se
lights, scattered among the crowd, wove a pattern, dissolving, joining,
meeting again in combination. Half forming such conceptions as these
in her rapid walk along the dreary streets of South Kensington, she
determined that, whatever else might be obscure, she must further
the objects of Mary, Denham, William, and Cassandra. The way was not
apparent. No course of action seemed to her indubitably right. All she
achieved by her thinking was the conviction that, in such a cause, no
risk was too great; and that, far from making any rules for herself or
others, she would let difficulties accumulate unsolved, situations widen
their jaws unsatiated, while she maintained a position of absolute and
fearless independence. So she could best serve the people who loved.

Read in the light of this exaltation, there was a new meaning in the
words which her mother had penciled upon the card attached to the bunch
of anemones. The door of the house in the Cromwell Road opened; gloomy
vistas of passage and staircase were revealed; such light as there was
seemed to be concentrated upon a silver salver of visiting-cards, whose
black borders suggested that the widow's friends had all suffered the
same bereavement. The parlor-maid could hardly be expected to fathom the
meaning of the grave tone in which the young lady proffered the flowers,
with Mrs. Hilbery's love; and the door shut upon the offering.

The sight of a face, the slam of a door, are both rather destructive
of exaltation in the abstract; and, as she walked back to Chelsea,
Katharine had her doubts whether anything would come of her resolves.
If you cannot make sure of people, however, you can hold fairly fast to
figures, and in some way or other her thought about such problems as she
was wont to consider worked in happily with her mood as to her friends'
lives. She reached home rather late for tea.

On the ancient Dutch chest in the hall she perceived one or two hats,
coats, and walking-sticks, and the sound of voices reached her as she
stood outside the drawing-room door. Her mother gave a little cry as she
came in; a cry which conveyed to Katharine the fact that she was late,
that the teacups and milk-jugs were in a conspiracy of disobedience, and
that she must immediately take her place at the head of the table and
pour out tea for the guests. Augustus Pelham, the diarist, liked a calm
atmosphere in which to tell his stories; he liked attention; he liked to
elicit littl