Eliza and Henry were admiring the view from the shingle; Mr. Sidmouth was attending to the horses; and so Cassandra and I followed my father towards the day's burden of treasures. There we found the two ladies of the Crawford household ranged on either side of a blanket, in the process of unpacking a hamper.

“Miss Crawford! And Miss Armstrong!” Geoffrey Sidmouth declared, coming up behind. “How delightful to see you, indeed. I did not know that you were to be of the party. May I present to you the Miss Austens, of Bath.”

And so there were introductions all around — and several glances the length and breadth of our simple white gowns from Miss Crawford, who is fully as sharp and shrewish in aspect as I judged her to be the previous e'en. She is Mr. Crawford's sister, and his housekeeper since the death of his wife some years ago; and I judge her to labour under the burden of disappointment, for her pinched and suffering countenance bears the mark of regret. This, and her customary black, give her the general air of a raven, an impression that the harshness of her voice does nothing to dispel.

Miss Lucy Armstrong is their niece, down like ourselves from her home in Bath.[36] She is not above nineteen, with the freshness of complexion and sweetness of temper common in those untried by life. She met Mr. Sidmouth's eyes only with difficulty, and seemed to prefer the study of an ant toiling across the blanket, so firmly did her gaze seek the ground. She was likewise impervious to the slings and arrows of her aunt's tongue — which suggests some greatness of mind, upon reflection, for one consigned to living with Miss Crawford so many months together. At Mr. Sidmouth's moving to join the gentlemen, young Miss Armstrong recovered her faculties enough to attend to our conversation — though not so well as to partake of it.

“Well! And so you are the famous Austens, of whom we have heard so much,” Miss Crawford began, as she set out forks with the efficiency of a Commander of Foot. Her malicious glance flicked up to meet mine, and as quickly dropped away. “Mr. Crawford is quite full of you, I declare, and Mr. Sid mouth. One is reminded of the smallness of Lyme, when the slightest addition to our society is regarded as such an event.”

“Mr. Crawford is too kind,” 1 replied. “1 am sure he makes all his acquaintance feel equally celebrated.”

“Oh! Cholmondeley has no discernment in his society, 1 assure you. He is forever acquiring strangers on the road, and compelling them to visit these dreadful pits. Such dirt! Such noise! And in pursuit of what? The tracings of a few vanished creatures, too poor to survive, too abject and miserable for consideration. It quite works upon my nerves — though they are shattered already. I attribute the shocking decline in my condition, Miss Austen, to the date of Cholmondeley's embarking upon fossil-collecting; and I have made it a policy not to encourage him in the pursuit. I should never have come today, in fact, did not I have the opportunity to meet your dear sister”—this, with a simper for Cassandra—“whose interesting trouble has given rise to such concern among the intimates of Lyme. The poor state of the roads, and the worse state of the drivers! Something ought to be done about our modes of private transportation. Though I do say, that those who undertake to hire as disreputable a fellow as Hibbs for postboy must take their chances of a bruising. Not that I would speak of it for the world, now your dear sister has come to grief. Indeed, I said as much to Mrs. Schuyler only last evening; and she quite agreed.”

“But we were not to know of the man's propensities beforehand,” Cassandra said gently. “We accepted his services in Crewkerne, where his general character could not be known. When one is a traveller, one must trust a little to Fortune.”

“And look where Fortune took you! To the very brink of death! No, my dear — the only driver worth consideration is one's own coachman, at the head of one's own carriage. I should not think to trust dear Lucy to anyone but our Summerfield when she is to come down from Bath, though her father would send her post.”

“I observe, however, that you trusted us to Mr. Sidmouth,” I interjected.

“True — but he would insist. And when Mr. Sidmouth insists, even / find myself overruled. Cholmondeley becomes decidedly bullheaded in the man's presence; there is no managing him. Lucy, dear, do fetch your uncle. He is turning quite purple. This heat and exertion cannot be good for him.”

Miss Armstrong smiled prettily in our general direction, and floated towards the gentlemen; I say floated because of the airiness of her cloud of green muslin, which was quite sheer, and draped to becoming effect across her full bosom. She is a well-grown girl — though petite, like my sister Eliza, and possessed of decidedly red hair, and the freckled complexion that so often accompanies it. But I detect some acid in my description of Lucy Armstrong, and must hasten to retract it. Freckles on the one hand, a pleasing figure on the other — of what importance are such? If I resent her youth and simplicity of manner, it is only because I remember possessing both myself, and fancy I can foretell Lucy Armstrong's future. When, indeed, I know nothing of her fortune, or prospects; merely assuming that both are slight, since she appears in the guise of poor relation dependent for her pleasures upon a spiteful maiden aunt and widower uncle. She might as easily have three thousand a year, and a bevy of suitors waiting to snatch her back to Bath. Much may preserve her from a state such as mine — growing old, unloved, and unprovided-for.

And yet I am only ten years her senior. Only ten years! — Of balls, and flirtations, and new dresses and fashions; of disappointments, broken hearts, and fading hopes. I shall be nine-and-twenty next Christmas; and Lucy only just embarked upon her ten years. I would not wish them to end as mine have done.

I was jolted from my reverie by the appearance of the gentlemen. Mr. Crawford walked somewhat slowly, as though fatigued, and had Miss Armstrong by his side; but to my surprise, Mr. Sidmouth quite monopolized my father's attention.

“… then you would agree with Bentham[37], that the question is not ‘do animals reason,”but ‘do they suffer? my father enquired. I started, knowing him to be anything but a Benthamite, and hardly believing him acquainted with that gendeman's philosophy.

“I would.”

“Though that places the animals on a par with mankind?”

“I would say, sir, with Kant, that I cannot lay claim to the distinction of being Creation's final end.[38] These very fossils in Crawford's cliffs proclaim us but a stage upon Nature's great journey. We cannot but wonder if we shall be quarried ourselves, by some inhuman hand, millennia hence.”

There was a loud Tsk! of disapproval from Miss Crawford.

“You would not see them, then, as merely the confirmation of God's great design,” my father continued, “as a reflection of Man's infinitely greater powers?”

“Forgive me, sir — but I cannot.”

“Well, well! Very stimulating to be sure! We have been debating philosophy, my dears,” my father said, as the two men joined us. “I quite wish your brother James were here to make a third in the discussion. I rather fancy, being of the next generation of Austen clergymen, he might fall somewhere between the two poles of Mr. Sidmouth and myself.”

“You are determined in disagreement, then?” Cassandra enquired.

“As surely as Lucifer and St. Peter, my dear — though I meant no offence, Mr. Sidmouth, in the comparison.”

“As I assumed you to be pleading the part of Lucifer, my dear sir, none was taken.” There was a slight ripple of laughter, and Mr. Sidmouth began again with better grace. “I quite applaud your liberality, Reverend Austen. It is rare, indeed, to find a man of the cloth so open in his acceptance of what science tells us. For these very fossils must put paid to the Bible's notion of the world being formed in only seven days; the age of these cliffs, and their silent inhabitants, speak of thousands upon thousands of years’ passage before creatures like ourselves walked this earth.”