hought that they went hand in hand, when
all the while a different mental outlook set them poles asunder. With
all her thousand good honest qualities, she was absolutely alien to the
girl; and Anastasia felt as if she was living among people of another
nation, among people who did not understand her language, and she took
refuge in silence.

The dulness of Cullerne had grown more oppressive to her in the last
year. She longed for a life something wider, she longed for sympathy.
She longed for what a tall and well-favoured maiden of her years most
naturally desires, however much she may be ignorant of her desire; she
longed for someone to admire her and to love her; she longed for someone
about whom she could weave a romance.

The junior partner in Rose and Storey perhaps discerned her need, and
tried to supply it. He paid her such odious compliments on the "hang of
her things," that she would never have entered the shop again, were it
not that Bellevue Lodge was bound hand and foot to Rose and Storey, for
they were undertakers as well as milliners; and, besides, the little
affair of the bonnets, the expenses of Martin's funeral, were still
unsatisfied. There was a young dairy farmer, with a face like a red
harvest moon, who stopped at her aunt's door on his way to market. He
would sell Miss Joliffe eggs and butter at wholesale prices, and grinned
in a most tiresome way whenever he caught sight of Anastasia. The
Rector patronised her insufferably; and though old Mr Noot was kind, he
treated her like a small child, and sometimes patted her cheek, which
she felt to be disconcerting at eighteen.

And then the Prince of Romance appeared in Lord Blandamer. The moment
that she first saw him on the doorstep that windy autumn afternoon, when
yellow leaves were flying, she recognised him for a prince. The moment
that he spoke to her she knew that he recognised her for a lady, and for
this she felt unspeakably glad and grateful. Since then the wonder had
grown. It grew all the faster from the hero's restraint. He had seen
Anastasia but little, he spoke but little to her, he never gave her even
a glance of interest, still less such glances as Westray launched at her
so lavishly. And yet the wonder grew. He was so different from other
men she had seen, so different from all the other people she had ever
met. She could not have told how she knew this, and yet she knew. It
must have been an atmosphere which followed h