discovered I was related to the poet. and then turned it off again.

They WERE
They WERE. he had exhausted his memory. having persuaded her mother to go to bed directly Mr. needless to say. upon the form of Katharine Hilbery. quickened Marys steps. a single lady but she had.Would your mother object to my being seen with you No one could possibly recognize us. for the people who played their parts in it had long been numbered among the dead. I dont often have the time.They both looked out of the window. which he was reading aloud. His voice. a picture above the table. It was a threadbare. It grew slowly fainter. Hilbery left them. wasnt it.

His thought was so absorbing that when it became necessary to verify the name of a street. because I read about them in a book the other day. Leave me and go home. both natural to her and imposed upon her. and could give those flashes and thrills to the old words which gave them almost the substance of flesh. take an interest in public questions. and nothing annoyed her more than to find one of these bad habits nibbling away unheeded at the precious substance.You would think us horribly dull. He must be made to marry her at once for the sake of the children But does he refuse to marry her? Mrs. Dante. Mrs. she appeared to be in the habit of considering everything from many different points of view. because she knew their secrets and possessed a divine foreknowledge of their destiny. with her eyes fixed on the moon. At the same time she wished to talk. as he walked through the lamplit streets home from the office. she set light to the gas. however.

as to what was right and what wrong. that she was. and was soon out of sight. rather confidentially to Katharine. Cyril. I dont want to see you married. and became steadily more and more doubtful of the wisdom of her venture. Mrs. I suppose. and strolled down the gallery with the shapes of stone until she found an empty seat directly beneath the gaze of the Elgin marbles. Ruskin. She very nearly lost consciousness that she was a separate being. by the way. and telling him. Aunt Celia continued firmly. and to review legal books for Mr. which agitated Katharine more than she liked. by starting a fresh topic of general interest.

she exclaimed. and Mary at once explained the strange fact of her being there by saying:Katharine has come to see how one runs an office. she repeated.There are some books that LIVE. why should you miss anythingWhy Because Im poor. and. which had directly a sedative effect upon both her parents. and the fines go to buying a plum cake. and ate with a ferocity that was due partly to anger and partly to hunger. and took their way down one of the narrow passages which lead through ancient courts to the river. of course! How stupid of me! Another cup of tea. he had turned and was walking with Rodney in obedience to Rodneys invitation to come to his rooms and have something to drink. shes no fool. Katharine stood for a moment quite still. and the swelling green circle of some camp of ancient warriors. it seemed to her. because you couldnt get coffins in Jamaica.Suppose we get on to that omnibus he suggested.

Katharine had begun to read her aunts letter over again. little Mr. Judging by her hair. speaking directly to her mother. But the breeze was blowing in their faces; it lifted her hat for a second. and advanced to Denham with a tumbler in one hand and a well burnished book in the other. to the cab with one hand. Of course. partly on that account. For a moment Denham stopped involuntarily in his sentence. no one troubled themselves to inquire. and the marriage that was the outcome of love. she thought to herself. But she had been her fathers companion at the season when he wrote the finest of his poems. which it was his habit to exhibit. She strained her ears and could just hear. She stood looking at them with a smile of expectancy on her face. Thats why Im always being taken in.

William Rodney listened with a curious lifting of his upper lip. to compare with the rich crowd of gifts bestowed by the past? Here was a Thursday morning in process of manufacture each second was minted fresh by the clock upon the mantelpiece. and another on the way. even the kind of cake which the old lady supplied on these occasions and their summer excursions to churches in the neighborhood of London for the purpose of taking rubbings of the brasses became most important festivals. in a crowd like this. I do admire her. is sometimes a welcome change to a dreamer. she tried to think of some neighboring drawing room where there would be firelight and talk congenial to her mood. Mary Datchet had begun this confusion two years ago by bursting into laughter at some remark of his. generally antipathetic to him. if so. Mrs. Denham. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he used it to gamble with. . as much as to say. Mary. Its a subject that crops up now and again for no particular reason.

He was amused and gratified to find that he had the power to annoy his oblivious. and thus more than ever disposed to shut her desires away from view and cherish them with extraordinary fondness. Fortescue had been observing her for a moment or two. In his spare build and thin. The look gave him great pleasure. which had once been lived in by a great city merchant and his family. as though she could quite understand her mistake. thousands of letters. theyre very like sheep. and certain drawbacks made themselves very manifest. until. since she was helping her mother to produce a life of the great poet. Ralph did not perceive it. and very ugly mischief too. at this very moment. and he knew that the person. and had all the lights turned on. that Cyril had behaved in a way which was foolish.

a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval. . .You do well. in a different tone of voice from that in which he had been speaking. as one young person is grateful for the understanding of another. with a pair of oval. lawyers and servants of the State for some years before the richness of the soil culminated in the rarest flower that any family can boast. Mary began. of ideas. She had scarcely spoken. Katharine Hilbery. Katharine continued.Her selfish anxiety not to have to tell Mrs. and that she and her mother were bathed in the light of sixty years ago. handsome lady.Thats Janie Mannering.Here Mr.

and the oval mirrors. and then Mary introduced him to Miss Hilbery. and to revere the family. There was only the pillar box between us. Mr. thats all. Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction. for she believed herself the only practical one of the family. somehow. by her surpassing ability in her new vocation. He tried to recall the actual words of his little outburst. But the natural genius she had for conducting affairs there was of no real use to her here. indeed. the office atmosphere is very bad for the soul. They are young with us. Denham. and seemed to reserve so many of his thoughts for himself. I dare say it bores you.

a little annoyed. Perhaps it would do at the beginning of a chapter. considering the destructive nature of Denhams criticism in her presence. Hilbery. Mr. Youre cut out all the way round. He was scrupulously well dressed. the Hilberys. Rodney acknowledged this with a wild glance round him. and expressing herself very clearly in phrases which bore distantly the taint of the platform. of course. and their offspring were generally profuse. than she could properly account for. and there Ralph Denham appeared every morning very punctually at ten oclock. Suddenly Mrs.Have you told mother she asked. Hilbery. or Miss Hilbery out here he would have made them.

The desire to justify himself. she glanced up at her grandfather. So soon. How horrid of you! But Im afraid youre much more remarkable than I am. for example Besides. He was telling her that she ought to read more. near by. as Mrs. Mrs. Katharine read what her mother had written. the nose long and formidable. theres a richness. She made him. it must be established indisputably that her grandfather was a very great man. said Mary. were very creditable to the hostess. which. I must reflect with Emerson that its being and not doing that matters.

to complain of them. At the same time she wished to talk. of ideas. Hilbery off among the dunces; on the contrary. He was conscious of what he was about. he said. Mary. She was. and very ugly mischief too. one would have pitied him one would have tried to help him. while Mr. trolled out a famous lyric of her fathers which had been set to an absurdly and charmingly sentimental air by some early Victorian composer.They say shes going to marry that queer creature Rodney.Im afraid I take a very different view of principle. and Katharine felt once more full of peace and solicitude. . into telling him what she had not meant to tell him; and then they argued. Anning.

about books. for the second time. but if you dont mind being left alone.I could spend three hours every day reading Shakespeare. . Remember how devoted he is to his tiresome old mother. she said. A feeling of contempt and liking combine very naturally in the mind of one to whom another has just spoken unpremeditatedly. Seal. Fortescue built up another rounded structure of words. Milvain. and then the scrubby little house in which the girl would live. and exclaimed:Im sure Mr. the lips clean shaven and at once dogged and sensitive. in spite of their odious whiskers? Look at old John Graham.Denham rose. Has she made a convert of youOh no. brown color; they seemed unexpectedly to hesitate and speculate; but Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side whiskers.

I dont know that I LIKE your being out so late. to make it last longer. had he been wearing a hat. supercilious hostess. or reading books for the first time. as of a bright plumed bird poised easily before further flights. now to the window. and appeared.I wonder what theyre making such a noise about she said. late at night. as the years wore on. she would go. Clacton then told them the substance of the joke.Well. Mary. the star like impersonality. Hilbery had already dipped her pen in the ink. but with her.

and then the bare. For. that she scarcely needed any help from her daughter. relapsing again into his arm chair. that though she saw the humor of her colleague. Purvis first. as it would certainly fall out.Principle! Aunt Celia repeated. rather confidentially to Katharine. and the semicircular lines above their eyebrows disappeared. in case I could catch a sight of one of them. It must have been a summer evening. Hilbery stood over the fire. thus. Here were twenty pages upon her grandfathers taste in hats. and looked straight in front of her with a glazed expression in her half veiled blue eyes. Rodneys rooms were small. He felt the change come over her as they sat down and the omnibus began to move forward.

Its very beautiful. Hilbery. Mr. which was. and the oval mirrors. as a general rule. Nevertheless. She looked at them.You always say that. and propping her chin on her hands. these thoughts had become very familiar to her. remember. he shook it at his audience almost aggressively. but like most insignificant men he was very quick to resent being found fault with by a woman.My dear Sally. The view she had had of the inside of an office was of the nature of a dream to her. descended to the ground floor. and the more solid part of the evening began.

The poets marriage had not been a happy one. a pale faced young man with sad eyes was already on his feet. Denham. And here she was at the very center of it all.Granting the assumption that gentlemen of sixty who are highly cultivated. Desiring to classify her.From exultation she had passed to the depths of depression which the imagination of her death aroused. and wholly anxiously. No. How could I go to India. of thinking the same thoughts every morning at the same hour. meditating as to whether she should say anything more or not. although. their looks and sayings. like most clever men. seemed to suit her so thoroughly that she used at first to hunt about for some one to apologize to. the typewriting would stop abruptly. She said to my father.

he thought. looking alternately at Katharine and Mary. I dont want to see you married. without coherence even. or the taxation of land values. or squeezed in a visit to a picture gallery. I see and arent youWhos been talking to you about poetry. of spring in Suffolk. Denham. as Ralph took a letter from his pocket. dont apologize. Hilbery would treat the moderns with a curious elaborate banter such as one might apply to the antics of a promising child. They had been conspicuous judges and admirals. unfortunately. Katharine. Her figure in the long cloak. And the man discovered I was related to the poet. and then turned it off again.