young
widows. She wrote quite admirably criticism in the _Scrutator_ and the
_Sectarian_, and occasionally poetry in the _Right Review_--when she
felt disposed to do so. She had an intermittent vein of high spirits
that was almost better than humour and made her quickly popular with
most of the people she met, and she was only twenty miles away in her
pretty house and her absurd little jolly park.

There was something, she said, in his thought and work that was like
walking in mountains. She came to him because she wanted to clamber
about the peaks and glens of his mind.

It was natural to reply that he wasn't by any means the serene mountain
elevation she thought him, except perhaps for a kind of loneliness....

She was a great reader of eighteenth century memoirs, and some she
conveyed to him. Her mental quality was all in the vein of the
friendships of Rousseau and Voltaire, and pleasantly and trippingly she
led him along the primrose path of an intellectual liaison. She came
first to Matching's Easy, where she was sweet and bright and vividly
interested and a great contrast to Mrs. Britling, and then he and she
met in London, and went off together with a fine sense of adventure for
a day at Richmond, and then he took some work with him to her house and
stayed there....

Then she went away into Scotland for a time and he wanted her again
tremendously and clamoured for her eloquently, and then it was apparent
and admitted between them that they were admirably in love, oh!
immensely in love.

The transitions from emotional mountaineering to ardent intimacies were
so rapid and impulsive that each phase obliterated its predecessor, and
it was only with a vague perplexity that Mr. Britling found himself
transferred from the role of a mountainous objective for pretty little
pilgrims to that of a sedulous lover in pursuit of the happiness of one
of the most uncertain, intricate, and entrancing of feminine
personalities. This was not at all his idea of the proper relations
between men and women, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a way of challenging his
gallantry. She made him run about for her; she did not demand but she
commanded presents and treats and surprises; she even developed a
certain jealousy in him. His work began to suffer from interruptions.
Yet they had glowing and entertaining moments together that could temper
his rebellious thoughts with the threat of irreparable loss. "One must
love, and all things in life ar