Tall and slight, a grey dress, pale as the wet sky, fell from her waist outward in the manner of a child’s frock, and there was a lightness, there was brightness in the clear eyes.  The intense youth of her heart was evanescent; it seemed constantly rising upwards like the breath of a spring morning—­a morning when the birds are trilling.  The face sharpened to a tiny chin, and the face was pale, although there was bloom on the cheeks.  The forehead was shadowed by a sparkling cloud of brown hair, the nose was straight, and each little nostril was pink tinted.  The ears were like shells.  There was a rigidity in her attitude.  She laughed abruptly, perhaps a little nervously, and the abrupt laugh revealed the line of tiny white teeth.  Thin arms fell straight to the translucent hands, and there was a recollection of puritan England in look and in gesture.

Her picturesqueness calmed John’s ebullient discontent; he decided that she knew nothing of, and was not an accomplice in, his mother’s scheme:  For the sake of his guest he strove to make himself agreeable during dinner, but it was clear that he missed the hierarchy of the college table.  The conversation fell repeatedly.  Mrs Norton and Kitty spoke of making syrup for the bees; and their discussion of the illness of poor Dr ——­, who would no longer be able to get through the work of the parish single-handed, and would require a curate, was continued till the ladies rose from table.  Nor did matters mend in the library.  John’s thoughts went back to his book; the room seemed to him intolerably uncomfortable and ugly.  He went to the billiard-room to smoke a cigar.  It was not clear to him if he would be able to spend two months in this odious place.  He might offer them to God as penance for his sins; if every evening passed like the present, it were a modern martyrdom.  But had they removed that horrid feather-bed?  He went upstairs.  The feather-bed had been removed.

The room was large and ample, and it was draped with many curtains—­pale curtains covered with walking birds and falling petals, a sort of Indian pattern.  There was a sofa at the foot of the bed, and the toilette-table hung out its skirts in the wavering light of the fire.  John tossed to and fro staring at the birds and petals.  He thought of his ascetic college bed, of the great Christ upon the wall, of the prie-dieu with the great rosary hanging, but in vain; he could not rid his mind of the distasteful feminine influences which had filled the day, and which now haunted the night.

After breakfast next morning Mrs Norton stopped John as he was going upstairs to unpack his books.  “Now,” she said, “you must go out for a walk with Kitty Hare, and I hope you will make yourself agreeable.  I want you to see the new greenhouse I have put up; she’ll show it to you.  And I told the bailiff to meet you in the yard.  I thought you might like to see him.”

“I wish, mother, you would not interfere in my business; had I wanted to see Burnes I should have sent for him.”