Behold the uttermost fool of all female creation led over the house by Mr. Pollingray.  He showed me the family pictures.

‘I am no judge of pictures, Mr. Pollingray.’

‘You will learn to see the merits of these.’

‘I’m afraid not, though I were to study them for years.’

‘You may have that opportunity.’

‘Oh! that is more than I can expect.’

‘You will develop intelligence on such subjects by and by.’

A dull sort of distant blow struck me in this remark; but I paid no heed to it.

He led me over the gardens and the grounds.  The Great John Methlyn Pollingray planted those trees, and designed the house, and the flower-garden still speaks of his task; but he is not my master, and consequently I could not share his three great-grandsons’ veneration for him.  There are high fir-woods and beech woods, and a long ascending narrow meadow between them, through which a brook falls in continual cascades.  It is the sort of scene I love, for it has a woodland grandeur and seclusion that leads, me to think, and makes a better girl of me.  But what I said was:  ’Yes, it is the place of all others to come and settle in for the evening of one’s days.’

‘You could not take to it now?’ said Mr. Pollingray.

‘Now?’ my expression of face must have been a picture.

’You feel called upon to decline such a residence in the morning of your days?’

He persisted in looking at me as he spoke, and I felt like something withering scarlet.

I am convinced he saw through me, while his face was polished brass.  My self-possession returned, for my pride was not to be dispersed immediately.

‘Please, take me to the stables,’ I entreated; and there I was at home.  There I saw my Prince Leboo, and gave him a thousand caresses.’

‘He knows me already,’ I said.

Then he is some degrees in advance of me,’ said Mr. Pollingray.

Is not cold dissection of one’s character a cruel proceeding?  And I think, too, that a form of hospitality like this by which I am invited to be analysed at leisure, is both mean and base.  I have been kindly treated and I am grateful, but I do still say (even though I may have improved under it) it is unfair.

To proceed:  the dinner hour arrived.  The atmosphere of his own house seems to favour Mr. Pollingray as certain soils and sites favour others.  He walked into the dining-room between us with his hands behind him, talking to us both so easily and smoothly cheerfully—­naturally and pleasantly—­inimitable by any young man!  You hardly feel the change of room.  We were but three at table, but there was no lack of entertainment.  Mr. Pollingray is an admirable host; he talks just enough himself and helps you to talk.  What does comfort me is that it gives him real pleasure to see a hearty appetite.  Young men, I know it for a certainty, never quite like us to be so human.  Ah! which is right?  I would not miss the faith in our nobler essence which Charles has.  But, if it nobler?  One who has lived longer in the world ought to know better, and Mr. Pollingray approves of naturalness in everything.  I have now seen through Charles’s eyes for several months; so implicitly that I am timid when I dream of trusting to another’s judgement.  It is, however, a fact that I am not quite natural with Charles.