tfully along the country road.
The sweet smell of the flowery hedges pervaded the night air, and from
the fields on either side was heard ever and anon the bleating of some
wakeful sheep. How peaceful, how reposeful, everything was! How strong
and solemn the great trees looked, standing here and there in the wide
meadows under the moonlight and the stars! And what a contrast--oh,
_what_ a contrast--was the beauty of these calm pastoral scenes to
the tawdry gorgeousness of those other "scenes" he had been witnessing,
with their false effects, and coloured fires, and painted, spouting
occupants! There was no need for him to argue the question any more,
even with himself. It was as clear as the moon in the steel-blue sky
above him that the associations of the theatre were totally, hopelessly,
and radically incompatible with the ideals of the Daphnis life.

Chapter the Eighth

It is scarcely necessary to say that Austin knew nothing whatever
about his aunt's preoccupation, and that even if she had taken him
into her confidence, he would have paid little or no attention to the
matter. I am afraid that his ideas about finance were crude in the
extreme, being limited to a sort of vague impression that capital was
what you put into a bank, and interest was what you took out; while
the difference between the par value of a security and the price you
could get for it on the market, would have been to him a hopelessly
unfathomable mystery. Aunt Charlotte, therefore, was very wise in
abstaining from any reference, in conversation, to the great
enterprise for extracting gold from sea-water, in which she hoped to
purchase shares; for one could never have told what foolish remark he
might have made, though it was quite certain that he would have said
something foolish, and probably very exasperating. So she kept her
secret locked up in her own breast, and silently counted the hours
till she could get a reply from her bankers.

Of course Austin had to give his aunt an account, at breakfast-time
next morning, of the pageant of the previous night; and as he confined
himself to saying that the scenery and dresses were very fine, and
that Mr Buskin was quite unrecognisable, and that all the performers
knew their parts, and that he had walked part of the way home with
Roger St Aubyn afterwards, the impression left on the good lady's mind
was that he had enjoyed himself very much. This inevitable duty
accomplished, Austin straight