This young man had no philosophy beyond the general impression that the universe was under infinite obligations to be good to him, a belief that had found itself rather rudely shaken. He chose his view and pitched his easel and relieved himself by one deep, metaphysical, soul-satisfying curse at the devilry of things. Then he set to work, and with the instinct of a born painter he tried to find possibilities in the despised landscape. Before long he had discovered mystery in the woods that lifted their heavy rounded contours to the sky, gathered and massed and piled on one another like clouds; deep mystery in their green, green drenched with liquid and aerial gray, pierced by thick black veins and hollowed into caverns of darkness and blue dusk. And, though he knew that he was tying himself to the place by taking it seriously, in an hour's time he was absorbed and happy. He was startled by a voice behind him. "Do you think that it's so very beautiful?" He turned round. Miss Tancred stood looking over his shoulders, not at him nor at his sketch, but at the distant prospect. "It's--nice and open," he answered absently. "Open? Wait till you've lived in it. To me it's like living with all the doors shut." "Too many woods, perhaps. And yet there's always a charm about a wooded country; it's English." "Yes, and, like everything English, it's much too serious, too conventional, too"--she paused for her epithet--"too disgustingly rich." He was more startled than ever; she had put his own feeling about it into words. "And then it's so painfully proper and respectable. Look at those ridiculous trees in their petticoats. English to a degree." "Ah!--if you've been abroad----" "I haven't been abroad." "Proud insular boast!" "I wasn't boasting. I was stating a fact." "Well, you've some cause to boast. Not to have been abroad is distinction nowadays." "If it comes to that I've never been out of this county, except to London now and then. You wouldn't think it." He smiled, for it happened to be precisely what he had thought. It explained her somehow; he recognized in Miss Tancred the incurable provincial. To be sure, her sentiments were somewhat at variance with her character, an inconsistency not unusual in woman. All he said was, "It is a little extraordinary." He was wondering when she was going to go. She did not go. "I'm glad you've discovered something to do here. It must be so deadly dull." He found relief in ambiguity. "I am never dull"; adding irrelevantly, "it's a glorious view." She brightened visibly. "If you like I can show you a better one than this. It's not so very far;"--she hesitated--"we might go to-morrow, perhaps; though it wouldn't be very amusing, I'm afraid."