-bags,
orange-peel, and broken bottles. A Radical out and out, she learnt to
speak with horror of Suburbia. Life, so far as she troubled to conceive
it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and
identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside
it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the
London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in
the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm
himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished.
Her senses expanded; she felt that there was no one whom she might not
get to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not
particularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's
olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned
with new eyes.

So did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to
irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead
of saying, "Does that very much matter?" he rebelled, and tried to
substitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that
Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities
that create a tenderness in time, and that though her eyes saw its
defects, her heart refused to despise it entirely. Nor did he realize
a more important point--that if she was too great for this society, she
was too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal
intercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the
kind he understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but
equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most
priceless of all possessions--her own soul.

Playing bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and
aged thirteen--an ancient and most honourable game, which consists in
striking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they fall over the net
and immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs. Honeychurch; others are lost. The
sentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy's state of mind,
for she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time.

"Oh, it has been such a nuisance--first he, then they--no one knowing
what they wanted, and every one so tiresome."

"But they really are coming now," said Mr. Beebe. "I wrote to Miss
Teresa a few days ago--she was wondering how often the butcher called,
and my reply of once a month must have im