creative composition, she turned to the study of books with almost as much ardour as had possessed her when, at the age of twelve, she had preferred to shut herself up alone and read Shakespeare to any other form of entertainment. And gradually, almost unconsciously to herself, the tone and temper of her mind changed and strengthened; she began to reconcile herself to the idea of the lonely lot which would henceforward be her portion. Turning the matter practically over in her mind, she decided that the best course to adopt would be that of a ‘judicial separation.’ She would make her husband a suitable ‘allowance’ (she smiled rather bitterly as she thought what a trouble he would make of it, and how he would fret and fume if he had to do without his four-in-hand and his tandem turn-out), and she herself would travel all over the world and gain fresh knowledge and experience for her literary labours. Or, if constant travel proved to be too fatiguing, she would take some place in the remote Highlands of Scotland, or the beautiful sequestered valleys of Ireland, and make a little hermitage among the hills, where she could devote herself to work and study for the remainder of her days. ‘I daresay I shall manage to be at least content, if I am not happy,’ she said to herself; ‘though, of course, society will reverse the position in its usual eminently false and disgusting way, and will whisper all sorts of lies about me, such as, “Oh, you know a literary woman is impossible to live with! It is always so; poor, dear Carlyon could not possibly stand her, she was so dreadful! Clever, but quite dreadful! Yes, and so they are separated. Such a good thing for Carlyon! He looks ten years younger since he got rid of her! And they say she’s living down in the country somewhere not _too_ far from town; not _so_ far but that Paul Valdis knows where to find her!” Oh, yes, I can hear them all at it,—croaking harpies!’ and her small hand clenched involuntarily. ‘The vultures of society can never understand anyone loving the sweet savour of truth; they only scent carrion. No man is true in their estimation, no woman pure; and chastity is so far from being pleasing to them that they will not even believe it exists!’ On the last afternoon of her stay at Broadstairs, she spent several hours strolling by the sea, listening to its solemn murmur and watching the sunlight fall in golden lines over its every billow and fleck of foam. With the gravity of her thoughts, her face had grown more serious during the last few days, though it had lost nothing in sweetness of expression; and as she paced along the sand, close to the very fringe of the waves, with Spartan bounding now and then into the water and back with joyous, deep barks of delight, a sudden, inexplicable sense of pain and regret surprised her into tears. Gazing far out beyond the last gleam of the ocean line with longing eyes, she murmured,—