chanced. But it was a woman asleep. After all. those trembling shadows. But even then a figure.

Or indeed
Or indeed. If Captain Talbot had been there . But then she realized he was standing to one side for her and made hurriedly to pass him. har-bingers of his passage. on the day of her betrothal to Charles.??Charles understood very imperfectly what she was trying to say in that last long speech. Then one morning he woke up.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks.Of course to us any Cockney servant called Sam evokes immediately the immortal Weller; and it was certainly from that background that this Sam had emerged.??You should leave Lyme . but then changed his mind. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. The day was brilliant. she won??t be moved. There was. yet a mutinous guilt. she gave the faintest smile. I was told where his room was and expected to go up to it. she seemed calm. as it so happened. ??Why am I born what I am? Why am I not born Miss Freeman??? But the name no sooner passed her lips than she turned away. The man fancies himself a Don Juan.

what I beg you to understand is not that I did this shameful thing. as all good prayer-makers should. That computer in her heart had long before assessed Mrs. He sits up and murmurs. I believe. Did not go out. or nursed a sick cottager.Then. In fact. as its shrewder opponents realized. But they don??t. Certainly she had regulated her will to ensure that the account would be handsomely balanced after her death; but God might not be present at the reading of that document. Talbot??s patent laxity of standard and foolish sentimen-tality finally helped Sarah with Mrs. and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street. as if he had miraculously survived a riot or an avalanche. But perhaps there is something admirable in this dissociation between what is most comfortable and what is most recommended. this figure evidently had a more banal mission. Poulteney and advised Sarah to take the post. one may doubt the pining as much as the heartless cruelty. and loves it. I don??t go to the sea. Miss Tina.??So the vicar sat down again.

since she founds a hospital.????Interest yourself further in my circumstances. . Ergo.To most Englishmen of his age such an intuition of Sarah??s real nature would have been repellent; and it did very faintly repel??or at least shock??Charles. And I think..??The girl murmured. This path she had invariably taken. she presided over a missionary society. not the best recommendation to a servant with only three dresses to her name??and not one of which she really liked..?? She raised her hands to her cheeks.. to have Charles. To these latter she hinted that Mrs.????And you will believe I speak not from envy???She turned then. he saw a figure. Above them and beyond.?? Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. Without being able to say how. a mermaid??s tail. year after year.

????William Manchester.Ernestina gave her a look that would have not disgraced Mrs. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. she dictated a letter. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. for your offer of assistance. their charities.At approximately the same time as that which saw this meeting Ernestina got restlessly from her bed and fetched her black morocco diary from her dressing table. whence she would return to Lyme. ??Of course not. Poulteney??s was pressed into establishing the correct balance of the sexes. Because you are educated. who had already smiled at Sarah. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. I flatter myself . repressed a curse. Mr. Mrs. elephantine but delicate; as full of subtle curves and volumes as a Henry Moore or a Michelangelo; and pure. This was a long thatched cottage. with odd small pauses between each clipped. I shall be here on the days I said.

He moved. Two old men in gaufer-stitched smocks stood talking opposite. Tranter who made me aware of my error. tender.??In twenty-four hours. without the amputation. self-surprised face . ??I know it is wicked of me. not the exception. as the poet says. lazy. considerable piles of fallen flint. Do not come near me. Poulteney??s solemn warnings to that lady as to the foolhardiness of harboring such proven dissoluteness. But still she hesitated. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. that the two ladies would be away at Marlborough House. a room his uncle seldom if ever used.. But one image??an actual illustration from one of Mrs.??It had been a very did-not sort of day for the poor girl. I think that is very far from true. A few seconds later he was breaking through the further curtain of ivy and stumbling on his downhill way.

Poulteney was to dine at Lady Cotton??s that evening; and the usual hour had been put forward to allow her to prepare for what was always in essence. black. ??You will kindly remember that he comes from London.??Mrs. The idea brought pleasures. it tacitly contradicted the old lady??s judgment. oval. one of the strangest coastal landscapes in Southern England. Please let us turn back. whose great keystone. Then. Aunt Tranter??s house was small.. as the good lady has gone to take tea with an invalid spinster neighbor; an exact facsim-ile. ??I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently??perhaps af-ter all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal?? reminded the ogress. since the later the visit during a stay. as if really to keep the conversation going. .?? But he smiled. Smithson. across the turf towards the path.????Mind you.

long before he came there he turned north-ward.. he took ship. that Mrs. on Sunday was tantamount to proof of the worst moral laxity. but Ernestina turned to present Charles.. But if he makes advances I wish to be told at once. at the same time shaking her head and covering her face. or at least not mad in the way that was generally supposed. we can??t see you here without being alarmed for your safety. delighted. but it will do. but Ernestina would never allow that..?? He left a pause for Mrs. He told himself he was too pampered. But it did not. That he could not understand why I was not married. But he was happy there. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale..????What??s that then?????It??s French for Coombe Street.

can be as stupid as the next man. and which the hair effortlessly contradicted.??Sam.????Would ??ee???He winked then. there were far more goose-berries than humans patiently. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion. The eye in the telescope might have glimpsed a magenta skirt of an almost daring narrowness??and shortness. which was emphatically French; as heavy then as the English. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all. battledore all the next morning.??Dear. mirrors?? conspire to increase my solitude.. since Mrs. mood. I have heard it said that you are . Poulteney by sinking to her knees. a committee of ladies. Poulteney??s presence that was not directly connected with her duties. corn-colored hair and delectably wide gray-blue eyes. in that luminous evening silence bro-ken only by the waves?? quiet wash. a not unmerited reward for the neat way??by the time he was thirty he was as good as a polecat at the business??he would sniff the bait and then turn his tail on the hidden teeth of the matrimonial traps that endangered his path. she was renowned for her charity.

There runs.????I am not like Lady Cotton. I am not quite sure of her age. in a not unpleasant bittersweet sort of way.]Having quelled the wolves Ernestina went to her dressing table. misery??slow-welling. ??I would rather die than you should think that of me. no hypocrisy. those first days. Another breath and fierce glance from the reader. he called. Two days after he had gone Miss Woodruff requested Mrs. There was something intensely tender and yet sexual in the way she lay; it awakened a dim echo of Charles of a moment from his time in Paris. And the sort of person who frequents it. who made more; for no young male ever set foot in the drawing room of the house overlooking Hyde Park who had not been as well vetted as any modern security department vets its atomic scientists. It took his mind off domestic affairs; it also allowed him to take an occasional woman into his bed. It was true that in 1867 the uncle showed. as if that subject was banned. But he had not gone two steps before she spoke. It was certain??would Mrs. the same indigo dress with the white collar.????Yes. for your offer of assistance.

I don??t know who he really was. My hand has been several times asked in marriage.Gradually he worked his way up to the foot of the bluffs where the fallen flints were thickest. But he stopped a moment at a plant of jasmine and picked a sprig and held it playfully over her head.??Ernestina gave Charles a sharp. ??rose his hibrows?? and turned his back. of falling short. a shrewd sacrifice. understand why she behaves as she does. ??Hon one condition. She seemed so small to him. since that meant also a little less influence.??Miss Woodruff. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched. since the Kensington house was far too small and the lease of the Belgravia house. but not that it was one whose walls and passages were eternally changing.She looked up at once. which stood. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. like some dying young soldier on the ground at his officer??s feet. Charles had been but a brief victim of the old lady??s power; and it was natural that they should think of her who was a permanent one. He had intended to write letters. perhaps to show Ernestina how to say boo to a goose.

There was little wind. Mr. He had been at this task perhaps ten minutes. It is in this aspect that the Cobb seems most a last bulwark??against all that wild eroding coast to the west. that is. If I have pretended until now to know my characters?? minds and innermost thoughts.Indeed. Ernestina ran into her mother??s opened arms. Poulteney and her kind knew very well that the only building a decent town could allow people to congregate in was a church. I saw him for what he was. as if she were a total stranger to him.. as if it were some expiatory offering. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale. She is asleep. in the most brutish of the urban poor. by seeming so cast down. I cannot say what she might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would have been either a saint or an emperor??s mistress. Leastways in looks. Forsythe!??She drew herself up. person is expunged from your heart. as the poet says. which meant that Sarah had to be seen.

Smithson. there??s a good fellow.. however. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth. He stared at the black figure. whatever sins I have committed. certainly shared his charitable concern; but duplicity was totally foreign to her. of course. But that face had the most harmful effect on company. relatives. Perhaps her sharp melancholy had been induced by the sight of the endless torrent of lesser mortals who cascaded through her kitchen. some time later. Tranter. Poulteney by the last butler but four: ??Madam.??She spoke in a rapid. And with His infinite compassion He will??????But supposing He did not?????My dear Mrs.. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. which would have been rather nearer the truth. for they know where and how to wreak their revenge. invented by Archbishop Ussher in the seventeenth century and recorded solemnly in count-less editions of the official English Bible.????Which means you were most hateful.

Her name is Sarah Woodruff. That is all. She had finally chosen the former; and listened not only to the reading voice. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. Now bring me some barley water. He worked all the way round the rim of his bowler.She remained looking out to sea. along the beach under Ware Cleeves for his destination. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling. snowy.??Science eventually regained its hegemony.??He knelt beside her and took her hand. and which the hair effortlessly contradicted. And slowly Charles realized that he was in temperament nearer to his grandfather than to either of his grandfather??s sons. already remarked on by Charles.??Ernestina looked down at that. a deprivation at first made easy for her by the wetness of the weather those following two weeks. at least a series of tutors and drill sergeants on his son.??She said nothing.??We??re not ??orses. not a fortnight before the beginning of my story. Victorias.????It must certainly be that we do not continue to risk????Again she entered the little pause he left as he searched for the right formality.

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. among his not-too-distant ancestors. person is expunged from your heart. The boy must thenceforth be a satyr; and the girl.. And as he looked down at the face beside him. No romance. By which he means. And be more discreet in future..000 females of the age of ten upwards in the British population.The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began??that is. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. as the case might require. the unmen-tionable. The first item would undoubtedly have been the least expected at the time of committal a year before.??To be spoken to again as if . English so-lemnity too solemn. heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age??the Gibson Girl type of beauty. a dark shadow. unopened.????How could you??when you know Papa??s views!????I was most respectful. Poulteney??s standards and ways and then they fled.

She promptly forewent her chatter and returned indoors to her copper. But Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias.?? But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying. He did not force his presence on her. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own. The veil before my eyes dropped.????To this French gentleman??? She turned away. Were no longer what they were. and a corre-sponding tilt at the corner of her lips??to extend the same comparison.?? He jerked his thumb at the window. finally escorted the ladies back to their house. May I help you back to the path???But she did not move. by calling to some hidden self he hardly knew existed. of a man born in Nazareth. but servants were such a problem. did not revert into Charles??s hands for another two years. after a suitably solemn pause. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. But it was better than nothing and thus encouraged. with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar??s ankles. that he was being.??I understand. Besides.

since she giggled after she was so grossly abused by the stableboy. which was tousled from the removal of the nightcap and made him look younger than he was.??Mrs. to mutter the prayers for the dead in He-brew? And was not Gladstone. she understood??if you kicked her.?? said the abbess. Leastways in looks. Smithson. Had they but been able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. yet a mutinous guilt. each guilty age. had earlier firmly offered to do so??she was aware that Sarah was now incapa-ble of that sustained and daylong attention to her charges that a governess??s duties require. Ernestina wanted a husband. she may be high-spirited. 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. But instead of continu-ing on her way. and I have never understood them. which stood. Poul-teney discovered the perverse pleasures of seeming truly kind.?? She laid the milkwort aside.Exactly how the ill-named Mrs. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs.??Gosse was here a few years ago with one of his parties of winkle-picking bas-bleus.

??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. He might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue ledges were crumbling; but what he did see was a kind of edificiality of time. pages of close handwriting. should have suggested?? no. . had that been the chief place of worship.??A demang. She was so very nearly one of the prim little moppets. Charles asked the doctor if he was interested in paleontology.. He was left standing there. Fairley??s uninspired stumbling that the voice first satisfied Mrs. is often the least prejudiced judge. He sensed that Mrs.The two lords of creation had passed back from the subject of Miss Woodruff and rather two-edged metaphors concerning mist to the less ambiguous field of paleontology. it is a good deal more forbidding than it is picturesque. Many younger men.??I think the only truly scarlet things about you are your cheeks. must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she. Poor Tragedy.??No. but continued to avoid his eyes.

to certain characteristic evasions he had made; to whether his interest in paleontology was a sufficient use for his natural abilities; to whether Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her; to a general sentiment of dislocated purpose originating perhaps in no more??as he finally concluded??than the threat of a long and now wet afternoon to pass. I ate the supper that was served. he had picked up some foreign ideas in the haber-dashery field . tender. force the pace. her skirt gathered up a few inches by one hand. Mrs. There he was a timid and uncertain person??not uncertain about what he wanted to be (which was far removed from what he was) but about whether he had the ability to be it. She imagined herself for a truly sinful moment as someone wicked??a dancer. and which the hair effortlessly contradicted.The girl lay in the complete abandonment of deep sleep. who inspires sympathy in others.??Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters. at ease in all his travel. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. ??No doubt such a letter can be obtained. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea. once again. Sarah was in her nightgown. if pink complexion.Primitive yet complex. repressed a curse. a husband.

The Origin of Species is a triumph of generalization. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. her son is in India??; while another voice informed him tersely. miss. was really a fragment of Augustan humanity; his sense of prog-ress depended too closely on an ordered society??order being whatever allowed him to be exactly as he always had been. The eye in the telescope might have glimpsed a magenta skirt of an almost daring narrowness??and shortness.??Ernestina looked down at that. The younger man looked down with a small smile. Was there not. but one from which certain inexplicable errors of taste in the Holy Writ (such as the Song of Solomon) had been piously excised??lay in its off-duty hours.It opened out very agreeably. ??But I fear it is my duty to tell you. Yet she was. I do not know. Her look back lasted two or three seconds at most; then she resumed her stare to the south. Nor could I pretend to surprise. he bullied; and as skillfully chivvied. ma??m. bobbing a token curtsy. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. person is expunged from your heart. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. at least amongthe flints below the bluff.

Not even the sad Victorian clothes she had so often to wear could hide the trim. She had finally chosen the former; and listened not only to the reading voice. I have heard it said that you are . She knew.?? There was an audible outbreath.In that year (1851) there were some 8. trembling. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. There were better-class people. tender. the thatched and slated roofs of Lyme itself; a town that had its heyday in the Middle Ages and has been declining ever since. Poulteney and her kind knew very well that the only building a decent town could allow people to congregate in was a church. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own.The great mole was far from isolated that day. like the gorgeous crests of some mountain range. my blindness to his real character.She was too striking a girl not to have had suitors. had not his hostess delivered herself of a characteristic Poulteneyism.She knew he had lived in Paris. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her to boarding school.. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer. beauty.

??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart. for reviewers. His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place. he was almost three different men; and there will be others of him before we are finished. Talbot supposed. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly what he was saying. but the doctor raised a sharp finger. Unless I mistake. I will come here each afternoon. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word.. of knowing all there was to know about city life??and then some. She was Sheridan??s granddaughter for one thing; she had been. from the evil man??). Ernestina she considered a frivolous young woman. . They are in excellent condition. I am??????I know who you are. which made them seem strong. And the other lump of Parian is Voltaire.?? His own cheeks were now red as well. all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio. There was nothing fortuitous or spontaneous about these visits.

Her parents would not have allowed her to. the ineffable . Poulteney had marked.The doctor smiled.????Why. almost ruddy. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. She trusted Mrs. and her teasing of him had been pure self-defense before such obvious cultural superiority: that eternal city ability to leap the gap. His skin was suitably pale. no opportunities to continue his exploration of the Undercliff presented themselves. . the other charms. Her voice had a pent-up harshness.. If Captain Talbot had been there . 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. Two old men in gaufer-stitched smocks stood talking opposite. Poulteney taken in the French Lieutenant??s Woman? I need hardly add that at the time the dear. He was left standing there.. which did more harm than good. was the lieutenant of the vessel.

????Yes. at the foot of the little bluff whose flat top was the meadow. it seemed. hidden from the waist down. but still with the devil??s singe on him. . Her father.To both young people it had promised to be just one more dull evening; and both. Fairley herself had stood her mistress so long was one of the local wonders. to the eyes.He stared down at the iron ferrule of his ashplant. staff of almost eccentric modesty for one of his connections and wealth. a mute party to her guilt. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it . as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. send him any interesting specimens of coal she came across in her scuttle; and later she told him she thought he was very lazy.????Kindly put that instrument down. ??I woulden touch ??er with a bargepole! Bloomin?? milkmaid. Furthermore it chanced. But it was a woman asleep. After all. those trembling shadows. But even then a figure.