from Mrs. Orton Beg is one that is especially contagious. For, in the
first place, the beauty of goodness appeals pleasurably to the most
depraved; to be elevated above themselves for a moment is a rare delight
to them; and, in the second, there is a deeply implanted leaning in the
heart of man toward the something beyond everything, the impalpable,
impossible, imperceptible, which he cannot know and will not credit, but
is nevertheless compelled to feel in some of his moods, or in certain
presences, and having once felt, finds himself fascinated by it, and so
returns to the subject for the sake of the sensation. In that long, low
drawing room of Mrs. Orton Beg's, with the window at either end, in view
of the gray old cathedral towering above the gnarled elms of the Lower
Close, itself the scene of every form of human endeavour, every expression
of human passion, in surroundings so heavy with memories of the past, and
listening to the quiet tone of conviction in which Mrs. Orton Beg spoke,
with the double charm of extreme polish and simplicity combined--in that
same room even the worldliest had found themselves rise into the ecstasy
of the higher life, spiritually freed for the moment, and with the desire
to go forth and do great deeds of love.

Mrs. Orton Beg had sat idle an hour looking out of the window, her mind in
the mood for music, but bare of thought.

A gale was blowing without. The old elms in the Close were tossing their
stiff, bare arms about, the ground was strewed with branches and leaves
from the limes, and a watery wintry sun made the misery of the muddy
ground apparent, and accentuated the blight of the flowers and torn
untidiness of the creepers, and all the items which make autumn gardens so
desolate. The equinoctial gales had set in early that year. They began on
Evadne's wedding day with a fearful storm which raged all over the
country, and burst with especial violence upon Morningquest, and the wind