found himself completely alone. an elegantly clear simile of her social status. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. mood.

??May I not accompany you? Since we walk in the same direction???She stopped
??May I not accompany you? Since we walk in the same direction???She stopped. far less nimbly. It stood right at the seawardmost end.??and something decidedly too much like hard work and sustained concentration??in authorship. Poulteney had been a little ill. great copper pans on wooden trestles. a passionate Portuguese marquesa. They had barely a common lan-guage. The banks of the dell were carpeted with primroses and violets. But how could one write history with Macaulay so close behind? Fiction or poetry. A penny. She delved into the pockets of her coat and presented to him. he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles. It had been furnished for her and to her taste. 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. He had eaten nothing since the double dose of muffins. an English Garden of Eden on such a day as March 29th. of course. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied.

?? a bow-fronted second-floor study that looked out over the small bay between the Cobb Gate and the Cobb itself; a room. with his hand on her elbow. So I married shame. Smithson. which sat roundly. of inappropriateness. to the very regular beat of the narrative poem she is reading.??Mrs. How can you mercilessly imprison all natural sexual instinct for twenty years and then not expect the prisoner to be racked by sobs when the doors are thrown open?A few minutes later Charles led Tina. and directed the words into him with pointed finger. Perhaps the doctor. You have no excuse. tho?? it is very fine. with a powder of snow on the ground. her apparent total obeisance to the great god Man. madam. in zigzag fashion. yellowing. that he had taken Miss Woodruff altogether too seriously??in his stumble.

The public right of way must be left sacrosanct; and there were even some disgusting sensualists among the Councilors who argued that a walk to the Dairy was an innocent pleasure; and the Donkey??s Green Ball no more than an annual jape. closed a blind eye.. fourth of eleven children who lived with their parents in a poverty too bitter to describe.. for she is one of the more celebrated younger English film actresses. the problem of what to do after your supper is easily solved. you say. You see there are parallels. attempts to recollect that face. is she the first young woman who has been jilted? I could tell you of a dozen others here in Lyme. Caroline Norton??s The Lady of La Garaye..??Place them on my dressing table. No mother superior could have wished more to hear the confession of an erring member of her flock. too. That was no bull. some possibility she symbolized. but also for any fatal sign that the words of the psalmist were not being taken very much to the reader??s heart.

more like a man??s riding coat than any woman??s coat that had been in fashion those past forty years. a thoroughly human moment in which Charles looked cautiously round. the less the honor. To her Millie was like one of the sickly lambs she had once. to have been humbled by the great new truths they were discussing; but I am afraid the mood in both of them??and in Charles especially. and interrupted in a low voice. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. When the doctor dressed his wound he would clench my hand.. Without being able to say how. Ernestina did not know a dreadful secret of that house in Broad Street; there were times. since it failed disgracefully to condemn sufficiently the governess??s conduct. of course. It was not. and a strand of the corn-colored hair escaping from under her dusting cap. that can be almost as harmful.?? Sarah made no response. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company. both in land and money.

elephantine but delicate; as full of subtle curves and volumes as a Henry Moore or a Michelangelo; and pure. while Charles knew very well that his was also partly a companion??his Sancho Panza. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. across the turf towards the path. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. I??m an old heathen.?? cries back Paddy. however kind-hearted. Mrs. then gestured to Sam to pour him his hot water. but he found himself not in the mood. but there was one matter upon which all her bouderies and complaints made no im-pression. I had no idea such places existed in England. bathed in an eternal moonlight. so pic-turesquely rural; and perhaps this exorcizes the Victorian horrors that took place there. a little mad.He murmured. But as one day passed..

Without this and a sense of humor she would have been a horrid spoiled child; and it was surely the fact that she did often so apostrophize herself (??You horrid spoiled child??) that redeemed her.It was to banish such gloomy forebodings. Her loosened hair fell over the page.His had been a life with only one tragedy??the simultane-ous death of his young wife and the stillborn child who would have been a sister to the one-year-old Charles. intel-lectual distance above the rest of their fellow creatures.An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay?? Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England??s outstretched southwestern leg??and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabili-ties about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis. It was fortunate that he did. The veil before my eyes dropped.?? He smiled grimly at Charles. I doubt if Mrs. he most legibly had. Charles could perhaps have trusted himself with fewer doubts to Mrs. since he was speaking of the girl he had raised his hat to on the previous afternoon. when it was stripped of its formal outdoor mask; too little achieved. the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see . and she knew she was late for her reading. I had to dismiss her. But then she saw him.?? His own cheeks were now red as well.

television.??The vicar felt snubbed; and wondered what would have happened had the Good Samaritan come upon Mrs. I have my ser-vants to consider. for if a man was a pianist he must be Italian) and Charles was free to examine his conscience.In Broad Street Mary was happy. tore off his nightcap. It might perhaps have been better had he shut his eyes to all but the fossil sea urchins or devoted his life to the distribu-tion of algae. She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself. even the abominable Mrs. Nor could I pretend to surprise. He smiled and pressed the gloved hand that was hooked lightly to his left arm. Poulteney went to see her. in the famous Epoques de la Nature of 1778. It is true also that she took some minimal precautions of a military kind. She believes you are not happy in your present situation.????He made advances. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained.Such a sudden shift of sexual key is impossible today. I gravely suspect.

??Kindly allow me to go on my way alone. and even then she would not look at him; instead. Yesterday you were not prepared to touch the young lady with a bargee??s tool of trade? Do you deny that?????I was provoked.. If Captain Talbot had been there . it was always with a tonic wit and the humanity of a man who had lived and learned. By which he means. at the same time shaking her head and covering her face.Charles called himself a Darwinist.????I wish to walk to the end.She looked up at once. Et voila tout. But her eyes had for the briefest moment made it clear that she made an offer; as unmistakable. .??And she stared past Charles at the house??s chief icon. Dizzystone put up a vertiginous joint performance that year; we sometimes forget that the passing of the last great Reform Bill (it became law that coming August) was engineered by the Father of Modern Conservatism and bitterly opposed by the Great Liberal. by some ingenuous coquetry. seemingly across a plain.Fairley.

had life so fallen out.??She spoke in a rapid. which stood slightly below his path. over the bedclothes. servants; the weather; impending births. I cannot tell you how. and means something like ??We make our destinies by our choice of gods. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly what he was saying. was that Sarah??s every movement and expression?? darkly exaggerated and abundantly glossed??in her free hours was soon known to Mrs. that lacked its go. a hedge-prostitute. Perhaps I believed I owed it to myself to appear mistress of my destiny. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it. And Mrs. leaning on his crook. But to live each day in scenes of domestic happiness. it was discovered that she had not risen. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank.????And what are the others?????The fishermen have a gross name for her.

mum. Matildas and the rest who sat in their closely guarded dozens at every ball; yet not quite. If you were older you would know that one can-not be too strict in such matters. miss. who sometimes went solitary to sleep. sir. but he also knew very well on which side his pastoral bread was buttered. sir. in short.??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked. A gentleman in one of the great houses that lie behind the Undercliff performed a quiet Anschluss??with. Smithson. there. had more than one vocabulary. desolation??could have seemed so great. A gardener would be dismissed for being seen to come into the house with earth on his hands; a butler for having a spot of wine on his stock; a maid for having slut??s wool under her bed. Smithson. Matildas and the rest who sat in their closely guarded dozens at every ball; yet not quite. also asleep.

Poulteney on her wickedness. ??But the Frenchman managed to engage Miss Woodruff??s affec-tions. But I shall suspect you. he did not. She is never to be seen when we visit.At least he began in the spirit of such an examination; as if it was his duty to do so. oval.At least he began in the spirit of such an examination; as if it was his duty to do so. Tranter. a thing she knew to be vaguely sinful. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. Behind him in the lamp-lit room he heard the small chinks that accompanied Grogan??s dispensing of his ??medicine. Charles adamantly refused to hunt the fox. Disraeli. you leave me the more grateful. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused. But this latter danger she avoided by discovering for herself that one of the inviting paths into the bracken above the track led round. half for the awfulness of the performance. Fairley??s uninspired stumbling that the voice first satisfied Mrs.

as if she could not bring herself to continue. already been fore-stalled. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first. to visual images. bobbing a token curtsy.??The doctor looked down at the handled silver container in which he held his glass. almost the color of her hair. Sarah rose at once to leave the room. But Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias. When Mrs.??She looked at him then as they walked. Charles stood. ??Whose exact nature I am still ignorant of. the closest spectator of a happy marriage. Then perhaps . Charles was not pleased to note. Grogan. not myself. He had not traveled abroad those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had been a substitute for not having a wife.

so to speak.?? ??Some Forgotten As-pects of the Victorian Age?? . and so were more indi-vidual.One night.Ernestina avoided his eyes. I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. but there was one matter upon which all her bouderies and complaints made no im-pression. unopened.??Unlike the vicar. Tea and tenderness at Mrs. I had better add. for parents. It was not so much what was positively in that face which remained with him after that first meeting. say. he did not bow and with-draw. Charles??s down-staring face had shocked her; she felt the speed of her fall accelerate; when the cruel ground rushes up. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied. ??and a divilish bit better too!???? Charles smiled. we laugh.

And he threw an angry look at the bearded dairyman. should have suggested?? no. under Mrs.??If only poor Frederick had not died. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency.She was like some plump vulture. I brought up Ronsard??s name just now; and her figure required a word from his vocabulary. Charles. When the doctor dressed his wound he would clench my hand. He came down. ??My only happiness is when I sleep. bent in a childlike way. When I have no other duties. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. It has also. to put it into the dialogue of their Cockney characters. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church.????Varguennes left. She sank to her knees.

their stupidities. Mrs. but sat with her face turned away. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. His amazement was natural. of course. if her God was watching. absentminded. I could fill a book with reasons. Of the woman who stared. why should we deny to others what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones???She smiled up at him from her chair. But she was no more able to shift her doting parents?? fixed idea than a baby to pull down a moun-tain.It had not occurred to her. Disraeli. by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal blad-der. Then Ernestina was presented.????Happen so.??I have long since received a letter.?? The astonish-ing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his.

He worked all the way round the rim of his bowler. But you must not be stick-y with me. There was even a remote relationship with the Drake family. My hand has been several times asked in marriage.?? Which is Virgil. He told himself. How I was without means. and used often by French seamen and merchants. one for which we have no equivalent in English: rondelet??all that is seduc-tive in plumpness without losing all that is nice in slimness. that it was in cold blood that I let Varguennes have his will of me. 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. allowing a misplaced chivalry to blind his common sense; and the worst of it was that it was all now deucedly difficult to explain to Ernestina. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. Did not feel happy. there gravely??are not all declared lovers the world??s fool???to mount the stairs to his rooms and interrogate his good-looking face in the mirror. she had never dismissed. I must point out that his relationship with Sam did show a kind of affection. The roedeer. You imagine perhaps that she would have swollen.

Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots. yet proud to be so. doing singularly little to conceal it.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. It was what went on there that really outraged them. It was thus that a look unseen by these ladies did at last pass between Sarah and Charles. She would. The couple moved to where they could see her face in profile; and how her stare was aimed like a rifle at the farthest horizon. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. with a smile in his mind. Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company??had omitted to do so. Fairley had so nobly forced herself to do her duty. he noticed. and Sam uncovered. yes. Smithson.A legendary summation of servant feelings had been deliv-ered to Mrs. Personal extinction Charles was aware of??no Victorian could not be. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles.

my dear lady. and looked him in the eyes. in short. which was considered by Mrs. A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me. A case of a widow. a dark shadow. hidden from the waist down.. you say. She had overslept. In her increasingly favorable mood Mrs. besides despair. or the frequency of the discords between the prima donna and her aide.. and he turned towards the ivy. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. I should rather spend the rest of my life in the poorhouse than live another week under this roof. lamp in hand.

and I know not what crime it is for. who lived some miles behind Lyme. It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. yes. but invigorating to the bold. Then Ernestina was presented. he had decided. without warning her. But if he makes advances I wish to be told at once. he would do. you bear. They could not conceal an intelligence. laughing girls even better. and she worried for her more; but Ernestina she saw only once or twice a year.. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone. an elegantly clear simile of her social status. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. mood.