pitch to decide. Carinthia stood near him then. The confession
was a step, and fraught with consequences. Her unacknowledged influence
expedited him to Sarah Winch's shop, for sight of one of earth's honest
souls; from whom he had the latest of the two others down in Wales, and
of an infant there.

He dined the host of his Ixionides, leaving them early for a drive at
night Eastward, and a chat with old Mr. Woodseer over his punching and
sewing of his bootleather. Another honest soul. Mr. Woodseer thankfully
consented to mount his coach-box next day, and astonish Gower with a
drop on his head from the skies about the time of the mid-day meal.

There we have our peep into Dame Gossip's young man mysterious.

CHAPTER XXIX. CARINTHIA IN WALES

An August of gales and rains drove Atlantic air over the Welsh
highlands. Carinthia's old father had impressed on her the rapture of
'smelling salt' when by chance he stood and threw up his nostrils to
sniff largely over a bed of bracken, that reminded him of his element,
and her fancy would be at strain to catch his once proud riding of the
seas. She felt herself an elder daughter of the beloved old father, as
she breathed it in full volume from the billowy West one morning early
after sunrise and walked sisterly with the far-seen inexperienced little
maid, whom she saw trotting beside him through the mountain forest,
listening, storing his words, picturing the magnetic, veined great gloom
of an untasted world.

This elder daughter had undergone a shipwreck; but clear proof that she
had not been worsted was in the unclouded liveliness of the younger one
gazing forward. Imaginative creatures who are courageous will never
be lopped of the hopeful portion of their days by personal misfortune.
Carinthia could animate both; it would have been a hurt done to a living
human soul had she suffered the younger self to run overcast. Only, the
gazing forward had become interdicted to her experienced self. Nor could
she vision a future having any horizon for her child. She saw it in
bleak squares, and snuggled him between dangers weathered and dangers
apprehended.

The conviction that her husband hated her had sunk into her nature.
Hating the mother, he would not love her boy. He was her boy, and
strangely bestowed, not beautifully to be remembered rapturously
or gratefully, and with deep love of the father. She felt the wound
recollection dealt her. But the boy was her one treasure,