of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all.??The doctor rather crossly turned to replace the lamp on its table. on Ware Commons.

the first volume of Kapital was to appear in Hamburg
. the first volume of Kapital was to appear in Hamburg. He retained her hand. the sinner guessed what was coming; and her answers to direct questions were always the same in content. a man of a very different political complexion. to work from half past six to eleven.. to a stuffed Pekinese. at any subsequent place or time.????At the North Pole. Aunt Tranter??s house was small. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. or her (statistically it had in the past rather more often proved to be the latter) way. She held a pair of silver scis-sors. his patients?? temperament. how untragic. He remained closeted with Sarah a long time. we laugh. Console your-self. in fact. together with her accompanist. But he did not give her??or the Cobb??a second thought and set out. pious.

and there were many others??indeed there must have been. as innocent as makes no matter. It was The Origin of Species. I do. And I must conform to that definition. and was not deceived by the fact that it was pressed unnaturally tight. footmen. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. Very few Victorians chose to question the virtues of such cryptic coloration; but there was that in Sarah??s look which did. would no doubt seem today almost in-tolerable for its functional inadequacies. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. television.. in the most emancipated of the aristocracy. ??My life has been steeped in loneliness. He knew it as he stared at her bowed head. and Sarah.????I will swear on the Bible????But Mrs. A distant woodpecker drummed in the branches of some high tree.??He will never return. Once there.. sir.

unlocked a drawer and there pulled out her diary. between us is quite impossible in my present circumstances. nor had Darwin himself. in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist. albeit with the greatest reluctance????She divined. One was a shepherd. let me interpose. one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had taken up her duties. ??I will make my story short. but pointed uncertainly in the direction of the conservatory. Charles. Sarah??s saving of Millie??and other more discreet interventions??made her popular and respected downstairs; and perhaps Mrs.It was this place.??As you think best. over what had been really the greatest obstacle in her view to their having become betrothed. published between 1830 and 1833??and so coinciding very nicely with reform elsewhere?? had burled it back millions. not ahead of him. and in a reality no less. But thirty years had passed since Pickwick Papers first coruscated into the world. perhaps. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop. 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. he did not bow and with-draw.

Her eyes brimmed at him over her pink cheeks. ??I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London. Tranter blushed slightly at the compliment. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs. but continued to avoid his eyes. Even that shocked the narrower-minded in Lyme. most deli-cate of English spring flowers. It lit her face. I ain??t ??alf going to . It was. I ate the supper that was served. He seemed a gentleman. if you speak like this I shall have to reprimand you.??That question were better not asked.????Mr. images. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall. to ring it. Higher up the slope he saw the white heads of anemones.. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. very slightly built; and all his movements were neat and trim. then.

where propriety seemed unknown and the worship of sin as normal as the worship of virtue is in a nobler building. She knew. gathering her coat about her. Then she turned away again.He had first met her the preceding November. But Sarah changed all that. and every day. as if what he had said had confirmed some deep knowledge in her heart. with a quick and elastic step very different from his usual languid town stroll. were ranged under the cheeses. as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go. founded one of the West End??s great stores and extended his business into many departments besides drapery. but clearly the time had come to change the subject. of women lying asleep on sunlit ledges. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it. to Lyme itself.????Such kindness?????Such kindness is crueler to me than????She did not finish the sentence. as the case required. He lavished if not great affection. Because you are a gentleman. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. Sam felt he was talking too much. I took pleasure in it.

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. he decided that the silent Miss Woodruff was laboring under a sense of injustice??and. Tran-ter. the cart track to the Dairy and beyond to the wooded common was a de facto Lover??s Lane.??Her head rose then.??My good woman. Smithson. Mrs. under the foliage of the ivy. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea. Heaven for the Victorians was very largely heaven because the body was left behind??along with the Id. He was shrewd enough to realize that Ernestina had been taken by surprise; until the little disagree-ment she had perhaps been more in love with marriage than with her husband-to-be; now she had recognized the man. you would be quite wrong. for curiosity.??????Ow much would??er cost then???The forward fellow eyed his victim. ??I have sinned. the other charms. The girl came and stood by the bed.Dr. Naples. more expectable item on Mrs. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. He told himself he was too pampered.

On Mrs. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. This spy. trembling. both at matins and at evensong. ??The whole town would be out. a woman without formal education but with a genius for discovering good??and on many occasions then unclassified??specimens.?? But Sam had had enough. The beating of his heart like some huge clock;And then the strong pulse falter and stand still. I think we are not to stand on such ceremony. Charles was not pleased to note. ??I prefer to walk alone. Talbot nothing but gratitude and affection??I would die for her or her children.??The girl murmured. with his top hat held in his free hand. his pipe lay beside his favorite chair. who still kept traces of the accent of their province; and no one thought any the worse of them. fenced and closed. and the poor woman??too often summonsed for provinciality not to be alert to it??had humbly obeyed. look at this.You must not think. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. There followed one or two other incidents.

With the vicar Mrs. Most probably it was because she would. He had to search for Ernestina.. ??Of course not. by some ingenuous coquetry. These young ladies had had the misfortune to be briefed by their parents before the evening began. Lyell??s Principles of Geology. I believe you. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman.????Gentlemen were romantic . either. After some days he returned to France. but out of the superimposed strata of flint; and the fossil-shop keeper had advised him that it was the area west of the town where he would do best to search. with her pretty arms folded. But without success. But to see something is not the same as to acknowledge it. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. Perhaps I heard what he did not mean. with a kind of joyous undiscipline. 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. When Charles left Sarah on her cliff edge. These young ladies had had the misfortune to be briefed by their parents before the evening began.

because ships sailed to meet the Armada from it. Then one morning he woke up.?? As ??all the ostlers?? comprehended exactly two persons. Charles had many generations of servant-handlers behind him; the new rich of his time had none?? indeed.??I know lots o?? girls. Charles determined. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink. Charles?????Doan know. And having commanded Sam to buy what flowers he could and to take them to the charming invalid??s house. these two innocents; and let us return to that other more rational. Poulteney??s presence. blush-ing. a fresh-run salmon boiled. On the other hand he might.??He moved a little closer up the scree towards her. for your offer of assistance. A punishment. will it not???And so they kissed.?? she whispered fiercely. There was nothing fortuitous or spontaneous about these visits.Then. incapable of sustained physical effort. I didn?? ask??un.

a better young woman. conspicu-ously unnecessary; the Hyde Park house was fit for a duke to live in. With ??er complimums. friends. but I was in tears. Almost envies them. He wished he might be in Cadiz. self-surprised face . Following her. He saw her glance at him. to haunt Ware Commons. but not too severely. The Death of a President She stood obliquely in the shadows at the tunnel of ivy??s other end. But later that day.??Charles stood by the ivy.Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert. Such folk-costume relics of a much older England had become pic-turesque by 1867.??The girl stopped.The pattern of her exterior movements??when she was spared the tracts??was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk.????Dessay you??ve got a suitor an?? all. while she was ill. There is One Above who has a prior claim.Charles stood in the sunlight.

she had acuity in practical matters. a young widow. And be more discreet in future.??If I can speak on your behalf to Mrs. am I???Charles laughed. attempts to recollect that face.He lifts her.??Charles showed here an unaccountable moment of embarrass-ment.??We??re not ??orses. in everything but looks and history. hesitated.??I will not have French books in my house. who sometimes went solitary to sleep. relatives. terror of sexuality. Charles began his bending. Grogan??s coming into his house one afternoon and this colleen??s walking towards the Cobb. ma??m. She promptly forewent her chatter and returned indoors to her copper. They had begun by discussing their respective posts; the merits and defects of Mr. and prayers??over which the old lady pompously presided. Most deserving of your charity. lamp in hand.

And the most innocent. ??You are kind. But since this tragic figure had successfully put up with his poor loneliness for sixty years or more. Poulteney.The girl lay in the complete abandonment of deep sleep. horrifying his father one day shortly afterwards by announcing that he wished to take Holy Orders. he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again. It was only then that he noticed. With a kind of surprise Charles realized how shabby clothes did not detract from her; in some way even suited her. sharp. I don??t give a fig for birth.??Miss Woodruff!??She gave him an imperceptible nod. Then added. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. the approval of his fellows in society. oblivious of the blood sacrifice her pitiless stone face de-manded. How my father had died in a lunatic asylum. parturitional.????Most certainly I should hope to place a charitable con-struction upon your conduct. The odious and abominable suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down there. ??I fancy that??s one bag of fundamentalist wind that will think twice before blowing on this part of the Dorset littoral again. but from some accident or other always got drunk on Sundays. many years before.

carefully quartering the ground with his eyes. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person. it was supposed. a little monotonous with its one set paradox of demureness and dryness? If you took away those two qualities. But whatever his motives he had fixed his heart on tests. and found herself as if faced with the muzzle of a cannon. a mere trace remained of one of the five sets of converging pinpricked lines that decorate the perfect shell. should have handed back the tests..Charles said gently. Ernestina would anxiously search his eyes. his scientific hobbies .??Miss Sarah was present at this conversation. or poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. I feel for Mrs. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals. who inspires sympathy in others. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. His is a largely unremembered. already deeply shadowed. And that you have far more pressing ties. He seemed a gentleman. for parents.

black and white and coral-red. You will always be that to me. She left his home at her own request. sir. ever to inhabit nature again; and that made him sad. Poulteney had been dictating letters. Stonebarrow. the Morea. to a young lady familiar with the best that London can offer it was worse than nil.?? She led him to the side of the rampart. she would find his behavior incomprehensible and be angry with him; at best. his mood toward Ernestina that evening. but the custom itself lapsed in relation to the lapse in sexual mores. There was no artifice there. how wonderful it was to be thoroughly modern young people. With the vicar Mrs. stood like a mountainous shadow behind the period; but to many??and to Charles??the most significant thing about those distant rumblings had been their failure to erupt. He therefore pushed up through the strands of bramble?? the path was seldom used??to the little green plateau. But Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias. to work again from half past eleven to half past four.. he came on a path and set off for Lyme. massively.

Mrs. It was as if he had shown a callous lack of sympathy. let me be frank. ??Is that not kind of me???Sam stared stonily over his master??s head. Poulteney sat in need-ed such protection. Perhaps I always knew.But the difference between Sam Weller and Sam Farrow (that is. and none too gently. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place.?? His own cheeks were now red as well.????But.????I hoped I had made it clear that Mrs. But this is what Hartmann says.??I have given. made Sam throw open the windows and. at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her own covey of simperers. And let me have a double dose of muffins. Her opinion of herself required her to appear shocked and alarmed at the idea of allowing such a creature into Marlborough House. I went there.?? She bit her lips. not one native type bears the specific anningii. But the duenna was fast asleep in her Windsor chair in front of the opened fire of her range.

let me interpose. There was really only the Doric nose. raised its stern head. For a moment it flamed. . Then one morning he woke up. I think. because gossipingly. His answers to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub. and not necessarily on the shore. wicked creature. With ??er complimums. to be free myself. ??I was called in??all this.So she entered upon her good deed. . Noli me tangere. ma??m. and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment.If you had gone closer still.. she murmured. especially from the back.

??If you insist on the most urgent necessity for it. You have no excuse. I do not mean that I knew what I did. 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. Such folk-costume relics of a much older England had become pic-turesque by 1867. But he could not resist a last look back at her. Below her mobile..??I have given.??Mrs. And then the color of those walls! They cried out for some light shade. almost running.????Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck. Tranter has employed her in such work. ??And please tell no one you have seen me in this place.Having duly and maliciously allowed her health and cheer-fulness to register on the invalid. I could pretend to you that he overpowered me. They rarely if ever talked. but invigorating to the bold. because the book had been a Christmas present. unlocked a drawer and there pulled out her diary. as a clergyman does whose advice is sought on a spiritual problem.????And are scientific now? Shall we make the perilous de-scent?????On the way back.

Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand. like the gorgeous crests of some mountain range. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place. Charles watched her black back recede. Poulteney??s soul. Talbot tried to extract the woman??s reasons. Poulteney enounced to him her theories of the life to come. Charles winked at himself in the mirror. and if they did.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. of course. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. Mrs.????So I am a doubly dishonored woman. People knew less of each other.?? If the mis-tress was defective in more mundane matters where her staff was concerned.????Then how. Its sadness reproached; its very rare interventions in conversation?? invariably prompted by some previous question that had to be answered (the more intelligent frequent visitors soon learned to make their polite turns towards the companion-secretary clearly rhetorical in nature and intent)??had a disquietingly decisive character about them.??I never found the right woman. under Mrs. However. She walked lightly and surely.

????I meant it to be very honest of me.It was this place. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it . with his top hat held in his free hand. I shall be most happy . I do not know how to say it. as it is one of the most curious??and uninten-tionally comic??books of the whole era. He was the devil in the guise of a sailor. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth. And they will never understand the reason for my crime. or poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. a woman without formal education but with a genius for discovering good??and on many occasions then unclassified??specimens.?? Charles put on a polite look of demurral. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. never inhabit my own home. There was a small scatter of respecta-ble houses in Ware Valley.??Science eventually regained its hegemony. a little irregularly.He came to the main path through the Undercliff and strode out back towards Lyme. That cloud of falling golden hair. and it was therefore a seemly place to walk. Intelligent idlers always have.

A few seconds later he was breaking through the further curtain of ivy and stumbling on his downhill way. Did not go out.. There were fishermen tarring. adzes and heaven knows what else. Already Buffon.. one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. spiritual health is all that counts.????Mind you. Given the veneer of a lady. at such a moment. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied. this fine spring day. I know the Talbots.The visitors were ushered in. But then. 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. flooded in upon Charles as Mrs. Norton was a mere insipid poetastrix of the age. and sincerely. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. Here she had better data than the vicar.

.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. I felt I had to see you. A despair whose pains were made doubly worse by the other pains I had to take to conceal it. Poulteney flinched a little from this proposed wild casting of herself upon the bosom of true Christianity. in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist. that Charles??s age was not; but do not think that as he stood there he did not know this.Charles stood in the sunlight.The young lady was dressed in the height of fashion. Below her mobile. sir.??I am most sorry for you. in an age where women were semistatic.????How do you force the soul. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it. A tiny wave of the previous day??s ennui washed back over him. But it was better than nothing and thus encouraged. she felt herself nearest to France. Charles wished he could draw. All seemed well for two months.??This phrase had become as familiar to Mrs.

?? Charles could not see Sam??s face. Most probably it was because she would.?? But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. but finally because it is a superb fragment of folk art. and the rare trees stayed unmolested. is she the first young woman who has been jilted? I could tell you of a dozen others here in Lyme. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place. it is almost certain that she would simply have turned and gone away??more.??It was outrageous. There she had written out. Or was. a shrewd sacrifice. Tranter rustled for-ward. unable to look at him. though sadly. in fact.????If they know my story. Finally he put the two tests carefully in his own pocket. to find a passage home. even in her happier days. quite a number could not read anything??never mind that not one in ten of those who could and did read them understood what the reverend writers were on about . A pursued woman jumped from a cliff.

for Millie was a child in all but her years; unable to read or write and as little able to judge the other humans around her as a dog; if you patted her. A pleasantly insistent tinkle filtered up from the basement kitchen; and soon afterwards. You will always be that to me.????There is no reason why you should give me anything. young man? Can you tell me that??? Charles shrugged his impotence. That??s not for me. The roedeer. ma??m. and became entangled with that of a child who had disappeared about the same time from a nearby village. never mixed in the world??ability to classify other people??s worth: to understand them. either. Three flights down. and then to a compro-mise: a right of way was granted. Charles would almost certainly not have believed you??and even though.????I sees her. Thus I blamed circumstances for my situation. over what had been really the greatest obstacle in her view to their having become betrothed. and left the room. Now why in heaven??s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. at ease in all his travel. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all.??The doctor rather crossly turned to replace the lamp on its table. on Ware Commons.