on
of enthusiasm. He turned towards Vesuvius. Its column of smoke, rising
always there, neither subsiding nor increasing, now irritated him by
its sameness and its constancy. "Always thus!" he mentally exclaimed.
"Why does it not explode at once? Why not at once give out all its
rage?"

He passed through the gardens. They lead, at the further extremity, into
an open space, where much rabble assemble, where a sort of market is
held, and where, on the neighbouring beach, the fishermen draw up their
boats: fishermen bare-legged, bare-thighed, but legs and thighs not of
flesh but mahogany. At other times he had been amused with the sudden
contrast this scene affords with the well-dressed crowd within the
gardens. It now disgusted him. There was nothing but noise and dirt,
nothing but dust and heat, and glare. The various beggars who had often
vexed him by their clamours, but had generally ended by extorting from
him some pence and some good-humour, were quite intolerable. The little
children, with their naked feet, tanned and dusted to the colour of the
road, girt with their scanty complement of rags, with nothing on earth
but their little shrill voices--their Signor! Signor!--to get their
daily morsel with, and who had so often, when Mildred was at his side,
received a whole handful of copper coins amongst them, now excited not
the least commiseration, called forth nothing but some passing
execration upon the slovenly government that could permit human life to
sink down into all the wildness, and more than the destitution of the
brute animal.

After the lapse of some hours, spent in this horrible restlessness, he
again called on the Bloomfields. They had returned from their drive. He
ran up the stairs: but, when he reached the landing-place, he paused.
Perhaps that stranger might have returned with them. The door of the
drawing-room was half-open: he looked, and saw that formidable intruder
seated there. He was not formidable, evidently, to Mildred. She stood
gracefully before him, and, putting back his dark hair from his fine
manly brow, she stooped, and laid a kiss upon his forehead. Winston drew
back instantly, and hurried from the house.

He had not retreated, however, so quickly, but that he had been seen by
Mildred--thanks to the tall mirror before which she stood, and which had
faithfully reflected his image. Had he been less distracted, he would
have heard a soft voice call him by his name, from the head of the