efore him.

Here, beside the fountain, were gathered the Squire, Mrs. Darcy, Madame
de Netteville, and two unknown men. One of them was introduced to
Elsmere as Mr. Spooner, and recognized by him as a Fellow of the Royal
Society, a famous mathematician, sceptic, _bon vivant_, and sayer of
good things. The other was a young Liberal Catholic, the author of
a remarkable collection of essays on mediaeval subjects in which the
Squire, treating the man's opinions of course as of no account, had
instantly recognized the note of the true scholar. A pale, small, hectic
creature, possessed of that restless energy, of mind which often goes
with the heightened temperature of consumption.

Robert took a seat by Madame de Netteville, whose appearance was
picturesqueness itself. Her dress, a skilful mixture of black and creamy
yellow, laid about her in folds, as soft, as carelessly effective as
her manner. Her plumed hat shadowed a face which was no longer young,
in such a way as to hide all the lines possible; while the half-light
brought admirably out the rich dark smoothness of the tints, the black
lustre of the eyes. A delicate blue-veined hand lay, upon her knee, and
Robert was conscious after ten minutes or so that all her movements,
which seemed at first merely slow and languid, were in reality
singularly full of decision and purpose.

She was not easy to talk to on a first acquaintance. Robert felt that
she was studying him, and was not so much at his ease as usual, partly
owing to fatigue and mental worry.

She asked him little abrupt questions about the neighborhood, his
parish, his work in a soft tone which had, however, a distinct
loftiness, even _hauteur_. His answers, on the other hand, were often
a trifle reckless and offhand. He was in a mood to be impatient with a
_mondaine's_ languid inquiries into clerical work, and it seemed to him
the Squire's description had been overdone.

'So you try to civilize your peasants,' she said at last. 'Does it
succeed--is it worth while?'

'That depends on your general ideas of what is worth while,' he answered
smiling.

'Oh, everything is worth while that passes the time,' she said
hurriedly. 'The clergy of the old regime went through life half asleep.
That was their way of passing it. Your way, being a modern, is to bustle
and try experiments.'

Her eyes, half closed but none the less provocative, ran over Elsmere's
keen face and pliant frame. An atmosphere of intellectua