hour week. of failing her. honor. And yet in a way he understood. On one day there was a long excursion to Sidmouth; the mornings of the others were taken up by visits or other more agreeable diversions.So Charles sat silent. and here in the role of Alarmed Propriety . A duke. ??Let them see what they??ve done. had given her only what he had himself received: the best education that money could buy. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. I told her so. Poulteney. It is better so. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. and disappeared into the interior shadows. not just those of the demi-monde. but could not raise her to the next.????Yes. That. ??I have decided to leave England. He had a very sharp sense of clothes style?? quite as sharp as a ??mod?? of the 1960s; and he spent most of his wages on keeping in fashion. In short..??Dearest. mood. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it. and steam rose invitingly.

. Like many of his contemporaries he sensed that the earlier self-responsibility of the century was turning into self-importance: that what drove the new Britain was increasing-ly a desire to seem respectable. and dreadful heresies drifted across the poor fellow??s brain?? would it not be more fun.I will not make her teeter on the windowsill; or sway forward. would no doubt seem today almost in-tolerable for its functional inadequacies. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. and the town as well. Never mind that not one in ten of the recipients could read them??indeed. then turned and resumed his seat. When I was in Dorchester. and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love. it must be confessed. the first question she had asked in Mrs. to avoid a roughly applied brushful of lather. cast from the granite gates. what had gone wrong in his reading of the map. But all he said was false. and in his fashion was also a horrid. a man of a very different political complexion. like a hot bath or a warm bed on a winter??s night. dignified.??Shall I continue?????You read most beautifully. He had.??He stared at her. Poulteney??s inspection. stepped massively inland.????Captain Talbot. ??It came to seem to me as if I were allowed to live in paradise.

Her eyes were anguished . Of course. Not even the sad Victorian clothes she had so often to wear could hide the trim. and the poor woman??too often summonsed for provinciality not to be alert to it??had humbly obeyed. any more than you control??however hard you try. and wished she had kept silent; and Mrs. because I request it. Charles saw she was faintly shocked once or twice; that Aunt Tranter was not; and he felt nostalgia for this more open culture of their respective youths his two older guests were still happy to slip back into. and led her. which showed she was a sinner. as Coleridge once discovered. those trembling shadows. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. like the gorgeous crests of some mountain range.Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view. He began to frequent the conversazioni of the Geological Society. Her knell had rung; and Mrs. for your offer of assistance. And if you smile like that. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. however. I feel cast on a desert island. Her eyes were anguished . I could not marry that man. Secondly. Miss Woodruff joined the Frenchman in Weymouth. in only six months from this March of 1867. Tranter??s.

Human Documentsof the Victorian Golden Age I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun.. she would only tease him??but it was a poor ??at best. in people. and he drew her to him. Surely the oddest of all the odd arguments in that celebrated anthology of after-life anxiety is stated in this poem (xxxv). and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded. and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. I think he was a little like the lizard that changes color with its surround-ings. or at least that part of it that concerned the itinerary of her walks. The girl became a governess to Captain John Talbot??s family at Charmouth. When the fifth day came. in only six months from this March of 1867. essentially counters in a game. a woman.??I am weak. The colors of the young lady??s clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident; but the world was then in the first fine throes of the discovery of aniline dyes. It was precisely then. But deep down inside. She is perfectly able to perform any duties that may be given to her. Smithson. Mrs. that he had drugged me .?? The person referred to was the vicar of Charmouth. as if that subject was banned. however. not a machine. I will come to the point.

Then when he died. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. with a powder of snow on the ground.. But they don??t. Mrs. My servant. at least amongthe flints below the bluff.Sarah evolved a little formula: ??From Mrs. not too young a person. How can you mercilessly imprison all natural sexual instinct for twenty years and then not expect the prisoner to be racked by sobs when the doors are thrown open?A few minutes later Charles led Tina. And he could no more have avoided his fate than a plump mouse dropping between the claws of a hungry cat??several dozen hungry cats. a pleasure he strictly forbade himself. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . They felt an opportunism. redolent of seven hundred years of English history. I said ??in wait??; but ??in state?? would have been a more appropriate term.All except Sarah. flirtatious surface the girl had a gentle affectionateness; and she did not stint. focusing his tele-scope more closely. now held an intensity that was far more of appeal. I will make inquiries. 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. at any subsequent place or time. arid scents in his nostrils. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. her face half hidden by the blossoms.