quiet sober thoughtful young man, acquiescent in all schemes projected
for my welfare. The squire would have liked to see me courting the girl
of his heart, as he termed Janet Ilchester, a little more
demonstratively. We had, however, come to the understanding that I was to
travel before settling. Traditional notions of the importance of the
Grand Tour in the education of gentlemen led him to consent to my taking
a year on the Continent accompanied by my tutor. He wanted some one, he
said, to represent him when I was out over there; which signified that he
wanted some one to keep my father in check; but as the Rev. Ambrose
Peterborough, successor to the Rev. Simon Hart, was hazy and manageable,
I did not object. Such faith had the quiet thoughtful young man at
Riversley in the convulsions of the future, the whirlwinds and whirlpools
spinning for him and all connected with him, that he did not object to
hear his name and Janet's coupled, though he had not a spark of love for
her.

I tried to realize to myself the general opinion that she was handsome.
Her eyebrows were thick and level and long; her eyes direct in their
gaze, of a flinty blue, with dark lashes; her nose firm, her lips
fullish, firm when joined; her shape straight, moderately flexible. But
she had no softness; she could admire herself in my presence; she claimed
possession of me openly, and at the same time openly provoked a siege
from the remainder of my sex: she was not maidenly. She caught
imagination by the sleeve, and shut it between square whitewashed walls.
Heriot thought her not only handsome, but comparable to Mrs. William
Bulsted, our Julia Rippenger of old. At his meeting with Julia, her
delicious loss of colour made her seem to me one of the loveliest women
on earth. Janet never lost colour, rarely blushed; she touched neither
nerve nor fancy.

'You want a rousing coquette,' said Heriot; 'you won't be happy till you
've been racked by that nice instrument of torture, and the fair Bulsted
will do it for you if you like. You don't want a snake or a common
serpent, you want a Python.'

I wanted bloom and mystery, a woman shifting like the light with evening
and night and dawn, and sudden fire. Janet was bald to the heart
inhabiting me then, as if quite shaven. She could speak her affectionate
mind as plain as print, and it was dull print facing me, not the arches
of the sunset. Julia had only to lisp, 'my husband,' to startle and
agitate me b