thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of
cruelty, which tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality,
framed to snatch a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion from
anywhere while it could be won. Through want of it she had sung
without being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone without
triumphing. Her loneliness deepened her desire. On Egdon, coldest
and meanest kisses were at famine prices; and where was a mouth
matching hers to be found?

Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her than
for most women: fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze of
love, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same
which should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what
most women learn only by experience: she had mentally walked round
love, told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded
that love was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a
desert would be thankful for brackish water.

She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
spontaneous, and often ran thus, "O deliver my heart from this fearful
gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
die."

Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon
Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's History used at the
establishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she
would have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in
preference to Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school
she had used to side with the Philistines in several battles, and had
wondered if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.

Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in
relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very
original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the
root of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses
who, when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work
on the highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the
midst of other people's labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was
at rest, and often said they would be the death of her. To see the
heathmen in their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their
pockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly
Sunday sign), wa