she might give him to understand, privately, that
she, too, thought her family a queer one--queer, yes, but not dull. That
was the rock past which she was bent on steering him. And she thought
how she would draw his attention to Edward's passion for Jorrocks, and
the enthusiasm which led Christopher to collect moths and butterflies
though he was now twenty-two. Perhaps Elizabeth's sketching, if the
fruits were invisible, might lend color to the general effect which she
wished to produce of a family, eccentric and limited, perhaps, but
not dull. Edward, she perceived, was rolling the lawn, for the sake of
exercise; and the sight of him, with pink cheeks, bright little brown
eyes, and a general resemblance to a clumsy young cart-horse in its
winter coat of dusty brown hair, made Mary violently ashamed of her
ambitious scheming. She loved him precisely as he was; she loved them
all; and as she walked by his side, up and down, and down and up,
her strong moral sense administered a sound drubbing to the vain and
romantic element aroused in her by the mere thought of Ralph. She felt
quite certain that, for good or for bad, she was very like the rest of
her family.

Sitting in the corner of a third-class railway carriage, on the
afternoon of the following day, Ralph made several inquiries of a
commercial traveler in the opposite corner. They centered round a
village called Lampsher, not three miles, he understood, from Lincoln;
was there a big house in Lampsher, he asked, inhabited by a gentleman of
the name of Otway?

The traveler knew nothing, but rolled the name of Otway on his tongue,
reflectively, and the sound of it gratified Ralph amazingly. It gave
him an excuse to take a letter from his pocket in order to verify the
address.

"Stogdon House, Lampsher, Lincoln," he read out.

"You'll find somebody to direct you at Lincoln," said the man; and Ralph
had to confess that he was not bound there this very evening.

"I've got to walk over from Disham," he said, and in the heart of him
could not help marveling at the pleasure which he derived from making
a bagman in a train believe what he himself did not believe. For the
letter, though signed by Katharine's father, contained no invitation or
warrant for thinking that Katharine herself was there; the only fact it
disclosed was that for a fortnight this address would be Mr. Hilbery's
address. But when he looked out of the window, it was of her he thought;
she, too, had s