crestless, flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant,
hurtling forward the stick they support: the pool swells, leaving the
stick quiescent, floating.

Many persons have this order of enthusiasm; it is a clammy thing to
attract. A curate with a glimpse at Shelley's mind once roused
Margaret's enthusiasm for the poet. It welled so suffocatingly about
him that he came near to damning Shelley and all his works; threw up
his hat when opportunity put out a beckoning finger and drew him
elsewhere.

Margaret walked in considerable fear of her father; but she clung to
him despite his oppressive foibles, because this was her nature. She
loved church; incense; soft music; a prayer-book tastefully bound. She
"wrote poetry."

Warmed by the gloom that lay over Herons' Holt upon this evening, she
sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful
picture was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner;
during the meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed,
hands deep in pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that
old devil despair. She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously
hard. He had told her before the examination how confident of success
he was, had revealed how much in the immediate prospect of freedom he
gloried. She recalled his gay laugh as he had bade her good-bye on the
first day, and the recollection stung her just as, she reflected, it
must now be stinging him.... Only he must a thousand times more
fiercely be feeling the burn of its venom....

Margaret moved impatiently with a desire to shake into herself a