She loved him precisely as he was; she loved them all; and as she walked by his side, up and down, and down and up, her strong moral sense administered a sound drubbing to the vain and romantic element aroused in her by the mere thought of Ralph.

She felt quite certain that, for good or for bad, she was very like the rest of her family.
Sitting in the corner of a third-class railway carriage, on the afternoon of the following day, Ralph made several inquiries of a commercial traveler in the opposite corner.

They centered round a village called Lampsher, not three miles, he understood, from Lincoln; was there a big house in Lampsher, he asked, inhabited by a gentleman of the name of Otway?
The traveler knew nothing, but rolled the name of Otway on his tongue, reflectively, and the sound of it gratified Ralph amazingly.

It gave him an excuse to take a letter from his pocket in order to verify the address.
"Stogdon House, Lampsher, Lincoln," he read out.
"You'll find somebody to direct you at Lincoln," said the man; and Ralph had to confess that he was not bound there this very evening.
"I've got to walk over from Disham," he said, and in the heart of him could not help marveling at the pleasure which he derived from making a bagman in a train believe what he himself did not believe.

For the letter, though signed by Katharine's father, contained no invitation or warrant for thinking that Katharine herself was there; the only fact it disclosed was that for a fortnight this address would be Mr.Hilbery's address.