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ly passive, for a man to come that way and furnish them
with a destiny. Isabel’s originality was that she gave one an
impression of having intentions of her own. ‘Whenever she
executes them,’ said Ralph, ‘may I be there to see!’
It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of
the place. Mr. Touchett was confined to his chair, and his
wife’s position was that of rather a grim visitor; so that in
the line of conduct that opened itself to Ralph duty and
inclination were harmoniously mixed. He was not a great
walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousina
pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a
persistency not allowed for in Isabel’s somewhat lugubri-
ous prevision of the climate; and in the long afternoons, of
which the length was but the measure of her gratified ea-
gerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little river,
as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore seemed still a
part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the
country in a phaeton—a low, capacious, thick-wheeled pha-
eton formerly much used by Mr. Touchett, but which he had
now ceased to enjoy. Isabel enjoyed it largely and, handling
the reins in a manner which approved itself to the groom
as ‘knowing,’ was never weary of driving her uncle’s capital
horses through winding lanes and byways full of the rural
incidents she had confidently expected to find; past cottages
thatched and timbered, past ale-houses latticed and sand-
ed, past patches of ancient common and glimpses of empty
parks, between hedgerows made thick by midsummer.
When they reached home they usually found tea had been
served on the lawn and that Mrs. Touchett had not shrunk

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