terminating in a promontory, which was flanked by tall and shining
obelisks of chalk rising sheer from the trembling blue race beneath.

By one sitting in the room that commanded this prospect, a white
butterfly among the apple-trees might be mistaken for the sails of a
yacht far away on the sea; and in the evening when the light was dim,
what seemed like a fly crawling upon the window-pane would turn out to be
a boat in the bay.

When breakfast was over, Ethelberta sat leaning on the window-sill
considering her movements for the day. It was the time fixed for the
meeting of the Imperial Association at Corvsgate Castle, the celebrated
ruin five miles off, and the meeting had some fascinations for her. For
one thing, she had never been present at a gathering of the kind,
although what was left in any shape from the past was her constant
interest, because it recalled her to herself and fortified her mind.
Persons waging a harassing social fight are apt in the interest of the
combat to forget the smallness of the end in view; and the hints that
perishing historical remnants afforded her of the attenuating effects of
time even upon great struggles corrected the apparent scale of her own.
She was reminded that in a strife for such a ludicrously small object as
the entry of drawing-rooms, winning, equally with losing, is below the
zero of the true philosopher's concern.

There could never be a more excellent reason than this for going to view
the meagre stumps remaining from flourishing bygone centuries, and it had
weight with Ethelberta this very day; but it would be difficult to state
the whole composition of her motive. The approaching meeting had been
one of the great themes at Mr. Doncastle's dinner-party, and Lord
Mountclere, on learning that she was to be at Knollsea, had recommended