hen watching Ethelberta's window from Rookington Park.

'Perhaps you remember seeing him at the Christmas dance at Wyndway?' she
inquired. 'He is a good-natured fellow. Afterwards he sent me that
portfolio of sketches you see in the corner. He might possibly do
something in the world as a painter if he were obliged to work at the art
for his bread, which he is not.' She added with bitter pleasantry: 'In
bare mercy to his self-respect I must remain unseen here.'

It impressed Christopher to perceive how, under the estrangement which
arose from differences of education, surroundings, experience, and
talent, the sympathies of close relationship were perceptible in
Ethelberta's bearing towards her brothers and sisters. At a remark upon
some simple pleasure wherein she had not participated because absent and
occupied by far more comprehensive interests, a gloom as of banishment
would cross her face and dim it for awhile, showing that the free habits
and enthusiasms of country life had still their charm with her, in the
face of the subtler gratifications of abridged bodices, candlelight, and
no feelings in particular, which prevailed in town. Perhaps the one
condition which could work up into a permanent feeling the passing
revival of his fancy for a woman whose chief attribute he had supposed to
be sprightliness was added now by the romantic ubiquity of station that
attached to her. A discovery which might have grated on the senses of a
man wedded to conventionality was a positive pleasure to one whose faith
in society had departed with his own social ruin.

The room began to darken, whereupon Christopher arose to leave; and the
brothers Sol and Dan offered to accompany him.

14. A TURNPIKE ROAD

'We be thinking of coming to London ourselves soon,' said Sol, a
carpenter and joiner by trade, as he walked along at Christopher's left
hand. 'There's so much more chance for a man up the country. Now, if
you was me, how should you set about getting a job, sir?'

'What can you do?' said Christopher.

'Well, I am a very good staircase hand; and I have been called neat at
sash-frames; and I can knock together doors and shutters very well; and I
can do a little at the cabinet-making. I don't mind framing a roof,
neither, if the rest be busy; and I am always ready to fill up my time at
planing floor-boards by the foot.'

'And I can mix and lay flat tints,' said Dan, who was a house painter,
'and pick out mould