w her into
a state of opposition. "Mildred the Satisfactory has the right thing
ready for all occasions."

The result of this encounter was an elaborate pose. In dread of her
mother's comments, should she betray the feeling expected of her, she
set herself to maintain an unruffled calm of demeanour, whatever
happened.

Autumn was tinting the woods when Beth packed up. The day before her
departure she paid a round of visits, not to people, but to places,
which shows how much more real the life of her musings was to her at
that time than the life of the world. She got up at daybreak and went
and sat on the rustic seat at the edge of the cliff where the stream
fell over on to the sand, and thought of the first sunrise she had
ever seen, and of the puritan farmer who had come out and reprimanded
her ruggedly for being there alone at that unseemly hour. Poor man!
His little house behind her was shut up and deserted, the garden he
had kept so trim was all bedraggled, neglect ruled ruin all over his
small demesne, and he himself was where the worthy rest till their
return. The thought, however, at that hour and in that heavenly
solitude, where there was no sound but the sea-voice which filled
every pause in an undertone with the great song of eternity it sings
on always, did not sadden Beth, but, on the contrary, stimulated her
with some singular vague perception of the meaning of it all. The dawn
was breaking, and the spirit of the dawn all about her possessed and
drew her till she revelled in an ecstasy of yearning towards its
crowning glory--Rise, Great Sun! When she first sat down, the hollow
of the sky was one dark dome, only relieved by a star or two; but the
darkness parted more rapidly than her eyes could appreciate, and was
succeeded, in the hollow it had held, by rolling clouds monotonously
grey, which, in turn, ranged themselves in long low downs, irregularly
ribbed, and all unbroken, but gradually drawing apart until at length
they were gently riven, and the first triumphant tinge of topaz
colour, pale pink, warm and clear, like the faint flush that shyly
betrays some delicate emotion on a young cheek, touched the soft
gradations of the greyness to warmth and brightness, then mounted up
and up in shafts to the zenith, while behind it was breathed in the
tenderest tinge of turquoise blue, which shaded to green, which shaded
to primrose low down on the horizon, where all was shining silver.
Then, as the grey, so w