breakfast; Manton suggested the waiting a
further two or three minutes. 'We must not be late,' Nesta said; and
when the minute-hand of the clock marked ample time for the drive to the
station, she took her seat and started, keeping her face resolutely
set seaward, having at her ears the ring of a cry that was to come
from Manton. But Manton was dumb; she spied no one on the pavement who
signalled to stop them. And no one was at the station to greet them.
They stepped into a carriage where they were alone. Dudley with his
dreaded generosity melted out of Nesta's thoughts, like the vanishing
steam-wreath on the dip between the line and the downs.

She passed into music, as she always did under motion of carriages and
trains, whether in happiness or sadness: and the day being one that
had a sky, the scenic of music swung her up to soar. None of her heavy
burdens enchained, though she knew the weight of them, with those of
other painful souls. The pipeing at her breast gave wings to large and
small of the visible; and along the downs went stateliest of flowing
dances; a copse lengthened to forest; a pool of cattle-water caught
grey for flights through enchantment. Cottage-children, wherever seen in
groups, she wreathed above with angels to watch them. Her mind all the
while was busy upon earth, embracing her mother, eyeing her father.
Imagination and our earthly met midway, and still she flew, until she
was brought to the ground by a shot. She struggled to rise, uplifting
Judith Marsett: a woman not so very much older than her own teens, in
the count of years, and ages older; and the world pulling at her heels
to keep her low. That unhappiest had no one but a sisterly girl to help
her: and how she clung to the slender help! Who else was there?

The good and the bad in the woman struck separate blows upon the
girl's resonant nature. She perceived the good, and took it into her
reflections. The bad she divined: it approached like some threat of
inflammation. Natures resonant as that which animated this girl, are
quick at the wells of understanding: and she had her intimations of the
world's wisdom in withholding contagious presences from the very
mangy of the young, who may not have an aim, or ideal, or strong human
compassion, for a preservative. She was assured of her possessing it.
She asked herself in her mother's voice, and answered mutely. She had
the certainty: for she rebuked the slavish feverishness of the passion,