Lucy! Lucy! What's that book? Who's been taking a book out of the shelf
and leaving it about to spoil?"

"It's only the library book that Cecil's been reading."

"But pick it up, and don't stand idling there like a flamingo."

Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a
Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time
to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful
how little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like
the Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning
she had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and Cecil
had said, "What! you aren't forgetting your Italy already?" And this too
had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view and the
dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely conceivable
elsewhere, the dear sun.

"Lucy--have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself?"

She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a
Sunday fluster.

"It's a special collection--I forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar
clinking in the plate with halfpennies; see that Minnie has a nice
bright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book's all warped.
(Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press.
Minnie!"

"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch--" from the upper regions.

"Minnie, don't be late. Here comes the horse"--it was always the horse,
never the carriage. "Where's Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is she
so long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but blouses.
Poor Charlotte--How I do detest blouses! Minnie!"

Paganism is infectious--more infectious than diphtheria or piety--and
the Rector's niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn't
see why. Why shouldn't she sit in the sun with the young men? The
young men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs.
Honeychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss
Bartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling down
the stairs.

"Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small change--nothing but
sovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me--"

"Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely
frock! You put us all to shame."

"If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear
them?" said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and
place