bell and ordered the carriage; and half-an-hour later Lady
Petherwin's coachman drove his mistress up to the door of her lawyer's
office in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

11. SANDBOURNE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD--SOME LONDON STREETS

While this was going on in town, Christopher, at his lodgings in
Sandbourne, had been thrown into rare old visions and dreams by the
appearance of Ethelberta's letter. Flattered and encouraged to ambition
as well as to love by her inspiriting sermon, he put off now the last
remnant of cynical doubt upon the genuineness of his old mistress, and
once and for all set down as disloyal a belief he had latterly acquired
that 'Come, woo me, woo me; for I am like enough to consent,' was all a
young woman had to tell.

All the reasoning of political and social economists would not have
convinced Christopher that he had a better chance in London than in
Sandbourne of making a decent income by reasonable and likely labour; but
a belief in a far more improbable proposition, impetuously expressed,
warmed him with the idea that he might become famous there. The greater
is frequently more readily credited than the less, and an argument which
will not convince on a matter of halfpence appears unanswerable when
applied to questions of glory and honour.

The regulation wet towel and strong coffee of the ambitious and
intellectual student floated before him in visions; but it was with a
sense of relief that he remembered that music, in spite of its drawbacks
as a means of sustenance, was a profession happily unencumbered with
those excruciating preliminaries to greatness.

Christopher talked about the new move to his sister, and he was vexed
that her hopefulness was not roused to quite the pitch of his own. As
with others of his sort, his too general habit of accepting the most
clouded possibility that chances offered was only transcended by his
readiness to kindle with a fitful excitement now and then. Faith was
much more equable. 'If you were not the most melancholy man God ever
created,' she said, kindly looking at his vague deep eyes and thin face,
which was but a few degrees too refined and poetical to escape the
epithet of lantern-jawed from any one who had quarrelled with him, 'you
would not mind my coolness about this. It is a good thing of course to
go; I have always fancied that we were mistaken in coming here.
Mediocrity stamped "London" fetches more than talent marked "provincial."
But I ca