nd Minehead; and the
Shuttleworth servants and tenants, not being more blind than other
people, saw very well that their Augustus had lost his heart to the
lady from nowhere. As for Lady Shuttleworth, she only smiled a rueful
smile and stroked her poor Tussie's hair in silence when, having
murmured something about the horses being tired, he reproved her by
telling her that it was everybody's duty to do what they could for
strangers in difficulties.

Priscilla's side of Creeper Cottage was the end abutting on the
churchyard, and her parlour had one latticed window looking south down
the village street, and one looking west opening directly on to the
churchyard. The long grass of the churchyard, its dandelions and
daisies, grew right up beneath this window to her wall, and a tall
tombstone half-blocked her view of the elm-trees and the church. Over
this room, with the same romantic and gloomy outlook, was her bedroom.
Behind her parlour was what had been the shoemaker's kitchen, but it
had been turned into a temporary bathroom. True no water was laid on
as yet, but the pump was just outside, and nobody thought there would
be any difficulty about filling the bath every morning by means of the
pump combined with buckets. Over the bathroom was the attic. This was
Annalise's bedroom. Nobody thought there would be any difficulty about
that either; nobody, in fact, thought anything about anything. It was
a simple place, after the manner of attics, with a window in its
sloping ceiling through which stars might be studied with great
comfort as one lay in bed. A frugal mind, an earnest soul, would have
liked the attic, would have found a healthy enjoyment in a place so
plain and fresh, so swept in windy weather by the airs of heaven. A
poet, too, would certainly have flooded any parts of it that seemed
dark with the splendour of his own inner light; a nature-lover, again,
would have quickly discovered the spiders that dwelt in its corners,
and spent profitable hours on all fours observing them. But an
Annalise--what was she to make of such a place? Is it not true that
the less a person has inside him of culture and imagination the more
he wants outside him of the upholstery of life? I think it is true;
and if it is, then the vacancy of Annalise's mind may be measured by
the fact that what she demanded of life in return for the negative
services of not crying and wringing her hands was nothing less filled
with food and sofas and s