ons." Well, that long-winded
effusion doesn't refer to you at all, Elfride, merely something put in
to fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you again;...not till the
very end, actually. Here you are finally polished off:

'"But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this
article. We are far from altogether disparaging the author's powers. She
has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a style
of narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a murmuring of
delicate emotional trifles, the particular gift of those to whom the
social sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where
matters of domestic experience, and the natural touches which make
people real, can be introduced without anachronisms too striking, she is
occasionally felicitous; and upon the whole we feel justified in saying
that the book will bear looking into for the sake of those portions
which have nothing whatever to do with the story."

'Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don't think anything
more of it now, my dear. It is seven o'clock.' And Mrs. Swancourt rang
for her maid.

Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen's letter was concerning
nothing but oneness with her: the review was the very reverse. And a
stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty
voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses
to address. When Elfride fell asleep that night she was loving the
writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer of that article.

Chapter XVI

'Then fancy shapes--as fancy can.'

On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio were sitting
quietly in the drawing-room of The Crags, Mrs. Swancourt's house at
Endelstow, chatting, and taking easeful survey of their previous month
or two of town--a tangible weariness even to people whose acquaintances
there might be counted on the fingers.

A mere season in London with her practised step-mother had so advanced
Elfride's perceptions, that her courtship by Stephen seemed emotionally
meagre, and to have drifted back several years into a childish past.
In regarding our mental experiences, as in visual observation, our own
progress reads like a dwindling of that we progress from.

She was seated on a low chair, looking over her romance with melancholy
interest for the first time since she had become acquainted with the
remarks of the PRESENT thereupon.

'Still th