Paths of Judgement

his negative, never went, and whose spire pointed upward, from the woodland below, a delicate and derisive finger at the culprit. The spire was the first thing Felicia saw e

n only by fighting. And as Felicia found irony in most things, she found it ev

ugliness of numerous daughters to whom he was devoted and by the hostility of Mr. Austin Merrick. He would have been glad to smoke or play whist with Mr. Merrick, tolerantly indifferent to his defiant infidelity; he would have cheerfully waived the relationship of parson for that of mere neighbour; and he did not ask Mr. Merrick to l

zes showed their delicate outlines, and some fine mezzotints after Reynolds and Gainsborough their harmonies of golden-greys and blacks. In a corner stood an ivory-coloured cast of the Flying Victory of Samothrace, and above it the thought

cloying sweetness. This production was the result of one of Mr. Merrick's rare fits of active self-expression, and, excellent judge of art though he was, he was completely blind to the grotesqueness of the caricature of his dead wife. He had drawn it, many years ago, from l

quil room, though his eyes, as he looked up from the review he was reading, were irate. "The modern

tea-table, glanced at the t

n ostrich, hide its head from truth a

fortable in any way they can?" Felicia

t of truth is a des

believe in aren't." Her smile at him was one of the comforts Mr. Merrick most securely counted on. Felicia, in eve

irked an intellectual consequence. If, for the moment, I enjoy certain satis

have a nicely

ting, after a hesitation in the choice, a cake from the plate she han

ic upon anybody in a world of atoms and their concussions? The only thing to

of an essential chime under superficial janglings. "You

n turning his own theories against him. He ate slowly now, his eyes raised in a train of thought that even his intelligent daughter, he felt, could hardly have followed. His own detachment from the shows of life was its theme. Sudd

papa; you shall

ly the small

ead and

d, and as seriously aggrieved as a child. "Pray, speak sharply to her about it. I looked forward to the frost

" Felicia looked at him with a touch of placi

unexpected hors d'?uvre at dinner effaced the grievance. It was with a species of tender, maternal malice that Felicia resorted to these cajoleri

otones of the night, and she sighed deeply. Self-pity caught her. This life of repression, of appreciation, of theory, how weary she was of it, how lonely she was i

fact that she was really ready to fall in love with the first nice person who presented himself for idealization. He must, of course, be possible; idealization had been impossible with the stupid men she had met at Trensome Hall; or the curate with his short legs and rabbit head. He must be possible-he must be delightful; and would he