, in remembering her tremor
on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for example, she was walking without
companionship and there came some rapid change in the light. Solitude in any
wide scene impressed her with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence
aloof from her, in the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting
herself. The little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her
imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when some one
joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she seemed an
exile; she found again her usual world in which her will was of some avail, and
the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no more identified for
her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of
use at the Rectory. With human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto
recovered her confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire.
    To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were sufficiently
accounted for by her »sensitiveness« or the »excitability of her nature;« but
these explanatory phrases required conciliation with much that seemed to be
blank indifference or rare self-mastery. Heat is a great agent and a useful
word, but considered as a means of explaining the universe it requires an
extensive knowledge of differences; and as a means of explaining character
»sensitiveness« is in much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like
Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as a mark of
pre- That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene he was more persuaded than
ever that she must be instinct with all feeling, and not only readier to respond
to a worshipful love, but able to love better than other girls. Rex felt the
summer on his young wings and soared happily.
 

                                  Chapter VII

 »Perigot:
 As the bonny lasse passed bye,
 Willie. Hey, ho, bonnilasse!
 P. She roode at me with glauncing eye,
 W. As clear as the crystall glasse.
 P. All as the sunny beame so bright,
 W. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame!
 P. Glaunceth from Phoebus' face forthright,
 W. So love into thy heart did streame.«
                                                  Spenser: Shepheard's Calendar.
 
            »The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish
            state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; ... the
            servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal
            superstition.«
                                                                   Charles Lamb.
 
The first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent