the
shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing
the words that it adorned:

"Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die."

However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a
beacon in the roaring tides of darkness.

Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson

The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near
Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial
England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas,
and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,
mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.
That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for
they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken
by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss
Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.
Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help
towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little
depressed.

"But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse
to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."

Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to
drum nervously upon her card-case.

"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine
continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But
perhaps he will come out and join you later on."

"Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute
and less kindly of the two sisters.

"However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see
him."

"No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't
like it."

"No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy.

"Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--"

"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have
met you!"

They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got
through that time."

But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am
unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about
Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and
almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most
unpleasant."

Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans'
character: they were such gossips, and