n't have expected that somehow of Barking and
Louisa. Sets her more free, of course, in regard to her sisters. Very
thoughtful for her sisters, Louisa. I suppose she must have Connie.
Nuisance all this gossip about Shotover. Pretty child, Connie--best
looking of the lot. People say she's like me. Wonderfully pretty child,
Connie. That young fellow Decies thinks so too, or I'm very much
mistaken. Very much attracted by Connie. Fine young fellow,
Decies--comfort to hear of Guy from him. Suppose she must go up to
Louisa. Gentlemanlike fellow, Decies. I shouldn't care to part with
Connie----"

And then, his reflections becoming increasingly interjectional as the
train trundled away southwestward, Lord Fallowfeild leaned back in the
corner of the railway carriage and fell very fast asleep.

CHAPTER II

TELLING HOW VANITY FAIR MADE ACQUAINTANCE WITH RICHARD CALMADY

There was no refusing belief to the fact. The old, cloistered life at
Brockhurst, for good or evil, was broken up. Katherine Calmady
recognised that another stage had been reached on the relentless
journey, that new prospects opened, new horizons invited her anxious
gaze. She recognised also that all which had been was dead, according
to its existing form, and should receive burial, silent, somewhat
sorrowful, yet not without hope of eventual resurrection in regard to
the nobler part of it. The fair coloured petals of the flower fall away
from the maturing fruit, the fruit rots to set free the seed. Yet the
vital principle remains, life lives on, though the material clothing of
it change. And, therefore, Katherine--an upspringing of patience and
chastened fortitude within her, the result of her reconciliation to the
Divine Light and resignation of herself to its indwelling--set herself,
not to arrest the falling of the flower, but to help the ripening of
the seed. If the old garments were out of date, too straight and narrow
for her child's growth, then let others be found him. She did not wait
to have him ask, she offered, and that without hint of reproach or of
unwillingness.

Yet so to offer cost her not a little. For it was by no means easy to
sink her natural pride, and go forth smiling with this son of hers, at
once beautiful and hideous in person, for all the world to see.
Something of personal heroism is demanded of whoso prescribes heroic
remedies, if those remedies are to succeed. At night, alone in the
darkness, Katherine, suddenly awaking