em."

"Here is your packet again," said Ansell. "Thank you. How interesting!"
He rose from the seat and turned towards Dunwood House. He looked at
the bow-windows, the cheap picturesque gables, the terracotta dragons
clawing a dirty sky. He listened to the clink of plates and to the voice
of Mr. Pembroke taking one of his innumerable roll-calls. He looked at
the bed of lobelias. How interesting! What else was there to say?

"One must be the son of some one," remarked Stephen. And that was all
he had to say. To him those names on the moistened paper were mere
antiquities. He was neither proud of them nor ashamed. A man must have
parents, or he cannot enter the delightful world. A man, if he has
a brother, may reasonably visit him, for they may have interests in
common. He continued his narrative, how in the night he had heard the
clocks, how at daybreak, instead of entering the city, he had struck
eastward to save money,--while Ansell still looked at the house and
found that all his imagination and knowledge could lead him no farther
than this: how interesting!

"--And what do you think of that for a holy horror?"

"For a what?" said Ansell, his thoughts far away.

"This man I am telling you about, who gave me a lift towards Andover,
who said I was a blot on God's earth."

One o'clock struck. It was strange that neither of them had had any
summons from the house.

"He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He said, 'I'll not be the
means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady.' I told him
not to be a fool. I said I knew what I was about. Rickie and Agnes are
properly educated, which leads people to look at things straight, and
not go screaming about blots. A man like me, with just a little reading
at odd hours--I've got so far, and Rickie has been through Cambridge."

"And Mrs. Elliot?"

"Oh, she won't mind, and I told the man so; but he kept on saying, 'I'll
not be the means of bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady,'
until I got out of his rotten cart." His eye watched the man a
Nonconformist, driving away over God's earth. "I caught the train by
running. I got to Waterloo at--"

Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them, Would Mr. Wonham come in?
Mrs. Elliot would be glad to see him now.

"Mrs. Elliot?" cried Ansell. "Not Mr. Elliot?"

"It's all the same," said Stephen, and moved towards the house.

"You see, I only left my name. They don't know why I've come."

"Perhaps Mr. Ellio