had as yet been small. She had wanted for opportunity and
independence; people had other things to do than to go with her, so that
it was not till she had been some time in the country and till a good
while after she had begun to go out alone that she entered upon the
privilege of visiting public institutions by herself. There were some
aspects of London that frightened her, but there were certain spots,
such as the Poets' Corner in the Abbey or the room of the Elgin marbles,
where she liked better to be alone than not to have the right companion.
At the time Mr. Wendover presented himself in Grosvenor Place she had
begun to put in, as they said, a museum or something of that sort
whenever she had a chance. Besides her idea that such places were
sources of knowledge (it is to be feared that the poor girl's notions of
knowledge were at once conventional and crude) they were also occasions
for detachment, an escape from worrying thoughts. She forgot Selina and
she 'qualified' herself a little--though for what she hardly knew.

The day Mr. Wendover dined in Grosvenor Place they talked about St.
Paul's, which he expressed a desire to see, wishing to get some idea of
the great past, as he said, in England as well as of the present. Laura
mentioned that she had spent half an hour the summer before in the big
black temple on Ludgate Hill; whereupon he asked her if he might
entertain the hope that--if it were not disagreeable to her to go
again--she would serve as his guide there. She had taken him to see Lady
Davenant, who was so remarkable and worth a long journey, and now he
should like to pay her back--to show _her_ something. The difficulty
would be that there was probably nothing she had not seen; but if she
could think of anything he was completely at her service. They sat
together at dinner and she told him she would think of something before
the repast was over. A little while later she let him know that a
charming place had occurred to her--a place to which she was afraid to
go alone and where she should be grateful for a protector: she would
tell him more about it afterwards. It was then settled between them that
on a certain afternoon of the same week they would go to St. Paul's
together, extending their ramble as much further as they had time. Laura
lowered her voice for this discussion, as if the range of allusion had
had a kind of impropriety. She was now still more of the mind that Mr.
Wendover was a good young m