prompt:
Chapter: A few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made Lucy
and her Fiasco come to a little garden-party in the neighbourhood, for
naturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying a
presentable man.

Cecil was more than presentable; he looked distinguished, and it was
very pleasant to see his slim figure keeping step with Lucy, and his
long, fair face responding when Lucy spoke to him. People congratulated
Mrs. Honeychurch, which is, I believe, a social blunder, but it pleased
her, and she introduced Cecil rather indiscriminately to some stuffy
dowagers.

At tea a misfortune took place: a cup of coffee was upset over Lucy's
figured silk, and though Lucy feigned indifference, her mother feigned
nothing of the sort but dragged her indoors to have the frock treated
by a sympathetic maid. They were gone some time, and Cecil was left with
the dowagers. When they returned he was not as pleasant as he had been.

"Do you go to much of this sort of thing?" he asked when they were
driving home.

"Oh, now and then," said Lucy, who had rather enjoyed herself.

"Is it typical of country society?"

"I suppose so. Mother, would it be?"

"Plenty of society," said Mrs. Honeychurch, who was trying to remember
the hang of one of the dresses.

Seeing that her thoughts were elsewhere, Cecil bent towards Lucy and
said:

"To me it seemed perfectly appalling, disastrous, portentous."

"I am so sorry that you were stranded."

"Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an
engagement is regarded as public property--a kind of waste place where
every outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women
smirking!"

"One has to go through it, I suppose. They won't notice us so much next
time."

"But my point is that their whole attitude is wrong. An
engagement--horrid word in the first place--is a private matter, and
should be treated as such."

Yet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were racially
correct. The spirit of the generations had smiled through them,
rejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy because it promised the
continuance of life on earth. To Cecil and Lucy it promised something
quite different--personal love. Hence Cecil's irritation and Lucy's
belief that his irritation was just.

"How tiresome!" she said. "Couldn't you have escaped to tennis?"

"I don't play tennis--at least, not in public. The neighbourhood is
deprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as I have is
that of the Inglese Italianato."

"Inglese Italianato?"

"E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb?"

She did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a
quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement,
had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from
possessing.

"Well," said he, "I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There
are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must
accept them."

"We all have our limitations, I suppose," said wise Lucy.

"Sometimes they are forced on us, though," said Cecil, who saw from her
remark that she did not quite understand his position.

"How?"

"It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in,
or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?"

She thought a moment, and agreed that it did make a difference.

"Difference?" cried Mrs. Honeychurch, suddenly alert. "I don't see any
difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same
place."

"We were speaking of motives," said Cecil, on whom the interruption
jarred.

"My dear Cecil, look here." She spread out her knees and perched her
card-case on her lap. "This is me. That's Windy Corner. The rest of the
pattern is the other people. Motives are all very well, but the fence
comes here."

"We weren't talking of real fences," said Lucy, laughing.

"Oh, I see, dear--poetry."

She leant placidly back. Cecil wondered why Lucy had been amused.

"I tell you who has no 'fences,' as you call them," she said, "and
that's Mr. Beebe."

"A parson fenceless would mean a parson defenceless."

Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect
what they meant. She missed Cecil's epigram, but grasped the feeling
that prompted it.

"Don't you like Mr. Beebe?" she asked thoughtfully.

"I never said so!" he cried. "I consider him far above the average. I
only denied--" And he swept off on the subject of fences again, and was
brilliant.

"Now, a clergyman that I do hate," said she wanting to say something
sympathetic, "a clergyman that does have fences, and the most dreadful
ones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at Florence. He was truly
insincere--not merely the manner unfortunate. He was a snob, and so
conceited, and he did say such unkind things."

"What sort of things?"

"There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered his
wife."

"Perhaps he had."

"No!"

"Why 'no'?"

"He was such a nice old man, I'm sure."

Cecil laughed at her feminine inconsequence.

"Well, I did try to sift the thing. Mr. Eager would never come to the
point. He prefers it vague--said the old man had 'practically' murdered
his wife--had murdered her in the sight of God."

"Hush, dear!" said Mrs. Honeychurch absently.

"But isn't it intolerable that a person whom we're told to imitate
should go round spreading slander? It was, I believe, chiefly owing to
him that the old man was dropped. People pretended he was vulgar, but he
certainly wasn't that."

"Poor old man! What was his name?"

"Harris," said Lucy glibly.

"Let's hope that Mrs. Harris there warn't no sich person," said her
mother.

Cecil nodded intelligently.

"Isn't Mr. Eager a parson of the cultured type?" he asked.

"I don't know. I hate him. I've heard him lecture on Giotto. I hate him.
Nothing can hide a petty nature. I HATE him."

"My goodness gracious me, child!" said Mrs. Honeychurch. "You'll blow
my head off! Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you and Cecil to
hate any more clergymen."

He smiled. There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral
outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the
ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay
her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not
in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the
beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he
contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain
approval. He forebore to repress the sources of youth.

Nature--simplest of topics, he thought--lay around them. He praised the
pine-woods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson leaves that spotted
the hurt-bushes, the serviceable beauty of the turnpike road. The
outdoor world was not very familiar to him, and occasionally he went
wrong in a question of fact. Mrs. Honeychurch's mouth twitched when he
spoke of the perpetual green of the larch.

"I count myself a lucky person," he concluded, "When I'm in London I
feel I could never live out of it. When I'm in the country I feel the
same about the country. After all, I do believe that birds and trees and
the sky are the most wonderful things in life, and that the people who
live amongst them must be the best. It's true that in nine cases out of
ten they don't seem to notice anything. The country gentleman and
the country labourer are each in their way the most depressing of
companions. Yet they may have a tacit sympathy with the workings
of Nature which is denied to us of the town. Do you feel that, Mrs.
Honeychurch?"

Mrs. Honeychurch started and smiled. She had not been attending.
Cecil, who was rather crushed on the front seat of the victoria, felt
irritable, and determined not to say anything interesting again.

Lucy had not attended either. Her brow was wrinkled, and she still
looked furiously cross--the result, he concluded, of too much moral
gymnastics. It was sad to see her thus blind to the beauties of an
August wood.

"'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height,'" he quoted, and
touched her knee with his own.

She flushed again and said: "What height?"

"'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height, What pleasure lives
in height (the shepherd sang). In height and in the splendour of the
hills?' Let us take Mrs. Honeychurch's advice and hate clergymen no
more. What's this place?"

"Summer Street, of course," said Lucy, and roused herself.

The woods had opened to leave space for a sloping triangular meadow.
Pretty cottages lined it on two sides, and the upper and third side was
occupied by a new stone church, expensively simple, a charming shingled
spire. Mr. Beebe's house was near the church. In height it scarcely
exceeded the cottages. Some great mansions were at hand, but they were
hidden in the trees. The scene suggested a Swiss Alp rather than the
shrine and centre of a leisured world, and was marred only by two ugly
little villas--the villas that had competed with Cecil's engagement,
having been acquired by Sir Harry Otway the very afternoon that Lucy had
been acquired by Cecil.

"Cissie" was the name of one of these villas, "Albert" of the other.
These titles were not only picked out in shaded Gothic on the garden
gates, but appeared a second time on the porches, where they followed
the semicircular curve of the entrance arch in block capitals. "Albert"
was inhabited. His tortured garden was bright with geraniums and
lobelias and polished shells. His little windows were chastely swathed
in Nottingham lace. "Cissie" was to let. Three notice-boards, belonging
to Dorking agents, lolled on her fence and announced the not surprising
fact. Her paths were already weedy; her pocket-handkerchief of a lawn
was yellow with dandelions.

"The place is ruined!" said the ladies mechanically. "Summer Street will
never be the same again."

As the carriage passed, "Cissie's" door opened, and a gentleman came out
of her.

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Honeychurch, touching the coachman with her parasol.
"Here's Sir Harry. Now we shall know. Sir Harry, pull those things down
at once!"

Sir Harry Otway--who need not be described--came to the carriage and
said "Mrs. Honeychurch, I meant to. I can't, I really can't turn out
Miss Flack."

"Am I not always right? She ought to have gone before the contract was
signed. Does she still live rent free, as she did in her nephew's time?"

"But what can I do?" He lowered his voice. "An old lady, so very vulgar,
and almost bedridden."

"Turn her out," said Cecil bravely.

Sir Harry sighed, and looked at the villas mournfully. He had had full
warning of Mr. Flack's intentions, and might have bought the plot before
building commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had known
Summer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it being
spoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and the
apparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm.
He called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,--a most reasonable and
respectful man--who agreed that tiles would have made more artistic
roof, but pointed out that slates were cheaper. He ventured to differ,
however, about the Corinthian columns which were to cling like leeches
to the frames of the bow windows, saying that, for his part, he liked
to relieve the facade by a bit of decoration. Sir Harry hinted that a
column, if possible, should be structural as well as decorative.

Mr. Flack replied that all the columns had been ordered, adding, "and
all the capitals different--one with dragons in the foliage, another
approaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack's
initials--everyone different." For he had read his Ruskin. He built
his villas according to his desire; and not until he had inserted an
immovable aunt into one of them did Sir Harry buy.

This futile and unprofitable transaction filled the knight with sadness
as he leant on Mrs. Honeychurch's carriage. He had failed in his duties
to the country-side, and the country-side was laughing at him as well.
He had spent money, and yet Summer Street was spoilt as much as ever.
All he could do now was to find a desirable tenant for "Cissie"--some
one really desirable.

"The rent is absurdly low," he told them, "and perhaps I am an easy
landlord. But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the
peasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves."

Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or
despise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the more
fruitful.

"You ought to find a tenant at once," he said maliciously. "It would be
a perfect paradise for a bank clerk."

"Exactly!" said Sir Harry excitedly. "That is exactly what I fear, Mr.
Vyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has
improved--a fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from
a station in these days of bicycles?"

"Rather a strenuous clerk it would be," said Lucy.

Cecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied
that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a
most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless
neighbour, and roused herself to stop him.

"Sir Harry!" she exclaimed, "I have an idea. How would you like
spinsters?"

"My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?"

"Yes; I met them abroad."

"Gentlewomen?" he asked tentatively.

"Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last
week--Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They
are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them
to write to you?"

"Indeed you may!" he cried. "Here we are with the difficulty solved
already. How delightful it is! Extra facilities--please tell them they
shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh,
the agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when
I wrote--a tactful letter, you know--asking her to explain her social
position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As
if one cares about that! And several references I took up were most
unsatisfactory--people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the
deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The
deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!"

She nodded.

"My advice," put in Mrs. Honeychurch, "is to have nothing to do with
Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me
from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them
that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather
let to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has
come down."

"I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very
sad thing."

"The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy.

"Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they
were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood."

"Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome."

"It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my
troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway
will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no
real help."

"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"

"Please!"

But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed:

"Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of
canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then
the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man."

"Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her
remark.

"Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of
them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar,
they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a
man--of course, provided he's clean."

Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments
to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much
distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should
descend from the carriage and inspect "Cissie" for herself. She was
delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a
house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they
were on a small scale.

Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother.

"Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "what if we two walk home and leave you?"

"Certainly!" was her cordial reply.

Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed
at them knowingly, said, "Aha! young people, young people!" and then
hastened to unlock the house.

"Hopeless vulgarian!" exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of
earshot.

"Oh, Cecil!"

"I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man."

"He isn't clever, but really he is nice."

"No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he
would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife
would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little
god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and
everyone--even your mother--is taken in."

"All that you say is quite true," said Lucy, though she felt
discouraged. "I wonder whether--whether it matters so very much."

"It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party.
Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar
tenant in that villa--some woman so really vulgar that he'll notice
it. GENTLEFOLKS! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's
forget him."

This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and
Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered
to her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever,
nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any
minute, "It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy"? And what would she
reply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety
enough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some
time, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps,
during the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps.

"Which way shall we go?" she asked him.

Nature--simplest of topics, she thought--was around them. Summer Street
lay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged
from the highroad.

"Are there two ways?"

"Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we're got up smart."

"I'd rather go through the wood," said Cecil, With that subdued
irritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. "Why is it,
Lucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never once
been with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged?"

"Haven't I? The wood, then," said Lucy, startled at his queerness, but
pretty sure that he would explain later; it was not his habit to leave
her in doubt as to his meaning.

She led the way into the whispering pines, and sure enough he did
explain before they had gone a dozen yards.

"I had got an idea--I dare say wrongly--that you feel more at home with
me in a room."

"A room?" she echoed, hopelessly bewildered.

"Yes. Or, at the most, in a garden, or on a road. Never in the real
country like this."

"Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? I have never felt anything of the
sort. You talk as if I was a kind of poetess sort of person."

"I don't know that you aren't. I connect you with a view--a certain type
of view. Why shouldn't you connect me with a room?"

She reflected a moment, and then said, laughing:

"Do you know that you're right? I do. I must be a poetess after all.
When I think of you it's always as in a room. How funny!"

To her surprise, he seemed annoyed.

"A drawing-room, pray? With no view?"

"Yes, with no view, I fancy. Why not?"

"I'd rather," he said reproachfully, "that you connected me with the open
air."

She said again, "Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean?"

As no explanation was forthcoming, she shook off the subject as too
difficult for a girl, and led him further into the wood, pausing every
now and then at some particularly beautiful or familiar combination of
the trees. She had known the wood between Summer Street and Windy Corner
ever since she could walk alone; she had played at losing Freddy in it,
when Freddy was a purple-faced baby; and though she had been to Italy,
it had lost none of its charm.

Presently they came to a little clearing among the pines--another tiny
green alp, solitary this time, and holding in its bosom a shallow pool.

She exclaimed, "The Sacred Lake!"

"Why do you call it that?"

"I can't remember why. I suppose it comes out of some book. It's only a
puddle now, but you see that stream going through it? Well, a good deal
of water comes down after heavy rains, and can't get away at once, and
the pool becomes quite large and beautiful. Then Freddy used to bathe
there. He is very fond of it."

"And you?"

He meant, "Are you fond of it?" But she answered dreamily, "I bathed
here, too, till I was found out. Then there was a row."

At another time he might have been shocked, for he had depths of
prudishness within him. But now? with his momentary cult of the fresh
air, he was delighted at her admirable simplicity. He looked at her as
she stood by the pool's edge. She was got up smart, as she phrased it,
and she reminded him of some brilliant flower that has no leaves of its
own, but blooms abruptly out of a world of green.

"Who found you out?"

"Charlotte," she murmured. "She was stopping with us.
Charlotte--Charlotte."

"Poor girl!"

She smiled gravely. A certain scheme, from which hitherto he had shrunk,
now appeared practical.

"Lucy!"

"Yes, I suppose we ought to be going," was her reply.

"Lucy, I want to ask something of you that I have never asked before."

At the serious note in his voice she stepped frankly and kindly towards
him.

"What, Cecil?"

"Hitherto never--not even that day on the lawn when you agreed to marry
me--"

He became self-conscious and kept glancing round to see if they were
observed. His courage had gone.

"Yes?"

"Up to now I have never kissed you."

She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately.

"No--more you have," she stammered.

"Then I ask you--may I now?"

"Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can't run at you, you
know."

At that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities. Her
reply was inadequate. She gave such a business-like lift to her veil.
As he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil. As
he touched her, his gold pince-nez became dislodged and was flattened
between them.

Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a
failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget
civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature.
Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.
Why could he not do as any labourer or navvy--nay, as any young man
behind the counter would have done? He recast the scene. Lucy was
standing flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took her in his
arms; she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him ever after for his
manliness. For he believed that women revere men for their manliness.

They left the pool in silence, after this one salutation. He waited for
her to make some remark which should show him her inmost thoughts. At
last she spoke, and with fitting gravity.

"Emerson was the name, not Harris."

"What name?"

"The old man's."

"What old man?"

"That old man I told you about. The one Mr. Eager was so unkind to."

He could not know that this was the most intimate conversation they had
ever had.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Chapter 9 begins a few days after the engagement, as Lucy and Cecil are invited to a garden-party in the neighborhood. Cecil's snobbery becomes evident at the gathering; he is very annoyed at being congratulated, and finds the country society vulgar. They begin talking of Mr. Beebe, and Lucy realizes that Cecil doesn't like him, although he denies it. Lucy says that there is one clergyman that she does hate: Mr. Eager. She finds him very insincere, and a snob. She repeats the rumor Mr. Eager had shared about Mr. Emerson killing his wife, but disguises the Emersons' identity by lying that the old man's name was Harris. Cecil is a bit taken aback by Lucy's passionate moral outburst over Mr. Eager. He does not think it proper for a woman to rant about things. However, he decides that this is a sign of youth and vitality. Their carriage takes them past the two villas, "Cissie" and "Albert," that were purchased by Sir Harry Otway. The homes are an eyesore, but Sir Harry cannot tear them down as there is an elderly tenant in Albert Villa. The only thing to do is to find a suitable tenant for Cissie Villa--that is, someone who is not too low-class for the area. Lucy suggests the Miss Alans, and promises to write them immediately. Cecil and Lucy decide to walk back rather than ride in the carriage. As soon as they leave, Cecil makes fun of Sir Harry. He thinks the gentleman's snobbishness ridiculous, as Sir Harry himself would be a nobody in London. Lucy agrees that Sir Harry isn't clever, but she thinks he is nice, and doesn't let his silly pretentions bother her. It makes Lucy anxious that Cecil has such contempt for everyone in her community. What if he decides to hate Freddy, or her mother, as well. Cecil wants to take a path through the woods rather than the road. He complains that Lucy is more comfortable with him in a room than in open country. Lucy realizes that he is right: she does always picture him in a room, with no view. This annoys Cecil, who wants Lucy to associate him with the open air. The path takes them past a little pool of water that Lucy calls "The Sacred Lake. Lucy says that Freddy likes to bathe there, and she did too, until she was discovered by Charlotte and made to stop. Near the edge of the water, Cecil asks if he can kiss Lucy. She agrees, but the kiss is awkward, and Cecil feels it is a failure. He wishes that he'd had the courage to embrace her passionately. As they walk back, Lucy seems lost in thought, and tells him that the real name of the old man Mr. Eager treated unkindly was Emerson, not Harris. Her comment suggests that she is thinking of George


prompt:
Chapter: The society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was perhaps no
very splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than her antecedents
entitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built
Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up,
and, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there
himself. Soon after his marriage the social atmosphere began to alter.
Other houses were built on the brow of that steep southern slope and
others, again, among the pine-trees behind, and northward on the chalk
barrier of the downs. Most of these houses were larger than Windy
Corner, and were filled by people who came, not from the district, but
from London, and who mistook the Honeychurches for the remnants of an
indigenous aristocracy. He was inclined to be frightened, but his wife
accepted the situation without either pride or humility. "I cannot think
what people are doing," she would say, "but it is extremely fortunate
for the children." She called everywhere; her calls were returned with
enthusiasm, and by the time people found out that she was not exactly
of their milieu, they liked her, and it did not seem to matter. When Mr.
Honeychurch died, he had the satisfaction--which few honest solicitors
despise--of leaving his family rooted in the best society obtainable.

The best obtainable. Certainly many of the immigrants were rather
dull, and Lucy realized this more vividly since her return from Italy.
Hitherto she had accepted their ideals without questioning--their kindly
affluence, their inexplosive religion, their dislike of paper-bags,
orange-peel, and broken bottles. A Radical out and out, she learnt to
speak with horror of Suburbia. Life, so far as she troubled to conceive
it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and
identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside
it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the
London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in
the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm
himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished.
Her senses expanded; she felt that there was no one whom she might not
get to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not
particularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's
olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned
with new eyes.

So did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to
irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead
of saying, "Does that very much matter?" he rebelled, and tried to
substitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that
Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities
that create a tenderness in time, and that though her eyes saw its
defects, her heart refused to despise it entirely. Nor did he realize
a more important point--that if she was too great for this society, she
was too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal
intercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the
kind he understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but
equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most
priceless of all possessions--her own soul.

Playing bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and
aged thirteen--an ancient and most honourable game, which consists in
striking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they fall over the net
and immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs. Honeychurch; others are lost. The
sentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy's state of mind,
for she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time.

"Oh, it has been such a nuisance--first he, then they--no one knowing
what they wanted, and everyone so tiresome."

"But they really are coming now," said Mr. Beebe. "I wrote to Miss
Teresa a few days ago--she was wondering how often the butcher called,
and my reply of once a month must have impressed her favourably. They
are coming. I heard from them this morning.

"I shall hate those Miss Alans!" Mrs. Honeychurch cried. "Just because
they're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!' I hate
their 'if'-ing and 'but'-ing and 'and'-ing. And poor Lucy--serve her
right--worn to a shadow."

Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the
tennis-court. Cecil was absent--one did not play bumble-puppy when he
was there.

"Well, if they are coming--No, Minnie, not Saturn." Saturn was a
tennis-ball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was
encircled by a ring. "If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move
in before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out the clause about
whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the
fair wear and tear one.--That doesn't count. I told you not Saturn."

"Saturn's all right for bumble-puppy," cried Freddy, joining them.
"Minnie, don't you listen to her."

"Saturn doesn't bounce."

"Saturn bounces enough."

"No, he doesn't."

"Well; he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil."

"Hush, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch.

"But look at Lucy--complaining of Saturn, and all the time's got the
Beautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in. That's right,
Minnie, go for her--get her over the shins with the racquet--get her
over the shins!"

Lucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand.

Mr. Beebe picked it up, and said: "The name of this ball is Vittoria
Corombona, please." But his correction passed unheeded.

Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls
to fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a
well-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil
heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not
come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and
bore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical
violence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry.

"I wish the Miss Alans could see this," observed Mr. Beebe, just as
Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her
feet by her brother.

"Who are the Miss Alans?" Freddy panted.

"They have taken Cissie Villa."

"That wasn't the name--"

Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the grass.
An interval elapses.

"Wasn't what name?" asked Lucy, with her brother's head in her lap.

"Alan wasn't the name of the people Sir Harry's let to."

"Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it."

"Nonsense yourself! I've this minute seen him. He said to me: 'Ahem!
Honeychurch,'"--Freddy was an indifferent mimic--"'ahem! ahem! I have at
last procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.' I said, 'ooray, old boy!'
and slapped him on the back."

"Exactly. The Miss Alans?"

"Rather not. More like Anderson."

"Oh, good gracious, there isn't going to be another muddle!" Mrs.
Honeychurch exclaimed. "Do you notice, Lucy, I'm always right? I said
don't interfere with Cissie Villa. I'm always right. I'm quite uneasy at
being always right so often."

"It's only another muddle of Freddy's. Freddy doesn't even know the name
of the people he pretends have taken it instead."

"Yes, I do. I've got it. Emerson."

"What name?"

"Emerson. I'll bet you anything you like."

"What a weathercock Sir Harry is," said Lucy quietly. "I wish I had
never bothered over it at all."

Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe,
whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that THAT was
the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.

Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch from
the contemplation of her own abilities.

"Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?"

"I don't know whether they're any Emersons," retorted Freddy, who was
democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was naturally
attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact that there
are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.

"I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy"--she was
sitting up again--"I see you looking down your nose and thinking your
mother's a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it's
affectation to pretend there isn't."

"Emerson's a common enough name," Lucy remarked.

She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see
the pine-clad promontories descending one beyond another into the Weald.
The further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this lateral
view.

"I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no
relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does that
satisfy you?"

"Oh, yes," he grumbled. "And you will be satisfied, too, for they're
friends of Cecil; so"--elaborate irony--"you and the other country
families will be able to call in perfect safety."

"CECIL?" exclaimed Lucy.

"Don't be rude, dear," said his mother placidly. "Lucy, don't screech.
It's a new bad habit you're getting into."

"But has Cecil--"

"Friends of Cecil's," he repeated, "'and so really dee-sire-rebel. Ahem!
Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.'"

She got up from the grass.

It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While she
believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry Otway,
she had borne it like a good girl. She might well "screech" when
she heard that it came partly from her lover. Mr. Vyse was a
tease--something worse than a tease: he took a malicious pleasure
in thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing this, looked at Miss
Honeychurch with more than his usual kindness.

When she exclaimed, "But Cecil's Emersons--they can't possibly be the
same ones--there is that--" he did not consider that the exclamation
was strange, but saw in it an opportunity of diverting the conversation
while she recovered her composure. He diverted it as follows:

"The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don't suppose it
will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends
of Mr. Vyse's. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest
people! For our part we liked them, didn't we?" He appealed to Lucy.
"There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and
filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have
failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so
pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine's great stories. 'My dear
sister loves flowers,' it began. They found the whole room a mass of
blue--vases and jugs--and the story ends with 'So ungentlemanly and yet
so beautiful.' It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those
Florentine Emersons with violets."

"Fiasco's done you this time," remarked Freddy, not seeing that his
sister's face was very red. She could not recover herself. Mr. Beebe saw
it, and continued to divert the conversation.

"These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son--the son
a goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but very
immature--pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the father--such a
sentimental darling, and people declared he had murdered his wife."

In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such gossip,
but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble. He repeated any
rubbish that came into his head.

"Murdered his wife?" said Mrs. Honeychurch. "Lucy, don't desert us--go
on playing bumble-puppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini must have been
the oddest place. That's the second murderer I've heard of as being
there. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop? By-the-by, we really must
ask Charlotte here some time."

Mr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his hostess
was mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She was perfectly
sure that there had been a second tourist of whom the same story had
been told. The name escaped her. What was the name? Oh, what was the
name? She clasped her knees for the name. Something in Thackeray. She
struck her matronly forehead.

Lucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in.

"Oh, don't go!" he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles.

"I must go," she said gravely. "Don't be silly. You always overdo it
when you play."

As she left them her mother's shout of "Harris!" shivered the tranquil
air, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had never put it
right. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered her nerves and
made her connect these Emersons, friends of Cecil's, with a pair of
nondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had come to her naturally. She
saw that for the future she must be more vigilant, and be--absolutely
truthful? Well, at all events, she must not tell lies. She hurried up
the garden, still flushed with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe
her, she was sure.

"Cecil!"

"Hullo!" he called, and leant out of the smoking-room window. He
seemed in high spirits. "I was hoping you'd come. I heard you all
bear-gardening, but there's better fun up here. I, even I, have won a
great victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith's right--the cause of
Comedy and the cause of Truth are really the same; and I, even I, have
found tenants for the distressful Cissie Villa. Don't be angry! Don't be
angry! You'll forgive me when you hear it all."

He looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he dispelled her
ridiculous forebodings at once.

"I have heard," she said. "Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I suppose
I must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took for nothing!
Certainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and I'd rather have nice
friends of yours. But you oughtn't to tease one so."

"Friends of mine?" he laughed. "But, Lucy, the whole joke is to come!
Come here." But she remained standing where she was. "Do you know where
I met these desirable tenants? In the National Gallery, when I was up to
see my mother last week."

"What an odd place to meet people!" she said nervously. "I don't quite
understand."

"In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca
Signorelli--of course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking, and they
refreshed me not a little. They had been to Italy."

"But, Cecil--" proceeded hilariously.

"In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a country
cottage--the father to live there, the son to run down for week-ends.
I thought, 'What a chance of scoring off Sir Harry!' and I took
their address and a London reference, found they weren't actual
blackguards--it was great sport--and wrote to him, making out--"

"Cecil! No, it's not fair. I've probably met them before--"

He bore her down.

"Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old man
will do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too disgusting
with his 'decayed gentlewomen.' I meant to read him a lesson some time.
No, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before long you'll agree with
me. There ought to be intermarriage--all sorts of things. I believe in
democracy--"

"No, you don't," she snapped. "You don't know what the word means."

He stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be Leonardesque.
"No, you don't!"

Her face was inartistic--that of a peevish virago.

"It isn't fair, Cecil. I blame you--I blame you very much indeed. You
had no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and make me look
ridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but do you realize that
it is all at my expense? I consider it most disloyal of you."

She left him.

"Temper!" he thought, raising his eyebrows.

No, it was worse than temper--snobbishness. As long as Lucy thought
that his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss Alans, she had
not minded. He perceived that these new tenants might be of value
educationally. He would tolerate the father and draw out the son, who
was silent. In the interests of the Comic Muse and of Truth, he would
bring them to Windy Corner.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Chapter 10 explains some of the history of the Honeychurch family. Lucy's father had been a prosperous local lawyer who built Windy Corner before the area had been developed. When wealthy Londoners moved to the area and built their mansions, they mistook the Honeychurches for country aristocrats instead of the nouveau riche they really were, and therefore, Lucy had been accepted into the higher society of the area. Now after having been to Italy, Lucy sees that this society is rather narrow, but she still has a great affection for it, and cannot despise it. Cecil wants to introduce her to broader society, but fails to see that Lucy is beyond that; all she really wants to find is a soul mate, an equal partner. Lucy and Minnie Beebe play bumble-puppy, a silly game with tennis balls, while talking to Mr. Beebe and Mrs. Honeychurch about the Miss Alans, who are planning to move into Cissie Villa. Meanwhile, Cecil stays inside, to avoid being hurt as the game deteriorates into roughhousing. Freddy announces that it is not the Miss Alans, but a family called Emerson, who are going to live in the villa. Lucy is shocked to find that the Emersons are none other than George and his father, who have been invited by Cecil as a joke on Sir Harry, as Cecil thought them very vulgar. Cecil claims that he believes in democracy and wants to punish a snob, but Lucy is angry that he has spoiled her work in inviting the Miss Alans and made her look bad


prompt:
Chapter: The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not
disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons to
Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through the
negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,
met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were
duly offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held
responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the
new-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as
soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse's equipment that she
permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his head,
to be forgotten, and to die.

Lucy--to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows
because there are hills--Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but
settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.
Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and
were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring whom
he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to bring
the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a little
thinking, and--so illogical are girls--the event remained rather greater
and rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad that
a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants moved into Cissie Villa
while she was safe in the London flat.

"Cecil--Cecil darling," she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept
into his arms.

Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been
kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should,
and looked up to him because he was a man.

"So you do love me, little thing?" he murmured.

"Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don't know what I should do without you."

Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A
coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not
corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what
Charlotte would call "the flight to Rome," and in Rome it had increased
amazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval
world becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in the
Forum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy's, and once, in the
Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue
their tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses--Mrs. Vyse was an
acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and
Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned
suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for
Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as follows.
It had been forwarded from Windy Corner.

"Tunbridge Wells,

"September.

"Dearest Lucia,

"I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your
parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing
her tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very
woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a door
open opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his father
had just taken the house. He SAID he did not know that you lived in the
neighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup of tea. Dear
Lucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean breast of his
past behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who will forbid him
to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune, and I dare say you
have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I remember how I used
to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about it all, and should
not feel easy unless I warned you.

"Believe me,

"Your anxious and loving cousin,

"Charlotte."

Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:

"Beauchamp Mansions, S.W.

"Dear Charlotte,

"Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the
mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she
would blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise,
and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil
that I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable
people--which I do think--and the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no
tea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the
Rectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that
it would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them,
they would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they
are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again.
As for the son, I am sorry for him when we meet, rather than for myself.
They are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the other
day. We expect to be married in January.

"Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy
Corner at all, but here. Please do not put 'Private' outside your
envelope again. No one opens my letters.

"Yours affectionately,

"L. M. Honeychurch."

Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we
cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her
cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil's life if
he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss
Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a
great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother
and her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing.
"Emerson, not Harris"; it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to
tell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful
lady who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so
ridiculously that she stopped.

She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis
visiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no
harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society
itself was absent on the golf-links or the moors. The weather was cool,
and it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to
scrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren
of famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness
that impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One
launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself
up amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini
and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London
career would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the
past.

The grandchildren asked her to play the piano.

She played Schumann. "Now some Beethoven" called Cecil, when the
querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played
Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it
was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The
sadness of the incomplete--the sadness that is often Life, but should
never be Art--throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of
the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano
at the Bertolini, and "Too much Schumann" was not the remark that Mr.
Beebe had passed to himself when she returned.

When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced
up and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party with her son.
Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another's,
had been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among
many people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her; and she had
seen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her abilities,
and even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he was not one
son, but, so to speak, a filial crowd.

"Make Lucy one of us," she said, looking round intelligently at the end
of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again.
"Lucy is becoming wonderful--wonderful."

"Her music always was wonderful."

"Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent
Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting
servants, or asking one how the pudding is made."

"Italy has done it."

"Perhaps," she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy
to her. "It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January.
She is one of us already."

"But her music!" he exclaimed. "The style of her! How she kept to
Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right for
this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall have
our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest country
folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and then--not
till then--let them come to London. I don't believe in these London
educations--" He broke off, remembering that he had had one himself, and
concluded, "At all events, not for women."

"Make her one of us," repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.

As she was dozing off, a cry--the cry of nightmare--rang from Lucy's
room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought it
kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand on
her cheek.

"I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse--it is these dreams."

"Bad dreams?"

"Just dreams."

The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly: "You
should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than
ever. Dream of that."

Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs.
Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored.
Darkness enveloped the flat.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Chapter 11 is set in London at the apartment of Cecil's mother, Mrs. Vyse, where Lucy and Cecil have gone for a visit. While there, Lucy receives a letter from Charlotte expressing alarm about the arrival of George to Lucy's neighborhood and advising her to tell her mother and Cecil everything. The letter annoys Lucy, who does not intend to say anything about the incident in Italy. Mrs. Vyse holds a dinner party, inviting all the descendants of famous people, and Lucy plays the piano, choosing a sad and broken melody by Schumann rather than her triumphant Beethoven. Cecil and his mother discuss Lucy afterwards, both impressed by her style and her playing, Cecil commenting that the Schumann had been perfect for the occasion. Mrs. Vyse is shown as a good person whose true character has been stifled and crushed by London society, making her snobbish and weary. That night in Mrs. Vyse's home, Lucy has a nightmare and is comforted by Mrs. Vyse, who reassures her that Cecil cares for her


prompt:
Chapter: It was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains, and
the spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn. All
that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer
Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon
dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or
of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life's amenities, leant over his
Rectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking a pendant pipe.

"Suppose we go and hinder those new people opposite for a little."

"M'm."

"They might amuse you."

Freddy, whom his fellow-creatures never amused, suggested that the new
people might be feeling a bit busy, and so on, since they had only just
moved in.

"I suggested we should hinder them," said Mr. Beebe. "They are worth
it." Unlatching the gate, he sauntered over the triangular green to
Cissie Villa. "Hullo!" he cried, shouting in at the open door, through
which much squalor was visible.

A grave voice replied, "Hullo!"

"I've brought someone to see you."

"I'll be down in a minute."

The passage was blocked by a wardrobe, which the removal men had failed
to carry up the stairs. Mr. Beebe edged round it with difficulty. The
sitting-room itself was blocked with books.

"Are these people great readers?" Freddy whispered. "Are they that
sort?"

"I fancy they know how to read--a rare accomplishment. What have they
got? Byron. Exactly. A Shropshire Lad. Never heard of it. The Way of
All Flesh. Never heard of it. Gibbon. Hullo! dear George reads German.
Um--um--Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and so we go on. Well, I suppose your
generation knows its own business, Honeychurch."

"Mr. Beebe, look at that," said Freddy in awestruck tones.

On the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this
inscription: "Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes."

"I know. Isn't it jolly? I like that. I'm certain that's the old man's
doing."

"How very odd of him!"

"Surely you agree?"

But Freddy was his mother's son and felt that one ought not to go on
spoiling the furniture.

"Pictures!" the clergyman continued, scrambling about the room.
"Giotto--they got that at Florence, I'll be bound."

"The same as Lucy's got."

"Oh, by-the-by, did Miss Honeychurch enjoy London?"

"She came back yesterday."

"I suppose she had a good time?"

"Yes, very," said Freddy, taking up a book. "She and Cecil are thicker
than ever."

"That's good hearing."

"I wish I wasn't such a fool, Mr. Beebe."

Mr. Beebe ignored the remark.

"Lucy used to be nearly as stupid as I am, but it'll be very different
now, mother thinks. She will read all kinds of books."

"So will you."

"Only medical books. Not books that you can talk about afterwards. Cecil
is teaching Lucy Italian, and he says her playing is wonderful. There
are all kinds of things in it that we have never noticed. Cecil says--"

"What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emerson--we think we'll
come another time."

George ran down-stairs and pushed them into the room without speaking.

"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour."

Then Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was shy,
perhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George's face wanted
washing. At all events he greeted him with, "How d'ye do? Come and have
a bathe."

"Oh, all right," said George, impassive.

Mr. Beebe was highly entertained.

"'How d'ye do? how d'ye do? Come and have a bathe,'" he chuckled.
"That's the best conversational opening I've ever heard. But I'm afraid
it will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been
introduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with 'How
do you do? Come and have a bathe'? And yet you will tell me that the
sexes are equal."

"I tell you that they shall be," said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly
descending the stairs. "Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they shall
be comrades, and George thinks the same."

"We are to raise ladies to our level?" the clergyman inquired.

"The Garden of Eden," pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, "which you
place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no
longer despise our bodies."

Mr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere.

"In this--not in other things--we men are ahead. We despise the body
less than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the
garden."

"I say, what about this bathe?" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of
philosophy that was approaching him.

"I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to
Nature when we have never been with her? To-day, I believe that we must
discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is
our heritage."

"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at
Florence."

"How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George for
a bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry. Marriage
is a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr. Vyse, too.
He has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National Gallery, and
arranged everything about this delightful house. Though I hope I have
not vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal landowners, and
I was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game laws with the
Conservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to bathe. Yours is a
glorious country, Honeychurch!"

"Not a bit!" mumbled Freddy. "I must--that is to say, I have to--have
the pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope."

"CALL, my lad? Who taught us that drawing-room twaddle? Call on your
grandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious
country."

Mr. Beebe came to the rescue.

"Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call; you or your son will return
our calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized
about the ten days' interval. It does not count that I helped you with
the stair-eyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to bathe
this afternoon."

"Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back
to tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you good.
George has been working very hard at his office. I can't believe he's
well."

George bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of
one who has handled furniture.

"Do you really want this bathe?" Freddy asked him. "It is only a pond,
don't you know. I dare say you are used to something better."

"Yes--I have said 'Yes' already."

Mr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out
of the house and into the pine-woods. How glorious it was! For a little
time the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes
and philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing the
bracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who could not
bear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition looked like
a failure, and neither of his companions would utter a word. He spoke of
Florence. George attended gravely, assenting or dissenting with slight
but determined gestures that were as inexplicable as the motions of the
tree-tops above their heads.

"And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize
that you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here?"

"I did not. Miss Lavish told me."

"When I was a young man, I always meant to write a 'History of
Coincidence.'"

No enthusiasm.

"Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we
suppose. For example, it isn't purely coincidentally that you are here
now, when one comes to reflect."

To his relief, George began to talk.

"It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung
together by Fate, drawn apart by Fate--flung together, drawn apart. The
twelve winds blow us--we settle nothing--"

"You have not reflected at all," rapped the clergyman. "Let me give you
a useful tip, Emerson: attribute nothing to Fate. Don't say, 'I didn't
do this,' for you did it, ten to one. Now I'll cross-question you. Where
did you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself?"

"Italy."

"And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss
Honeychurch?"

"National Gallery."

"Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence
and Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our
friends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it."

"It is Fate that I am here," persisted George. "But you can call it
Italy if it makes you less unhappy."

Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he was
infinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George.

"And so for this and for other reasons my 'History of Coincidence' is
still to write."

Silence.

Wishing to round off the episode, he added; "We are all so glad that you
have come."

Silence.

"Here we are!" called Freddy.

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Mr. Beebe, mopping his brow.

"In there's the pond. I wish it was bigger," he added apologetically.

They climbed down a slippery bank of pine-needles. There lay the pond,
set in its little alp of green--only a pond, but large enough to contain
the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky. On account of the
rains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like a
beautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool.

"It's distinctly successful, as ponds go," said Mr. Beebe. "No apologies
are necessary for the pond."

George sat down where the ground was dry, and drearily unlaced his
boots.

"Aren't those masses of willow-herb splendid? I love willow-herb in
seed. What's the name of this aromatic plant?"

No one knew, or seemed to care.

"These abrupt changes of vegetation--this little spongeous tract of
water plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or
brittle--heather, bracken, hurts, pines. Very charming, very charming."

"Mr. Beebe, aren't you bathing?" called Freddy, as he stripped himself.

Mr. Beebe thought he was not.

"Water's wonderful!" cried Freddy, prancing in.

"Water's water," murmured George. Wetting his hair first--a sure sign of
apathy--he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were
a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his
muscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and
watched the seeds of the willow-herb dance chorically above their heads.

"Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo," went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in
either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud.

"Is it worth it?" asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded
margin.

The bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the
question properly.

"Hee-poof--I've swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water's wonderful,
water's simply ripping."

"Water's not so bad," said George, reappearing from his plunge, and
sputtering at the sun.

"Water's wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do."

"Apooshoo, kouf."

Mr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible, looked
around him. He could detect no parishioners except the pine-trees,
rising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other against
the blue. How glorious it was! The world of motor-cars and rural Deans
receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind--these things not
even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusion of
man?

"I may as well wash too"; and soon his garments made a third little pile
on the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water.

It was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy
said, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen
rotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in
Gotterdammerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or
because the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of the
gentlemen were young in years and the third young in spirit--for some
reason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and
Botany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each
other. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet: they
feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He
smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them,
muddied them, and drove them out of the pool.

"Race you round it, then," cried Freddy, and they raced in the sunshine,
and George took a short cut and dirtied his shins, and had to bathe a
second time. Then Mr. Beebe consented to run--a memorable sight.

They ran to get dry, they bathed to get cool, they played at being
Indians in the willow-herbs and in the bracken, they bathed to get
clean. And all the time three little bundles lay discreetly on the
sward, proclaiming:

"No. We are what matters. Without us shall no enterprise begin. To us
shall all flesh turn in the end."

"A try! A try!" yelled Freddy, snatching up George's bundle and placing
it beside an imaginary goal-post.

"Socker rules," George retorted, scattering Freddy's bundle with a kick.

"Goal!"

"Goal!"

"Pass!"

"Take care my watch!" cried Mr. Beebe.

Clothes flew in all directions.

"Take care my hat! No, that's enough, Freddy. Dress now. No, I say!"

But the two young men were delirious. Away they twinkled into the trees,
Freddy with a clerical waistcoat under his arm, George with a wide-awake
hat on his dripping hair.

"That'll do!" shouted Mr. Beebe, remembering that after all he was in
his own parish. Then his voice changed as if every pine-tree was a Rural
Dean. "Hi! Steady on! I see people coming you fellows!"

Yells, and widening circles over the dappled earth.

"Hi! hi! LADIES!"

Neither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear
Mr. Beebe's last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch,
Cecil, and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth.
Freddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet, and dashed into some
bracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down the
path to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beebe's hat.

"Gracious alive!" cried Mrs. Honeychurch. "Whoever were those
unfortunate people? Oh, dears, look away! And poor Mr. Beebe, too!
Whatever has happened?"

"Come this way immediately," commanded Cecil, who always felt that he
must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he
knew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where Freddy
sat concealed.

"Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! Was that his waistcoat we left in the path? Cecil,
Mr. Beebe's waistcoat--"

"No business of ours," said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol
and evidently 'minded.'

"I fancy Mr. Beebe jumped back into the pond."

"This way, please, Mrs. Honeychurch, this way."

They followed him up the bank attempting the tense yet nonchalant
expression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions.

"Well, I can't help it," said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a
freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. "I can't
be trodden on, can I?"

"Good gracious me, dear; so it's you! What miserable management! Why not
have a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on?"

"Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry, and
if another fellow--"

"Dear, no doubt you're right as usual, but you are in no position to
argue. Come, Lucy." They turned. "Oh, look--don't look! Oh, poor Mr.
Beebe! How unfortunate again--"

For Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface
garments of an intimate nature did float; while George, the world-weary
George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish.

"And me, I've swallowed one," answered he of the bracken. "I've
swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die--Emerson you
beast, you've got on my bags."

"Hush, dears," said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain
shocked. "And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these
colds come of not drying thoroughly."

"Mother, do come away," said Lucy. "Oh for goodness' sake, do come."

"Hullo!" cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.

He regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and
personable against the shadowy woods, he called:

"Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo!"

"Bow, Lucy; better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow."

Miss Honeychurch bowed.

That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the
pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a
call to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose
influence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for
youth.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In Chapter 12, Freddy and Mr. Beebe pay a visit to the Emersons. Mr. Beebe notes and comments on the books they have brought, which include poetry by Byron, A. E. Housman's poetry collection A Shropshire Lad, Samuel Butler's novel, The Way of All Flesh, books of Roman history by Edward Gibbon, and philosophy books by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. On the wardrobe, they see the inscription "Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes," a quote from Henry David Thoreau. The books and the quotation reveal the Emersons to be highly educated and free-thinking men. Meeting George, Freddy blurts out an invitation to go swimming. Mr. Emerson approves of this, commenting that one day, even ladies will greet one another in that way, when the sexes are equal and people no longer despise their bodies. Mr. Beebe goes along for the swim. He tries to draw George out, commenting on what a coincidence it has been for them all to meet again. George says he thinks it is Fate. At the pond, George is at first reticent, but soon all three men are naked and running around the pond, frolicking and chasing each other. Suddenly, Mrs. Honeychurch, Lucy, and Cecil come along the path on their way to visit a neighbor, Mrs. Butterworth, and see all the men naked. George, naked except for Mr. Beebe's hat, whoops in their faces and runs away. He returns wearing Freddy's pants, and shouts a hello to Lucy.


prompt:
Chapter: How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had
always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which
surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George
would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats
and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had
imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent
or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these. But she had
never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of
the morning star.

Indoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she
reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree
of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the
scenery, a face in the audience, an irruption of the audience on to the
stage, and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing, or mean too
much. "I will bow," she had thought. "I will not shake hands with him.
That will be just the proper thing." She had bowed--but to whom? To
gods, to heroes, to the nonsense of school-girls! She had bowed across
the rubbish that cumbers the world.

So ran her thoughts, while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was
another of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted
to see him, and he did not want to be seen. He did not want to hear
about hydrangeas, why they change their colour at the seaside. He did
not want to join the C. O. S. When cross he was always elaborate, and
made long, clever answers where "Yes" or "No" would have done. Lucy
soothed him and tinkered at the conversation in a way that promised well
for their married peace. No one is perfect, and surely it is wiser to
discover the imperfections before wedlock. Miss Bartlett, indeed, though
not in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains nothing
satisfactory. Lucy, though she disliked the teacher, regarded the
teaching as profound, and applied it to her lover.

"Lucy," said her mother, when they got home, "is anything the matter
with Cecil?"

The question was ominous; up till now Mrs. Honeychurch had behaved with
charity and restraint.

"No, I don't think so, mother; Cecil's all right."

"Perhaps he's tired."

Lucy compromised: perhaps Cecil was a little tired.

"Because otherwise"--she pulled out her bonnet-pins with gathering
displeasure--"because otherwise I cannot account for him."

"I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that."

"Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little
girl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid
fever. No--it is just the same thing everywhere."

"Let me just put your bonnet away, may I?"

"Surely he could answer her civilly for one half-hour?"

"Cecil has a very high standard for people," faltered Lucy, seeing
trouble ahead. "It's part of his ideals--it is really that that makes
him sometimes seem--"

"Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets
rid of them the better," said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet.

"Now, mother! I've seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself!"

"Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way.
No. It is the same with Cecil all over."

"By-the-by--I never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was
away in London."

This attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs.
Honeychurch resented it.

"Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him.
Whenever I speak he winces;--I see him, Lucy; it is useless to
contradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor
intellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawing-room furniture;
your father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly
remember."

"I--I see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn't to. But he does
not mean to be uncivil--he once explained--it is the things that upset
him--he is easily upset by ugly things--he is not uncivil to PEOPLE."

"Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings?"

"You can't expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we
do."

"Then why didn't he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and
spoiling everyone's pleasure?"

"We mustn't be unjust to people," faltered Lucy. Something had enfeebled
her, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so perfectly in
London, would not come forth in an effective form. The two civilizations
had clashed--Cecil hinted that they might--and she was dazzled and
bewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all civilization
had blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only catchwords,
garments of diverse cut; and music itself dissolved to a whisper through
pine-trees, where the song is not distinguishable from the comic song.

She remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed
her frock for dinner; and every now and then she said a word, and made
things no better. There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant
to be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucy--she knew not
why--wished that the trouble could have come at any other time.

"Go and dress, dear; you'll be late."

"All right, mother--"

"Don't say 'All right' and stop. Go."

She obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced
north, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the
winter, the pine-trees hung close to her eyes. One connected the landing
window with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but she sighed
to herself, "Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do?" It seemed to
her that everyone else was behaving very badly. And she ought not to
have mentioned Miss Bartlett's letter. She must be more careful; her
mother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was about.
Oh, dear, what should she do?--and then Freddy came bounding upstairs, and
joined the ranks of the ill-behaved.

"I say, those are topping people."

"My dear baby, how tiresome you've been! You have no business to take
them bathing in the Sacred Lake; it's much too public. It was all right for
you but most awkward for everyone else. Do be more careful. You forget
the place is growing half suburban."

"I say, is anything on to-morrow week?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Freddy, I wouldn't do that with all this
muddle."

"What's wrong with the court? They won't mind a bump or two, and I've
ordered new balls."

"I meant it's better not. I really mean it."

He seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the
passage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with
temper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they
impeded Mary with her brood of hot-water cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch
opened her door and said: "Lucy, what a noise you're making! I
have something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from
Charlotte?" and Freddy ran away.

"Yes. I really can't stop. I must dress too."

"How's Charlotte?"

"All right."

"Lucy!"

The unfortunate girl returned.

"You've a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one's sentences.
Did Charlotte mention her boiler?"

"Her WHAT?"

"Don't you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and
her bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible to-doings?"

"I can't remember all Charlotte's worries," said Lucy bitterly. "I shall
have enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil."

Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said: "Come
here, old lady--thank you for putting away my bonnet--kiss me." And,
though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and
Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.

So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner.
At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one
member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised
their methods--perhaps rightly. At all events, they were not his own.

Dinner was at half-past seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew
up their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry.
Nothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said:

"Lucy, what's Emerson like?"

"I saw him in Florence," said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a
reply.

"Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap?"

"Ask Cecil; it is Cecil who brought him here."

"He is the clever sort, like myself," said Cecil.

Freddy looked at him doubtfully.

"How well did you know them at the Bertolini?" asked Mrs. Honeychurch.

"Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than I did."

"Oh, that reminds me--you never told me what Charlotte said in her
letter."

"One thing and another," said Lucy, wondering whether she would get
through the meal without a lie. "Among other things, that an awful
friend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if
she'd come up and see us, and mercifully didn't."

"Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind."

"She was a novelist," said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one,
for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands
of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women
who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety
by print. Her attitude was: "If books must be written, let them be
written by men"; and she developed it at great length, while Cecil
yawned and Freddy played at "This year, next year, now, never," with his
plum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath. But
soon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to gather in the
darkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original ghost--that
touch of lips on her cheek--had surely been laid long ago; it could be
nothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once. But it
had begotten a spectral family--Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett's letter,
Mr. Beebe's memories of violets--and one or other of these was bound to
haunt her before Cecil's very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who returned
now, and with appalling vividness.

"I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte's. How is she?"

"I tore the thing up."

"Didn't she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?"

"Oh, yes I suppose so--no--not very cheerful, I suppose."

"Then, depend upon it, it IS the boiler. I know myself how water preys
upon one's mind. I would rather anything else--even a misfortune with
the meat."

Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.

"So would I," asserted Freddy, backing his mother up--backing up the
spirit of her remark rather than the substance.

"And I have been thinking," she added rather nervously, "surely we could
squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while
plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for
so long."

It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest
violently after her mother's goodness to her upstairs.

"Mother, no!" she pleaded. "It's impossible. We can't have Charlotte on
the top of the other things; we're squeezed to death as it is. Freddy's
got a friend coming Tuesday, there's Cecil, and you've promised to take
in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can't be
done."

"Nonsense! It can."

"If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise."

"Minnie can sleep with you."

"I won't have her."

"Then, if you're so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy."

"Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett," moaned Cecil, again
laying his hand over his eyes.

"It's impossible," repeated Lucy. "I don't want to make difficulties,
but it really isn't fair on the maids to fill up the house so."

Alas!

"The truth is, dear, you don't like Charlotte."

"No, I don't. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You
haven't seen her lately, and don't realize how tiresome she can be,
though so good. So please, mother, don't worry us this last summer; but
spoil us by not asking her to come."

"Hear, hear!" said Cecil.

Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling
than she usually permitted herself, replied: "This isn't very kind of
you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of
beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and
plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and
however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like
to grow old."

Cecil crumbled his bread.

"I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on
my bike," put in Freddy. "She thanked me for coming till I felt like
such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea
just right."

"I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this
difficulty when we try to give her some little return."

But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett.
She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up
treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss
Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: "I
can't help it, mother. I don't like Charlotte. I admit it's horrid of
me."

"From your own account, you told her as much."

"Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried--"

The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping
the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the
same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy
Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible
world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.

"I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,"
said Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the
admirable cooking.

"I didn't mean the egg was WELL boiled," corrected Freddy, "because in
point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don't
care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed."

Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas,
maids--of such were their lives compact. "May me and Lucy get down from
our chairs?" he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. "We don't want no
dessert."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Lucy wonders over the extraordinary encounter with George. She had not been prepared at all for being greeted by a half-naked George at the pond, and it has destroyed all her plans for greeting him in a proper way. At tea with a neighbor, Cecil is snobbish to the point of being uncivil, and Mrs. Honeychurch notices. Lucy defends Cecil by saying that he has a high standard for people, and Mrs. Butterworth is tiresome. Cecil has told you to think so," her mother counters, pointing out that Lucy used to love Mrs. Butterworth, who cared for her when she had typhoid fever. Mrs. Honeychurch has also noticed Cecil's annoyance with her and Freddy. Lucy is upset and embarrassed; she knows that Cecil meant to be supercilious, and has succeeded. Freddy returns from swimming delighted with the Emersons, and plans to invite them for tennis on Sunday. Lucy discourages him, saying that there is too much of a "muddle" at the moment. Lucy's mother questions her about what was in Charlotte's letter, but Lucy cannot tell her everything; she only distracts her mother by bringing up Miss Lavish, whom Charlotte had mentioned in her letter. Mrs. Honeychurch abhors the idea of women novelists, thinking that women should mind their homes and children rather than seek fame in print. Although Lucy tries to tell herself that the kiss George Emerson gave her was nothing, she is uneasy with all these ghosts from the past coming out--Charlotte and her knowledge being one of them. Now Lucy's mother wants to invite Charlotte to stay at the house while plumbing work is being done at her place in Tunbridge Wells, and this makes Lucy nervous. Lucy and Cecil object, but Charlotte is to come anyway