as Mr. Dalloway," she confessed.

"Good Lord!" he flung back his head in recollection of Mr. Dalloway.

She chose for herself a volume at random, submitted it to her uncle,
who, seeing that it was _La_ _Cousine_ _bette_, bade her throw it
away if she found it too horrible, and was about to leave him when he
demanded whether she had enjoyed her dance?

He then wanted to know what people did at dances, seeing that he had
only been to one thirty-five years ago, when nothing had seemed to him
more meaningless and idiotic. Did they enjoy turning round and round to
the screech of a fiddle? Did they talk, and say pretty things, and
if so, why didn't they do it, under reasonable conditions? As for
himself--he sighed and pointed at the signs of industry lying all about
him, which, in spite of his sigh, filled his face with such satisfaction
that his niece thought good to leave. On bestowing a kiss she was
allowed to go, but not until she had bound herself to learn at any rate
the Greek alphabet, and to return her French novel when done with, upon
which something more suitable would be found for her.

As the rooms in which people live are apt to give off something of the
same shock as their faces when seen for the first time, Rachel walked
very slowly downstairs, lost in wonder at her uncle, and his books,
and his neglect of dances, and his queer, utterly inexplicable, but
apparently satisfactory view of life, when her eye was caught by a note
with her name on it lying in the hall. The address was written in a
small strong hand unknown to her, and the note, which had no beginning,
ran:--

I send the first volume of Gibbon as I promised. Personally I find
little to be said for the moderns, but I'm going to send you Wedekind
when I've done him. Donne? Have you read Webster and all that set? I
envy you reading them for the first time. Completely exhausted after
last night. And you?

The flourish of initials which she took to be St. J. A. H., wound up
the letter. She was very much flattered that Mr. Hirst should have
remembered her, and fulfilled his promise so quickly.

There was still an hour to luncheon, and with Gibbon in one hand, and
Balzac in the other she strolled out of the gate and down the little
path of beaten mud between the olive trees on the slope of the hill. It
was too hot for climbing hills, but along the valley there were trees
and a grass path running by the river bed. In this land where the
population