ties of knowing, the family fortune was
dependent. All these facts about herself she would have been ready to
admit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. What she
unwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be
unaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread,
though this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into
connection with the religion taught her or with any human relations.
She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in
remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for
example, she was walking without companionship and there came some
rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her
with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in
the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself.
The little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her
imagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when
some one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in
which she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her
will was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to
this world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions
of awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With
human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her
confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire.

To her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were
sufficiently accounted for by her "sensitiveness" or the "excitability
of her nature"; but these explanatory phrases required conciliation
with much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery.
Heat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of
explaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of
differences; and as a means of explaining character "sensitiveness" is
in much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like
Gwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as
a mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene
he was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct with all
feeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful love, but able
to love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his young wings
and soared happily.

CHAPTER VII.

"_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by,
_Willie_. Hey, ho, b