reason that she transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced to
make them visible.




CHAPTER V

When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live for
anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting with
Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her secretly-
distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder with the
waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became necessary to
call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift her box, Rhoda
felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between him and her uncle
concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but representing, as
Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the conflict of hard
words, a principle. Those who can persuade themselves that they are
fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe reckoned upon to
overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small coin; so the cabman
went away discomfited. He used such bad language that Rhoda had no pity
for him, and hearing her uncle style it "the London tongue," she thought
dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to listen to it through so long a
season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs. Wicklow, Anthony's landlady,
undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which operation she began by
praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at the same time shaking
Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a compliment was intended.
"This is our London way," she said. But Rhoda was most disconcerted when
she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her daughter and Dahlia were out
together, and say, that she had no doubt they had found some pleasant and