behaviour to his uncle, the colonel was amazed at
Mr. Romfrey's magnanimity in not cutting him off and disowning him.

'Why the downs?' he said.

'Why the deuce, colonel?' A question quite as reasonable, and Mr.
Romfrey laughed under his breath. To relieve an uncertainty in Cecilia's
face, that might soon have become confusion, he described the downs
fronting the paleness of earliest dawn, and then their arch and curve
and dip against the pearly grey of the half-glow; and then, among their
hollows, lo, the illumination of the East all around, and up and away,
and a gallop for miles along the turfy thymy rolling billows, land to
left, sea to right, below you. 'It's the nearest hit to wings we can
make, Cecilia.' He surprised her with her Christian name, which kindled
in her the secret of something he expected from that ride on the downs.
Compare you the Alps with them? If you could jump on the back of an
eagle, you might. The Alps have height. But the downs have swiftness.
Those long stretching lines of the downs are greyhounds in full career.
To look at them is to set the blood racing! Speed is on the downs,
glorious motion, odorous air of sea and herb, exquisite as in the isles
of Greece. And the Continental travelling ninnies leave England for
health!--run off and forth from the downs to the steamboat, the railway,
the steaming hotel, the tourist's shivering mountain-top, in search of
sensations! There on the downs the finest and liveliest are at their
bidding ready to fly through them like hosts of angels.

He spoke somewhat in that strain, either to relieve Cecilia or prepare
the road for Nevil, not in his ordinary style; on the contrary, with a
swing of enthusiasm that seemed to spring of ancient heartfelt fervours.
And indeed soon afterward he was telling her that there on those downs,
in full view of Steynham, he and his wife had first joined hands.

Beauchamp sat silent. Mr. Romfrey despatched orders to the stables,
and Rosamund to the kitchen. Cecilia was rather dismayed by the formal
preparations for the ride. She declined the early cup of coffee. Mr.
Romfrey begged her to take it. 'Who knows the hour when you 'll be
back?' he said. Beauchamp said nothing.

The room grew insufferable to Cecilia. She would have liked to be wafted
to her chamber in a veil, so shamefully unveiled did she seem to be. But
the French lady would have been happy in her place! Her father kissed
her as fathers do when they hand the