enjoyment.
From the window of his sitting-room he looked over the opposite houses to
Northernhay, the hill where once stood Rougemont Castle, its wooded declivities
now fashioned into a public garden. He watched the rooks at their building in
the great elms, and was gladdened when the naked branches began to deck
themselves, day by day the fresh verdure swelling into soft, graceful outline.
In his walks he pried eagerly for the first violet, welcomed the earliest
blackthorn blossom; every common flower of field and hedgerow gave him a new,
keen pleasure. As was to be expected he found the same impulses strong in
Sidwell Warricombe and her sister. Sidwell could tell him of secret spots where
the wood-sorrel made haste to flower, or where the white violet breathed its
fragrance in security from common pilferers. Here was the safest and pleasantest
matter for conversation. He knew that on such topics he could, talk agreeably
enough, revealing without stress or importunity his tastes, his powers, his
attainments. And it seemed to him that Sidwell listened with growing interest.
Most certainly her father encouraged his visits to the house, and Mrs.
Warricombe behaved to him with increase of suavity.
    In the meantime he had purchased a copy of Reusch's Bibel und Natur, and had
made a translation of some fifty pages. This experiment he submitted to a London
publishing house, with proposals for the completion of the work; without much
delay there came a civil letter of excuse, and with it the sample returned.
Another attempt again met with rejection. This failure did not trouble him. What
he really desired was to read through his version of Reusch with Martin
Warricombe, and before long he had brought it to pass that Martin requested a
perusal of the manuscript as it advanced, which it did but slowly. Godwin durst
not endanger his success in the examination by encroaching upon hours of
necessary study; his leisure was largely sacrificed to Bibel und Natur, and many
an evening of calm golden loveliness, when he longed to be amid the fields,
passed in vexatious imprisonment. The name of Reusch grew odious to him, and he
revenged himself for the hypocrisy of other hours by fierce scorn, cast audibly
at this laborious exegetist.
 

                                      III

It occasionally happens that a woman whose early life has been directed by
native silliness and social bias, will submit to a tardy education at the hands
of her own children. Thus was it with Mrs. Warricombe.
    She came of a race long established in squirearchic dignity amid heaths and
woodlands. Her breeding was pure through many generations of the paternal and
maternal lines, representative of