should have been
on his journey, found him straying about the Cathedral Close. A mere
half-purpose, a vague wavering intention, which might at any moment be
scattered by common sense, drew his steps to the door of the Cathedral,
where people were entering for morning service; he moved idly within
sight of the carriages which drew up. Several had discharged their
freightage of tailoring and millinery, when two vehicles, which seemed
companions, stopped at the edge of the pavement, and from the second
alighted the young ladies whom Godwin had yesterday observed; their
male companion, however, was different. The carriage in advance also
contained four persons: a gentleman of sixty, his wife, a young girl,
and the youth of yesterday. It needed but a glance to inform Godwin
that the oldest of the party was Mr. Warricombe, Buckland's father; ten
years had made no change in his aspect. Mrs. Warricombe was not less
recognisable. They passed at once into the edifice, and he had scarcely
time to bestow a keen look upon Sidwell.

That was a beautiful girl; he stood musing upon the picture registered
by his brain. But why not follow, and from a neighbouring seat survey
her and the others at his leisure? Pooh! But the impulse constrained
him. After all, he could not get a place that allowed him to see
Sidwell. Her companion, however, the one who seemed to be of much the
same age, was well in view. Sisters they could not be; nothing of the
Warricombe countenance revealed itself in those handsome but
strongly-marked features. A beautiful girl, she also, yet of a type
that made slight appeal to him. Sidwell was all he could imagine of
sweet and dignified; more modest in bearing, more gracile, more--

Monday at noon, and he still walked the streets of Exeter. Early this
morning he had been out to the Old Tiverton Road, and there, on the
lawn amid the laurels, had caught brief glimpse of two female figures,
in one of which he merely divined Sidwell. Why he tarried thus he did
not pretend to explain to himself. Rain had just come on, and the
lowering sky made him low-spirited; he mooned about the street under
his umbrella.

And at this rate, might vapour away his holiday. Exeter was tedious,
but he could not make up his mind to set forth for the sea-shore, where
only his own thoughts awaited him. Packed away in his wallet lay
geological hammer, azimuth compass, clinometer, miniature
microscope,--why should he drag all that lumber about