I visited, of course, at the Hall, as at the farmhouses in the country, and the cottages in the village.  I did not come to like Mrs Oldcastle better.  And there was one woman in the house whom I disliked still more:  that Sarah whom Judy had called in my hearing a white wolf.  Her face was yet whiter than that of her mistress, only it was not smooth like hers; for its whiteness came apparently from the small-pox, which had so thickened the skin that no blood, if she had any, could shine through.  I seldom saw her—­only, indeed, caught a glimpse of her now and then as I passed through the house.

Nor did I make much progress with Mr Stoddart.  He had always something friendly to say, and often some theosophical theory to bring forward, which, I must add, never seemed to me to mean, or, at least, to reveal, anything.  He was a great reader of mystical books, and yet the man’s nature seemed cold.  It was sunshiny, but not sunny.  His intellect was rather a lambent flame than a genial warmth.  He could make things, but he could not grow anything.  And when I came to see that he had had more than any one else to do with the education of Miss Oldcastle, I understood her a little better, and saw that her so-called education had been in a great measure repression—­of a negative sort, no doubt, but not therefore the less mischievous.  For to teach speculation instead of devotion, mysticism instead of love, word instead of deed, is surely ruinously repressive to the nature that is meant for sunbright activity both of heart and hand.  My chief perplexity continued to be how he could play the organ as he did.

My reader will think that I am always coming round to Miss Oldcastle; but if he does, I cannot help it.  I began, I say, to understand her a little better.  She seemed to me always like one walking in a “watery sunbeam,” without knowing that it was but the wintry pledge of a summer sun at hand.  She took it, or was trying to take it, for the sunlight; trying to make herself feel all the glory people said was in the light, instead of making haste towards the perfect day.  I found afterwards that several things had combined to bring about this condition; and I know she will forgive me, should I, for the sake of others, endeavour to make it understood by and by.

I have not much more to tell my readers about this winter.  As but of a whole changeful season only one day, or, it may be, but one moment in which the time seemed to burst into its own blossom, will cling to the memory; so of the various interviews with my friends, and the whole flow of the current of my life, during that winter, nothing more of nature or human nature occurs to me worth recording.  I will pass on to the summer season as rapidly as I may, though the early spring will detain me with the relation of just a single incident.