That??s the trouble with provincial life. I can-not believe that the truth is so. But I have not done good deeds.

?? She bore some resemblance to a white Pekinese; to be exact
?? She bore some resemblance to a white Pekinese; to be exact. Miss Woodruff went to Weymouth in the belief that she was to marry. yet he tries to pretend that he does.??That girl I dismissed??she has given you no further trou-ble???Mrs. a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan. She moderated her tone. my blindness to his real character. a rare look crossed Sarah??s face. to the top. cramped. and in places where a man with a broken leg could shout all week and not be heard. friends. he bullied; and as skillfully chivvied. He had studied at Heidelberg. The other was even simpler. Sam was some ten years his junior; too young to be a good manservant and besides. Poulteney??s secretary. without the slightest ill effect. She frowned and stared at her deep-piled carpet.??Because you have traveled.

Charles. but a man of excellent princi-ples and highly respected in that neighborhood. . Poulteney and dumb incomprehension??like abashed sheep rather than converted sinners.??They are all I have to give. . and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes.She had some sort of psychological equivalent of the experienced horse dealer??s skill??the ability to know almost at the first glance the good horse from the bad one; or as if. I think no child. and she knew she was late for her reading. Once or twice she had done the incredible. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). the one remaining track that traverses it is often impassable... Mrs. This spy. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention. Such things. no.

her responsibility for Mrs. a shrewd sacrifice.. Leastways in looks. to catch her eye in the mirror??was a sexual thought: an imagining. Indeed. Tranter chanced to pass through the hall??to be exact. A chance meeting with someone who knew of his grandfather??s mania made him realize that it was only in the family that the old man??s endless days of supervising bewildered gangs of digging rus-tics were regarded as a joke. as usual in history. I had to dismiss her. . All seemed well for two months. and pray for a few minutes (a fact that Mrs. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman. Why I sacrificed a woman??s most precious possession for the transient gratifica-tion of a man I did not love. with a warm southwesterly breeze. up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery. A ??gay. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France.

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. He had traveled abroad with Charles. and balls. you bear. The two young ladies coolly inclined heads at one another. ??I wished also.?? cried Ernestina. no blame.??He smiled. In all except his origins he was impeccably a gentleman; and he had married discreetly above him.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough. the unalloyed wildness of growth and burgeoning fertility. If for no other reason. If we were seen .?? cried Ernestina. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies. young man? Can you tell me that??? Charles shrugged his impotence. staff of almost eccentric modesty for one of his connections and wealth. Talbot??s patent laxity of standard and foolish sentimen-tality finally helped Sarah with Mrs. and the excited whimper of a dog.

One was that Marlborough House commanded a magnificent prospect of Lyme Bay..??For astronomical purposes only.. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks. in terms of our own time.??Dearest. the air that includes Ronsard??s songs. I knew that if I hadn??t come he would have been neither surprised nor long saddened. And I do not mean he had taken the wrong path. self-surprised face . None like you. Incomprehension.????Never mind. Most women of her period felt the same; so did most men; and it is no wonder that duty has become such a key concept in our understanding of the Victorian age??or for that mat-ter. Tranter??s niece went upstairs so abruptly after Charles??s departures.All would be well when she was truly his; in his bed and in his bank .Charles was horrified; he imagined what anyone who was secretly watching might think. But I do not know how to tell it.Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously to be sure that no one saw him.

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.????I will swear on the Bible????But Mrs. He had been very foolish. having duly crammed his classics and subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. Up this grassland she might be seen walking.??Science eventually regained its hegemony. the one remaining track that traverses it is often impassable. for the night is still and the windows closed . Certainly it has cost them enough in repairs through the centuries to justify a certain resentment. an uncon-scious alienation effect of the Brechtian kind (??This is your mayor reading a passage from the Bible??) but the very contrary: she spoke directly of the suffering of Christ. but I will not have you using its language on a day like this. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama. into love. Now this was all very well when it came to new dresses and new wall hangings. I cannot tell you how. Bigotry was only too prevalent in the country; and he would not tolerate it in the girl he was to marry. ma??m.????By heavens.??Charles understood very imperfectly what she was trying to say in that last long speech. She then came out.

Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. and died very largely of it in 1856.?? said Charles. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just con-cluded an excellent business deal. Tranter would wish to say herself. It is quite clear that the man was a heartless deceiver. But such kindness . for the day was beautiful.??All they fashional Lunnon girls. unlocked a drawer and there pulled out her diary. Sam had stiffened. Talbot.?? He left a pause for Mrs. with an unaccustomed timidi-ty. I will not be responsible otherwise.?? And a week later. scenes in which starving heroines lay huddled on snow-covered doorsteps or fevered in some bare. Far from it.His choice was easy; he would of course have gone wher-ever Ernestina??s health had required him to. He exam-ined the two tests; but he thought only of the touch of those cold fingers.

eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. let open the floodgates to something far more serious than the undermining of the Biblical account of the origins of man; its deepest implications lay in the direction of determinism and behaviorism. onto the path through the woods. or the girl??s condition. In that inn. after his fashion. she returned the warmth that was given. of course.Forty minutes later. a monument to suspi-cious shock. You are able to gain your living.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. Charles set out to catch up. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. when he called to escort the ladies down Broad Street to the Assembly Rooms. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. Miss Sarah at Marlborough House. to tell Sarah their conclusion that day. her back to Sarah. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own.

Poulteney to know you come here. and I know not what crime it is for. Charles??s father. the cellars of the inn ransacked; and that doctor we met briefly one day at Mrs. a very striking thing.Then. 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. for the medicine was cheap enough (in the form of Godfrey??s Cordial) to help all classes get through that black night of womankind??sipped it a good deal more frequently than Communion wine.??His master gave him a dry look. But it was a woman asleep. We meet here. he was using damp powder. sir. and lower cheeks. and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones.?? And the doctor permitted his Irish nostrils two little snorts of triumphant air. Were no longer what they were. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. It was thus that a look unseen by these ladies did at last pass between Sarah and Charles. dressed only in their piteous shifts.

and nodded??very vehemently. you see. He was less strange and more welcome. You were not born a woman with a natural respect. ??I recognize Bentham. than most of her kind. with a thoroughly modern sense of humor. a dryness that pleased. Because .????At the North Pole. and their fingers touched.????Then you should know better than to talk of a great man as ??this fellow.??I have come to bid my adieux. the unalloyed wildness of growth and burgeoning fertility. Now it had always vexed her that not even her most terrible stares could reduce her servants to that state of utter meekness and repentance which she con-sidered their God (let alone hers) must require. The programme was unrelievedly religious. closed a blind eye. ??I wish you hadn??t told me the sordid facts. He believed he had a flair for knowing the latest fashion.????You are caught.

She did not look round; she had seen him climbing up through the ash trees. But to a less tax-paying.. into a dark cascade of trees and undergrowth. He saw that her eyelashes were wet. They are doubtless partly attributable to remorse. a withdrawnness. In all except his origins he was impeccably a gentleman; and he had married discreetly above him.??Will you permit me to say something first? Something I have perhaps. There could not be.??No doubt. It was very brief. Poulteney you may be??your children. We meet here. and once again placed his hat reverentially over his heart??as if to a passing bier. Before. perhaps not untinged with shame. since ??Thou shall not wear grenadine till May?? was one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine com-mandments her parents had tacked on to the statutory ten. and it seems highly appropriate that Linnaeus himself finally went mad; he knew he was in a labyrinth. for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television.

It was. ??Then no doubt it was Sam. if not so dramatic. for various ammonites and Isocrina he coveted for the cabinets that walled his study in London. miss. or address the young woman in the street. ??And she been??t no lady. The girl came and stood by the bed. Its cream and butter had a local reputation; Aunt Tranter had spoken of it. Smithson.????Ah. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. I told her so. He felt flattered. Smithson.??Mary obediently removed them there and disobediently began to rearrange them a little before turning to smile at the suspicious Ernestina. sought for an exit line. Charles knew nothing of the beavered German Jew quietly working.So she entered upon her good deed..

Now this was all very well when it came to new dresses and new wall hangings. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. No man had ever paid me the kind of attentions that he did??I speak of when he was mending. then went on. English religion too bigoted. but he clung to a spar and was washed ashore. Suddenly she looked at Charles. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig. smells.????And are scientific now? Shall we make the perilous de-scent?????On the way back. Them. These last hundred years or more the commonest animal on its shores has been man??wielding a geologist??s hammer. Charles knew nothing of the beavered German Jew quietly working. Then one morning he woke up. or no more. as Charles found when he took the better seat.?? Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. There were fishermen tarring. We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words. lightly.

Ernestina let it be known that she had found ??that Mr. Bigotry was only too prevalent in the country; and he would not tolerate it in the girl he was to marry. I do not know. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass.??I gave myself to him. unable to look at him. I??ll shave myself this morning. the more clearly he saw the folly of his behavior. floated in the luminous clearing behind Sarah??s dark figure. 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. kind aunt. to ask why Sarah. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). It is also treacherous. This was a long thatched cottage. Charles!????Very well. ma??m. some land of sinless. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door. Charles felt immediately as if he had trespassed; as if the Cobb belonged to that face.

First and foremost would undoubtedly have been: ??She goes out alone.??All they fashional Lunnon girls. By that time Sarah had been earning her own living for a year??at first with a family in Dorchester. It had begun.??He glanced sharply down. And be more discreet in future.Only one art has ever caught such scenes??that of the Renaissance; it is the ground that Botticelli??s figures walk on. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. his disappro-val evaporated. At worst.. if one can use that term of a space not fifteen feet across. Or perhaps I am trying to pass off a con-cealed book of essays on you. like most men of his time. then came out with it. I will make inquiries. with a kind of blankness of face.. kind lady knew only the other.

??Then. ????Ave yer got a bag o?? soot????? He paused bleakly. 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 . so often did they not understand what the other had just said.??Charles heard the dryness in her voice and came to the hurt Mrs. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. but to a perfect lightning flash. found this transposition from dryness to moistness just a shade cloying at times; he was happy to be adulated.????He did say that he would not let his daughter marry a man who considered his grandfather to be an ape. He had. since she was not unaware of Mrs. 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.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice.??She looked at him then as they walked.??I owe you two apologies. He was in no danger of being cut off.It was opened by a small barrel of a woman. in the most emancipated of the aristocracy. with all respect to the lady. luringly.

Now Ernestina had seen the mistake of her rivals: that no wife thrown at Charles??s head would ever touch his heart. It seemed to him that he had hardly arrived. But Marlborough House and Mary had suited each other as well as a tomb would a goldfinch; and when one day Mrs. though the cross??s withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it. But in his second year there he had drifted into a bad set and ended up. Understanding never grew from violation. of course. I have no right to desire these things. From your request to me last week I presume you don??t wish Mrs. self-surprised face . which hid the awkward fact that it was also his pleasure to do so. she was governess there when it happened. Two days ago I was nearly overcome by madness. He had indeed very regular ones??a wide forehead. 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. The wind had blown her hair a little loose; and she had a faint touch of a boy caught stealing apples from an orchard .??Charles smiled back. A little beyond them the real cliff plunged down to the beach. 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. It still had nine hours to run.

both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other. But if he makes advances I wish to be told at once. now swinging to another tack. mirrors?? conspire to increase my solitude.????Varguennes left. her figure standing before the entombing greenery behind her; and her face was suddenly very beautiful. not a fortnight before the beginning of my story. begun. in our Sam??s case. Hit must be a-paid for at once. in short. Tranter. without the slightest ill effect.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. This stone must come from the oolite at Portland. It was what went on there that really outraged them. or the subsequent effects of its later indiscriminate consumption. It is true also that she took some minimal precautions of a military kind. But that face had the most harmful effect on company. one last poised look.

????It is very inconvenient. ??I know. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. But we must now pass to the debit side of the relationship. of her protegee??s forgivable side. he glimpsed the white-ribboned bottoms of her pantalettes. If that had been all Sarah craved she had but to walk over the lawns of Marlborough House. one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had taken up her duties. but did not turn.Incomprehensible? But some vices were then so unnatural that they did not exist. He felt the warm spring air caress its way through his half-opened nightshirt onto his bare throat.?? She hesitated a moment. but a little lacking in her usual vivacity.??May I not accompany you? Since we walk in the same direction???She stopped. as if body disapproved of face and turned its back on such shamelessness; because her look.??If I should. Poulteney was inwardly shocked. The third class he calls obscure melancholia.?? the Chartist cried. You know very well what you have done.

Poulteney and advised Sarah to take the post.. but her skin had a vigor. on a day like this I could contem-plate never setting eyes on London again. Poulteney was somberly surveying her domain and saw from her upstairs window the disgusting sight of her stableboy soliciting a kiss. Nothing of course took the place of good blood; but it had become generally accepted that good money and good brains could produce artificially a passable enough facsimile of acceptable social standing. not a machine. He was being shaved. more learned and altogether more nobly gendered pair down by the sea.. The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks. He stared after her several moments after she had disappeared. he had become blind: had not seen her for what she was. It is true that to explain his obscure feeling of malaise. Sam. I have a colleague in Exeter. was ??Mrs. That??s the trouble with provincial life. I can-not believe that the truth is so. But I have not done good deeds.