forth again.

'Yes.'

'I didn't. But I suppose it doesn't matter.'

Nancy had thought of telling her friend what she had done, of
boasting that she had asked the impossible question. But now she
felt ashamed of herself, and something more than ashamed. Never
again could she enter this garden. And it seemed to her that, by a
piece of outrageous, of wanton, folly, she had for ever excluded
herself from the society of all 'superior' people.





CHAPTER 7




'Now, _I_ look at it in this way. It's to celebrate the fiftieth
year of the reign of Queen Victoria--yes: but at the same time,
and far more, it's to celebrate the completion of fifty years of
Progress. National Progress, without precedent in the history of
mankind! One may say, indeed, Progress of the Human Race. Only think
what has been done in this half-century: only think of it! Compare
England now, compare the world, with what it was in 1837. It takes
away one's breath!'