nd refuge in good
sense; but the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much less avoid.
It was the first time she had ever taken part in a conversation
illuminated by any ideas. All was then true that she had heard and
dreamed of gentlemen; they were a race apart, like deities knowing good
and evil. And then there burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope's
glorious sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed that she
too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she not
learn? or was she not learning? Would not her soul awake and put forth
wings? Was she not, in fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch
to become royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in
the most exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her
tint etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder talking
like a book.

Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above the river
dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly shadowed on the
night, covering with its broken battlements a bold projection of the
bank, and showing at the extreme end, where were the habitable tower and
wing, some crevices of candle-light. Hence she called loudly upon her
uncle, and he was seen to issue, lantern in hand, from the tower door,
and, where the ruins did not intervene, to pick his way over the swarded
courtyard, avoiding treacherous cellars and winding among blocks of
fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was still entire, flanked by
two tottering bastions, and it was here that Jonathan met them, standing
at the edge of the bridge, bent somewhat forward, and blinking at them
through the glow of his own lantern. Mr. Archer greeted him with
civility; but the old man was in no humour of compliance. He guided the
new-comer across the courtyard, looking sharply and quickly in his face,
and grumbling all the time about the cold, and the discomfort and
dilapidation of the castle. He was sure he hoped that Mr. Archer would
like it; but in truth he could not think what brought him there.
Doubtless he had a good reason--this with a look of cunning
scrutiny--but, indeed, the place was quite unfit for any person of
repute; he himself was eaten up with the rheumatics. It was the most
rheumaticky place in England, and some fine day the whole habitable part
(to call it habitable) would fetch away bodily and go down the slope
into the river. He had seen the cracks widening; there was a pl