Myles endured these, and a succession of similar remarks, for some little time, while he appeared to go on with his book without heeding them; but, as none knew better than she who made them, the contracted eyebrows and the impatient twisting of his moustache covered considerable inward irritation. He at last abruptly rose, and took his cap from the nail on which it hung. ‘Out again!’ said Mrs. Heywood, in the same maddening voice; ‘and if a mother may ask, what pothouse are you going to now?’ ‘No thanks to you, mother, that I’ve not taken to the pothouse long ago,’ replied the young man curtly, slapping his hat upon his head and leaving the room. ‘If he doesn’t break that door off its hinges some fine day, in one of his tempers, my name’s not Sarah Ann Heywood,’ remarked his mother. ‘It’s a grievous thing to have an ungovernable temper. His Bible, if he ever read it, would tell him that the tongue is a little member, but a consuming fire.’ ‘The Bible never said a truer word,’ retorted Edmund, witheringly; and Mrs. Heywood, returning to her knitting, with the pleasant sense of having driven out the strongest, sank into silence. CHAPTER IV. ADRIENNE. ‘I love my lady; she is very fair; Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair: Her spirit sits aloof, and high, But glances from her tender eye, In sweetness droopingly.’ Myles left the house, and, traversing some sideways, found himself presently in a steep, hilly street, which he descended, arriving at last at a sort of square, through the middle of which ran the river Thanse, and on both sides of which were rows of shops. Then, walking on a hundred yards or so, he emerged in another still larger open space, opposite a large and beautiful building, which, in its delicate and multiform Gothic tracery, and noble dimensions, with the springing gilded spire leaping aloft at last, offered a startling contrast to its sordid surroundings--the shabby, low houses, narrow streets, and grimy factories which crowded round, as near as they dared. The river here made a bend, and passed the front of the town-hall. A kind of boulevard had been made, planted with trees, and immediately across the river, fronting the town-hall, was a house standing in a garden, divided by the river from the road. It was a fine old house of red brick, which had no doubt originally been ‘in the country.’ There was a look of stateliness and substance about it--the brick was relieved by handsome stone mullions, copings, and chimney-stacks.