as that. It is not
the thing, but the sensitiveness to the thing, which is the true measure
of its pain. Perhaps what seems so bad to you falls lightly on her mind.
A campaigner in a heavy rain is not more uncomfortable than we are in a
slight draught; and Ethelberta, fortified by her sapphires and gold cups
and wax candles, will not mind facts which look like spectres to us
outside. A title will turn troubles into romances, and she will shine as
an interesting viscountess in spite of them.'

The discussion with Faith was not continued, Christopher stopping the
argument by saying that he had a good mind to go off at once to Knollsea,
and show her her danger. But till the next morning Ethelberta was
certainly safe; no marriage was possible anywhere before then. He passed
the afternoon in a state of great indecision, constantly reiterating, 'I
will go!'

41. WORKSHOPS--AN INN--THE STREET

On an extensive plot of ground, lying somewhere between the Thames and
the Kensington squares, stood the premises of Messrs. Nockett and Perch,
builders and contractors. The yard with its workshops formed part of one
of those frontier lines between mangy business and garnished domesticity
that occur in what are called improving neighbourhoods. We are
accustomed to regard increase as the chief feature in a great city's
progress, its well-known signs greeting our eyes on every outskirt. Slush-
ponds may be seen turning into basement-kitchens; a broad causeway of
shattered earthenware smothers plots of budding gooseberry-bushes and
vegetable trenches, foundations following so closely upon gardens that
the householder may be expected to find cadaverous sprouts from
overlooked potatoes rising through the chinks of his cellar floor. But
the other great process, that of internal transmutation, is not less
curious than this encroachment of grey upon green. Its first erections
are often only the milk-teeth of a suburb, and as the district rises in
dignity they are dislodged by those which are to endure. Slightness
becomes supplanted by comparative solidity, commonness by novelty,
lowness and irregularity by symmetry and height.

An observer of the precinct which has been named as an instance in point
might have stood under a lamp-post and heard simultaneously the peal of
the visitor's bell from the new terrace on the right hand, and the stroke
of tools from the musty workshops on the left. Waggons laden with deals
came up