I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman talk.  She smiles sometimes at his vehement statements, but never laughs at him.  When he speaks to her, she keeps her eye always steadily upon him.  This may be only natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is worth noticing.  I have often observed that vulgar persons, and public audiences of inferior collective intelligence, have this in common:  the least thing draws off their minds, when you are speaking to them.  I love this young creature’s rapt attention to her diminutive neighbor while he is speaking.

He is evidently pleased with it.  For a day or two after she came, he was silent and seemed nervous and excited.  Now he is fond of getting the talk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at least one interested listener.  Once or twice I have seen marks of special attention to personal adornment, a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a diamond pin in it,—­not so very large as the Koh-i-noor’s, but more lustrous.  I mentioned the death’s-head ring he wears on his right hand.  I was attracted by a very handsome red stone, a ruby or carbuncle or something of the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day.  It is a handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that the cast mentioned was taken from his arm.  After all, this is just what I should expect.  It is not very uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, running away with the whole strength, and, therefore, with the whole beauty, which we should never have noticed, if it had been divided equally between all four extremities.  If it is so, of course he is proud of his one strong and beautiful arm; that is human nature.  I am afraid he can hardly help betraying his favoritism, as people who have any one showy point are apt to do,—­especially dentists with handsome teeth, who always smile back to their last molars.

Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next but one to the calm lady who has her in charge, he cannot help seeing their relations to each other.

That is an admirable woman, Sir,—­he said to me one day, as we sat alone at the table after breakfast,—­an admirable woman, Sir,—­and I hate her.

Of course, I begged an explanation.

An admirable woman, Sir, because she does good things, and even kind things,—­takes care of this—­this—­young lady—­we have here, talks like a sensible person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty with all her might.  I hate her because her voice sounds as if it never trembled and her eyes look as if she never knew what it was to cry.  Besides, she looks at me, Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get an image of me for some gallery in her brain,—­and we don’t love to be looked at in this way, we that have—­I hate her,—­I hate her,—­her eyes kill me,—­it is like being stabbed with icicles to be looked at so,—­the sooner she goes home, the better.  I don’t want a woman to weigh me in a balance; there are men