Mrs. Cardew met Catharine two or three times accidentally within the next fortnight. There were Dorcas meetings and meetings of all kinds at which the young women at the Limes were expected to assist. One afternoon, after tea, the room being hot, two or three of the company had gone out into the garden to work. Catharine and Mrs. Cardew sat by themselves at one corner, where the ground rose a little, and a seat had been placed under a large ash tree. From that point St. Mary's spire was visible, about half a mile away in the west, rising boldly, confidently, one might say, into the sky, as if it dared to claim that it too, although on earth and finite, could match itself against the infinite heaven above. On this particular evening the spire was specially obvious and attractive, for it divided the sunset clouds, standing out black against the long, narrow interspaces of tender green which lay between. It was one of those evenings which invite confidence, when people cannot help drawing nearer than usual to one another. "Is it not beautiful, Miss Furze?" "Beautiful; the spire makes it so lovely." "I wonder why." "I am sure I do not know; but it is so." "Catharine--you will not mind my calling you by your Christian name--you can explain it if you like." Catharine smiled. "It is very kind of you, Mrs. Cardew, to call me Catharine, but I have no explanation. I could not give one to save my life, unless it is the contrast." "You cannot think how I wish I had the power of saying what I think and feel. I cannot express myself properly--so my husband says." "I sympathise with you. I am so foolish at times. Mr. Cardew, I should think, never felt the difficulty." "No, and he makes so much of it. He says I do not properly enjoy a thing if I cannot in some measure describe my enjoyment--articulate it, to use his own words." He had inwardly taunted her, even when she was suffering, and had said to himself that her trouble must be insignificant, for there was no colour nor vivacity in her description of it. She did not properly even understand his own shortcomings. He could pardon her criticism, so he imagined, if she could be pungent. Mistaken mortal! it was her patient heroism which made her dumb to him about her sorrows and his faults. A very limited vocabulary is all that is necessary on such topics. "I am just the same." "Oh, no, you are not; Mr. Cardew says you are not." "Mr. Cardew?--he has not noticed anything in me, I am certain, and if he has, why nobody could be less able to talk to him than I am."