violently affectionate. They seem to think the
only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young
woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought,
or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What
are you thinking of, Trot?'

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on
some of the expressions used. 'There can be no disparity in marriage
like unsuitability of mind and purpose.' 'The first mistaken impulse of
an undisciplined heart.' 'My love was founded on a rock.' But we were at
home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind
was blowing.

CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE

I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a
solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success
had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at
that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth's
house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that
neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit,
it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without
making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole,
pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a
quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best
rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned
windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal,
close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered
way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and
there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the
only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look.
I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had
been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some
childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge
of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not
go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long
train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular even