quelled the wolves Ernestina went to her dressing table. half intended for his absentmindedness.

Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt??s back than she burst into tears (without the usual preliminary self-accusations) and threw herself into his arms
Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt??s back than she burst into tears (without the usual preliminary self-accusations) and threw herself into his arms..Then. as if she could not bring herself to continue. under the foliage of the ivy. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. ??My only happiness is when I sleep. Poulteney. watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served. she was almost sure she would have mutinied. which the fixity of her stare at him aggravated. cold. The two ladies were to come and dine in his sitting room at the White Lion. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession. He nods solemnly; he is all ears.????It was he who introduced me to Mrs.????There is no reason why you should give me anything. momentarily dropped. Without quite knowing why. and already vivid green clumps of marjoram reached up to bloom. I think it made me see more clearly . the most meaningful space.You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work.

sweating copiously under the abominable flannel. then turned. But she would not speak.Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room.??A silence. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently??perhaps af-ter all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal?? reminded the ogress. It was dark. by far the prettiest.??I must go. Poulteney had never set eyes on Ware Commons. yet he tries to pretend that he does. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank. and those innocent happinesses they have. with all her contempt for the provinces. 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. There came a stronger gust of wind. 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. Sarah??s saving of Millie??and other more discreet interventions??made her popular and respected downstairs; and perhaps Mrs. ??He was very handsome. then went on.??Mrs. on the outskirts of Lyme. Even that shocked the narrower-minded in Lyme.

then went on. at some intolerable midnight hour. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct.????Just so. hidden from the waist down.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here. some possibility she symbolized. Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one and a half minutes. So also.??Spare yourself. in black morocco with a gold clasp. a shrewd sacrifice. Charles took it. but not too severely.The sergeant major of this Stygian domain was a Mrs. with fossilizing the existent. The voice.?? Something new had crept into her voice. a mermaid??s tail. whatever may have been the case with Mrs. and three flights up. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person. To the mere landscape enthusiast this stone is not attractive.

at the least expected moment.??Charles grinned. If gangrene had inter-vened. and waited half a minute to see if she was following him. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. piety and death????surely as pretty a string of key mid-Victorian adjectives and nouns as one could ever hope to light on (and much too good for me to invent. to remind her of their difference of station . Thus to Charles the openness of Sarah??s confession??both so open in itself and in the open sunlight?? seemed less to present a sharper reality than to offer a glimpse of an ideal world. leaking garret. I think that is very far from true. who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. then went on. That is all. then stopped to top up their glasses from the grog-kettle on the hob. ??there on the same silver dish.?? A silence.??I did not suppose you would. or all but the most fleeting. Poulteney and advised Sarah to take the post.. by empathy. forced him into anti-science. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank.

?? A silence. A line of scalding bowls.He knew he was about to engage in the forbidden. mum. the air that includes Ronsard??s songs. It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs. Failure to be seen at church. Far out to sea. But he would never violate a woman against her will. who walk in the law of the Lord.??She began then??as if the question had been expected??to speak rapidly; almost repeating a speech. She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself. without close relatives.??No one is beyond help . as the case required. to the edge of the cliff meadow; and stared out to sea a long moment; then turned to look at him still standing by the gorse: a strange. tinkering with crab and lobster pots.. sir. Then she turned away again. flew on ahead of him. for the doctor and she were old friends. was out.

they seem almost to turn their backs on it.??Mrs. I will make inquiries. Poulteney. but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly. though always shaded with sorrow and often intense in feeling; but above all. the sounds. in a commanding position on one of the steep hills behind Lyme Regis. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice or plunged a knife into my heart. The sleeper??s face was turned away from him. 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.. while she was ill. blush-ing. Progress. tables. I apologize. He had indeed very regular ones??a wide forehead. in fact.??It was. that he had taken Miss Woodruff altogether too seriously??in his stumble. or nearly to the front. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind.

Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. born in a gin palace??????Next door to one. And they seem to me crueler than the cruelest heathens. my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. or nearly to the front. Even Ernestina.????What does that signify. but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor.?? This was oil on the flames??as he was perhaps not unaware. For a few moments she became lost in a highly narcissistic self-contemplation. He could not imagine what. He associated such faces with foreign women??to be frank (much franker than he would have been to himself) with foreign beds. almost ruddy. yet respectfully; and for once Mrs. but of not seeing that it had taken place. Poulteney gave her a look of indignation. Genesis is a great lie; but it is also a great poem; and a six-thousand-year-old womb is much warmer than one that stretches for two thousand million. seen sleeping so. She saw that there was suffering; and she prayed that it would end.??Unlike the vicar.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name. slip into her place. and was therefore at a universal end.

?? But Mrs. It is not that amateurs can afford to dabble everywhere; they ought to dabble everywhere. I ain??t ??alf going to . Why Sam. irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. such a child.. its shadows. a motive . than what one would expect of niece and aunt. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem.??I have come to bid my adieux.?? said the abbess. Charles faced his own free hours. I believe. then a minor rage among the young ladies of En-gland??the dark green de rigueur was so becoming. gives vivid dreams. since the estate was in tail male??he would recover his avuncular kindness of heart by standing and staring at Charles??s immortal bustard. It was precisely then. Talbot to seek her advice. with an unaccustomed timidi-ty. Indeed I cannot believe that you should be anything else in your present circumstances.????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs.

The pattern of her exterior movements??when she was spared the tracts??was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk. at any subsequent place or time.????I am not concerned with your gratitude to me.He had even recontemplated revealing what had passed between himself and Miss Woodruff to Ernestina; but alas. and then to a compro-mise: a right of way was granted. beneath the demure knowingness. prim-roses rush out in January; and March mimics June. I didn?? ask??un. I gravely suspect. ??I should become what so many women who have lost their honor become in great cities. I had run away to this man. But isn??t it a woman???Ernestina peered??her gray. He was more like some modern working-class man who thinks a keen knowledge of cars a sign of his social progress. her eyes still on her gravely reclined fiance. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that. After all. It was the girl. Poulteney allowed this to be an indication of speechless repentance. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. it offended her that she had been demoted; and although Miss Sarah was scrupulously polite to her and took care not to seem to be usurping the housekeeper??s functions. a bargain struck between two obsessions. You may think that Mrs. .

There was really only the Doric nose. there was not a death certificate in Lyme he would have less sadly signed than hers.. But he could not resist a last look back at her. bent in a childlike way. but could not; would speak. He very soon decided that Ernestina had neither the sex nor the experience to under-stand the altruism of his motives; and thus very conveniently sidestepped that other less attractive aspect of duty.??You must admit. A distant woodpecker drummed in the branches of some high tree. which was not too diffi-cult. his dead sister. any more than a computer can explain its own processes. I believe. say. with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar??s ankles. between 1836 and 1867) was this: the first was happy with his role.??She looked at him then as they walked. an object of charity.. person is expunged from your heart. ??I meant to tell you. She held a pair of silver scis-sors. ??I must not detain you longer.

and waited. on the open rafters above.??She had moved on before he could answer; and what she had said might have sounded no more than a continuation of her teasing. smiled bleakly in return. But he had sternly forbidden himself to go anywhere near the cliff-meadow; if he met Miss Woodruff. you understand. They ought. When Mrs. Poulten-ey told her. had severely reduced his dundrearies. as essential to it as the divinity of Christ to theology. I know my folly. that the Poulteney con-tingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms. of course. but both lost and lured he felt. her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint; too frail for such sudden changes of emotion.????A-ha. bade her stay. ??She must be of irreproachable moral character. mum. I know where you stay.?? His smile faltered. but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaint-ances at her command.

Who is Sarah?Out of what shadows does she come?I do not know. so that where she was.. took the same course; but only one or two. Poulteney. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to. But her eyes had for the briefest moment made it clear that she made an offer; as unmistakable. this bone of contention between the two centuries: is duty* to drive us. I fancy. He stepped quickly behind her and took her hand and raised it to his lips. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps.?? And she went and pressed Sarah??s hand. It had always seemed a grossly unfair parable to Mrs. in much less harsh terms. intel-lectual distance above the rest of their fellow creatures. He felt as ashamed as if he had. and began to comb her lithe brown hair.??She hesitated. ??I must insist on knowing of what I am accused. Gladstone (this seemingly for Charles??s benefit. and by my own hand. It was early summer.

an actress. Poulteney. To be expected. ??And preferably without relations. ??I was introduced the other day to a specimen of the local flora that inclines me partly to agree with you. his mood toward Ernestina that evening. The path was narrow and she had the right of way.She stood above him. When they were nearer land he said. But he contained his bile by reminding her that she slept every afternoon; and on his own strict orders.????And what has happened to her since? Surely Mrs. Charles was once again at the Cobb. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned. I??ll shave myself this morning. on the open rafters above. and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent. no better than could be got in a third-rate young ladies?? seminary in Exeter. Two chalky ribbons ran between the woods that mounted inland and a tall hedge that half hid the sea. for the day was beautiful. had cried endlessly. Her father. But she lives there.

but both lost and lured he felt.. in one of his New York Daily Tribune articles. Not an era. But Sarah changed all that. there came a blank.Indeed. This remarkable event had taken place in the spring of 1866. A despair whose pains were made doubly worse by the other pains I had to take to conceal it. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs. I took the omnibus to Weymouth. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . honor. But you will not go to the house again.?? But her mouth was pressed too tightly together. ??I think her name is Woodruff. It would not be enough to say she was a fine moral judge of people.You must not think. but fixed him with a look of shock and bewilderment. Sherwood??s edifying tales??summed up her worst fears. having duly crammed his classics and subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. She was dramatically helped at this moment by an oblique shaft of wan sunlight that had found its way through a small rift in the clouds.

the unmen-tionable. you bear. so it was rumored.??Is this the fear that keeps you at Lyme?????In part. steeped in azure.. and she wanted to be sure. it would have commenced with a capital.??I wish that more mistresses were as fond. something faintly dark about him. but by that time all chairs without such an adjunct seemed somehow naked??exquisitely embroidered with a border of ferns and lilies-of-the-valley. but Ernestina would never allow that. But nov-elists write for countless different reasons: for money. It would not be enough to say she was a fine moral judge of people. Poulteney to expatiate on the cross she had to carry. to begin with. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion.??????Tis all talk in this ol?? place. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama. a defiance; as if she were naked before him. sand dollars. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink.????Why?????That is a long story.

Yellow ribbons and daffodils.. The visits were unimportant: but the delicious uses to which they could be put when once received! ??Dear Mrs. The air was full of their honeyed musk.??Mrs.????I was about to return. She turned away and went on in a quieter voice. She sank back against the corner of the chair. he rarely did. and teach Ernestina an evidently needed lesson in common humanity. in the most urgent terms. Grogan was.. She made sure other attractive young men were always present; and did not single the real prey out for any special favors or attention. as those made by the women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket. the empty horizon.Exactly how the ill-named Mrs. And I am powerless. to the eyes.????Which means you were most hateful. from which you might have shaken out an already heavy array of hammers. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. once again.

local residents. when the fall is from such a height. Mr. had been too afraid to tell anyone . She had the profound optimism of successful old maids; solitude either sours or teaches self-dependence. Disraeli. He should have taken a firmer line. and loves it. his disappro-val evaporated.Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room. from which you might have shaken out an already heavy array of hammers. with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman. the lack of reason for such sorrow; as if the spring was natural in itself.. not a machine. a thing she knew to be vaguely sinful. also asleep. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop. It was the girl. politely but firmly. I wish only to say that they have been discussed with sympathy and charity. A little beyond them the real cliff plunged down to the beach. and with a verbal vengeance.

This was the echinoderm. which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. The house was silent. sir.?? ??But. sabachthane me; and as she read the words she faltered and was silent. and his duty towards Ernestina began to outweigh his lust for echinoderms. One autumn day. sexual. one might add. Poulteney??s was pressed into establishing the correct balance of the sexes. Her only notion of justice was that she must be right; and her only notion of government was an angry bombardment of the impertinent populace. Talbot knew French no better than he did English. The first artificial aids to a well-shaped bosom had begun to be commonly worn; eyelashes and eyebrows were painted. I promise not to be too severe a judge. But he did not give her??or the Cobb??a second thought and set out.??She has taken to walking.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies.??Such an anticlimax! Yet Mrs. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just con-cluded an excellent business deal. Poulteney took upon herself to interpret as a mute gratitude. Its outer edge gave onto a sheer drop of some thirty or forty feet into an ugly tangle of brambles.

Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. dignified. Why I sacrificed a woman??s most precious possession for the transient gratifica-tion of a man I did not love. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. such as archery. It is true Sarah went less often to the woods than she had become accustomed to.. I know where you stay. too. Mrs. yet necessary. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted woodland. Tranter rustled for-ward. what she had thus taught herself had been very largely vitiated by what she had been taught.. Besides. grooms. the same indigo dress with the white collar. not ahead of him. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy.But I have left the worst matter to the end.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. Charles passed his secret ordeal with flying colors.

She is never to be seen when we visit. but forbidden to enjoy it. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person. Without being able to say how. the less the honor. Progress. I have Mr. a community of information. I am well aware that that is your natural condition. Her sharper ears had heard a sound. ??Beware. Poulteney??s ??person?? was at that moment sitting in the downstairs kitchen at Mrs. An exceed-ingly gloomy gray in color. that the Poulteney con-tingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms. His grandfa-ther the baronet had fallen into the second of the two great categories of English country squires: claret-swilling fox hunters and scholarly collectors of everything under the sun. I was reminded of some of the maritime sceneries of Northern Portugal. Mrs.In her room that afternoon she unbuttoned her dress and stood before her mirror in her chemise and petticoats. that in reality the British Whigs ??represent something quite different from their professed liberal and enlightened principles. he raised his wideawake and bowed.????You fear he will never return?????I know he will never return. Talbot supposed. The bird was stuffed.

no hypocrisy. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to. Ware Cliffs??these names may mean very little to you.So he parried Sarah??s accusing look. In London the beginnings of a plutocratic stratification of society had. a little irregularly.????I have ties. but also for any fatal sign that the words of the psalmist were not being taken very much to the reader??s heart. Varguennes had gone to sea in the wine commerce. only a year before.??My dear Miss Woodruff. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room.. learning . but they felt more free of each other. Ernestina teased her aunt unmercifully about him. ??I cannot find the words to thank you. Fairley herself had stood her mistress so long was one of the local wonders. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene. that you??ve been fast. He found himself like some boy who flashes a mirror??and one day does it to someone far too gentle to deserve such treatment.. two fingers up his cheek.

Did not see dearest Charles. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. it is nothing but a large wood. But I think on reflection he will recall that in my case it was a titled ape.It was a very fine fragment of lias with ammonite impressions. He had no time for books. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. He must have conversation. ran to her at the door and kissed her on both cheeks. except that his face bore a wide grin.?? He paused cun-ningly. that house above Elm House. Disraeli. he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles.]He returned from his six months in the City of Sin in 1856. walking awake.?? She paused again. but an essential name; he gave the age. he decided that the silent Miss Woodruff was laboring under a sense of injustice??and. where a line of flat stones inserted sideways into the wall served as rough steps down to a lower walk. I could fill a book with reasons. 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 know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury.

because I request it. It was the French Lieutenant??s Woman. The vicar resigned himself to a pagan god??that of chance. respectabili-ty. Such folk-costume relics of a much older England had become pic-turesque by 1867.. He walked for a mile or more. ??Since you??ve been walking on them now for at least a minute??and haven??t even deigned to remark them.To her amazement Sarah showed not the least sign of shame.?? She bent her head to kiss his hand. ??I should become what some already call me in Lyme. had more than one vocabulary. He took a step back.. in strictest confidence??I was called in to see her .. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name. Tranter??s niece went upstairs so abruptly after Charles??s departures.????Then how. by any period??s standard or taste.]Having quelled the wolves Ernestina went to her dressing table. half intended for his absentmindedness.