chatter, tea and pretty dresses. She was surely meant for something
better, harder, demanding greater powers. She had, by inheritance,
good manners, a certain social gift, but she had here nothing to
conquer with these weapons. What was she to do? The idea of qualifying
for the business of earning her bread did not occur to her. No female
Mallett had ever done such a thing, and not all the male ones.
Marriage opened the only door, but not marriage with Francis Sales,
not marriage with anyone she knew in Radstowe, and her stepsisters had
no inclination to leave the home of their youth, the scene of their
past successes, for her sake.

Rose sat very straight on her horse, not frowning, for she never
frowned, but wearing rather a set expression, so that an acquaintance,
passing unrecognized, made the usual reflection on the youngest Miss
Mallett's pride, and the pity that one so young should sometimes look
so old.

And Rose was wishing that the spring would last for ever, the spring
with its promise of excitement and adventure which would not be
fulfilled, though one was willingly deceived into believing that it
would. Yet she had youth's happy faith in accident: something
breathless and terrific would sweep her, as on the winds of storm, out
of this peaceful, gracious life, this place where feudalism still
survived, where men touched their hats to her as her due. And it was
her due! She raised her head and gave her pale profile to the houses
on one side, the trees and the open spaces of green on the other. And
not because she was a Mallett though it was a name honoured in
Radstowe, but because she was herself. Hats would always be touched to
her, and it was the touchers who would feel themselves complimented in
the act. She knew that, but the knowledge was not much to her; she