urn them all to a joke,' Fanny objected.

'That's my profound pessimism. I am misunderstood. No one expects irony
from a woman.'

Peak found it difficult not to gaze too persistently at the subtle
countenance. He was impelled to examine it by a consciousness that he
himself received a large share of Miss Moorhouse's attention, and a
doubt as to the estimation in which she held him. Canon Grayling's
sermon and Godwin's comment had elicited no remark from her. Did she
belong to the ranks of emancipated women? With his experience of
Marcella Moxey, he welcomed the possibility of this variation of the
type, but at the same time, in obedience to a new spirit that had
strange possession of him, recognised that such phenomena no longer
aroused his personal interest. By the oddest of intellectual processes
he had placed himself altogether outside the sphere of unorthodox
spirits. Concerning Miss Moorhouse he cared only for the report she
might make of him to the Warricombes.

Before long, the carriage was stopped that he might enjoy one of the
pleasantest views in the neighbourhood of the city. A gate,
interrupting a high bank with which the road was bordered, gave
admission to the head of a great cultivated slope, which fell to the
river Exe; hence was suddenly revealed a wide panorama. Three
well-marked valleys--those of the Creedy, the Exe, and the Culm--spread
their rural loveliness to remote points of the horizon; gentle
undulations, with pasture and woodland, with long winding roads, and
many a farm that gleamed white amid its orchard leafage, led the gaze
into regions of evanescent hue and outline. Westward, a bolder swell
pointed to the skirts of Dartmoor. No inappropriate detail disturbed
the impression. Exeter was wholly hidden behind the hill on which the
observers stood, and the line of railway leading thither could only be
descried by special search. A foaming weir at the hill's foot blended
its soft murmur with that of the fir branches hereabouts; else, no
sound that the air could convey beyond the pulsing of a bird's note.

All had alighted, and for a minute or two there was silence. When Peak
had received such geographical instruction as was needful, Warricombe
pointed out to him a mansion conspicuous on the opposite slope of the
Exe valley, the seat of Sir Stafford Northcote. The house had no
architectural beauty, but its solitary lordship amid green pastures and
tracts of thick wood declared the graces and