 every rank. The inveterately malignant I have not
found. Circumstances may combine to make a whisper as deadly as a blow, though
not of such evil design. Perhaps if we lived at a Court of a magnificent despot
we should learn that we are less highly civilized than we imagine ourselves; but
that is a fire to the passions, and the extreme is not the perfect test. Our
civilization counts positive gains - unless you take the melodrama for the truer
picture of us. It is always the most popular with the English. - And look, what
a month June is! Yesterday morning I was with Lady Dunstane on her heights, and
I feel double the age. He was fond of this wild country. We think it a desert, a
blank, whither he has gone, because we will strain to see in the utter dark, and
nothing can come of that but the bursting of the eyeballs.«
    Dacier assented: »There's no use in peering beyond the limits.«
    »No,« said she; »the effect is like the explaining of things to a dull head
- the finishing stroke to the understanding! Better continue to brood. We get to
some unravelment if we are left to our own efforts. I quarrel with no priest of
any denomination. That they should quarrel among themselves is comprehensible in
their wisdom, for each has the specific. But they show us their way of solving
the great problem, and we ought to thank them, though one or the other abominate
us. You are advised to talk with Lady Dunstane on these themes. She is
perpetually in the antechamber of death, and her soul is perennially sunshine. -
See the pretty cottage under the laburnum curls! Who lives there?«
    »His gamekeeper, Simon Rofe.«
    »And what a playground for the children, that bit of common by their
garden-palings! and the pond, and the blue hills over the furzes. I hope those
people will not be turned out.«
    Dacier could not tell. He promised to do his best for them.
    »But,« said she, »you are the lord here now.«
    »Not likely to be the tenant. Incomes are wanted to support even small
estates.«
    »The reason is good for courting the income.«
    He disliked the remark; and when she said presently: »Those windmills make
the landscape homely,« he rejoined: »They remind one of our wheeling London
gamins round the cab from the station.«
    »They remind you,« said she, and smiled at the chance
