and intended course of life, to be put in practice immediately.
Both the Miss Harpers were that sort of feminine minds which are like some kinds of flower-bells—the less fair the wider they open. Agatha wondered to see how very patient Miss Valery was over Mary's mild platitudes and Eulalie's follies. But Anne's good heart seemed to cast a shield of tenderness over everybody that bore the name of Harper. At length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which consisted of about a dozen different plans for the day—severally put up and knocked down again—each contradicting the other. The mild laissez-faire of country life in a large family was quite too much for her patience; she longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense and decision. But her husband and Miss Valery took everything easily—they were used to the ways at Kingcombe Holm.
"Oh, if your sister Harriet would but come in, or Mr. Dugdale!" she whispered to her husband, "surely they would settle something."
"Not at all; they would only make matters worse. And, look!—'speaking of angels, one often sees their wings.'—Is that you, Marmaduke?"
"Ay."
Mr. Dugdale walked in composedly through the sash-window, beaming around him a sort of general smile. He never attempted any individual greeting, and Agatha offering her hand, was met by his surprised but benevolent "Eh!" However, when required, he gave her a hearty grasp. After which, peering dreamily round the room, he pounced upon a queer-looking folio, and buried himself therein, making occasional remarks highly interesting of their kind, but slightly irrelevant to the conversation in general. Agatha amused herself with peeping at the title of the book—some abstruse work on mechanical science—and then watched the reader, thinking what great intellectual power there was in the head, and what acuteness in the eye. Also, he wore at times a wonderfully spiritual expression, strangely contrasting with the materiality of his daily existence. No one could see that look without feeling convinced that there were beautiful depths open only to Divinest vision, in the silent and abstracted nature of Marmaduke Dugdale. Nevertheless, he could be eminently practical now and then, especially in mechanics.
"Nathanael, Nathanael! just look here. This is the very contrivance that would have suited Brian in his old clay-pits. See!"
And he began talking in a style that was Greek itself to Agatha, but to which Nathanael, leaning over his chair-back