good to me. I could feel her being too
good to me--my mother! Then I went away to school so early.
And I must say, the outside world was always more naturally a
home to me than the vicarage--I don't know why."

"Do you feel like a bird blown out of its own latitude?" she
asked, using a phrase she had met.

"No, no. I find everything very much as I like it."

He seemed more and more to give her a sense of the vast
world, a sense of distances and large masses of humanity. It
drew her as a scent draws a bee from afar. But also it hurt
her.

It was summer, and she wore cotton frocks. The third time he
saw her she had on a dress with fine blue-and-white stripes,
with a white collar, and a large white hat. It suited her
golden, warm complexion.

"I like you best in that dress," he said, standing with his
head slightly on one side, and appreciating her in a perceiving,
critical fashion.

She was thrilled with a new life. For the first time she was
in love with a vision of herself: she saw as it were a fine
little reflection of herself in his eyes. And she must act up to
this: she must be beautiful. Her thoughts turned swiftly to
clothes, her passion was to make a beautiful appearance. Her
family looked on in amazement at the sudden transformation of
Ursula. She became elegant, really elegant, in figured cotton
frocks she made for herself, and hats she bent to her fancy. An
inspiration was upon her.

He sat with a sort of languor in her grandmother's rocking
chair, rocking slowly, languidly, backward and forward, as
Ursula talked to him.

"You are not poor, are you?" she said.

"Poor in money? I have about a hundred and fifty a year of my
own--so I am poor or rich, as you like. I am poor enough,
in fact."

"But you will earn money?"

"I shall have my pay--I have my pay now. I've got my
commission. That is another hundred and fifty."

"You will have more, though?"

"I shan't have more than 200 pounds a year for ten years to
come. I shall always be poor, if I have to live on my pay."

"Do you mind it?"

"Being poor? Not now--not very much. I may later.
People--the officers, are good to me. Colonel Hepburn has a
sort of fancy for me--he is a rich man, I suppose."

A chill went over Ursula. Was he going to sell himself in
some way?

"Is Colonel Hepburn married?"

"Yes--with two daughters."

But she was too proud at once to care whether Colonel
Hepburn's daughter wanted to marry him or not.

There ca