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more grateful as his face, his head, was sensitive; he was not
handsome, but he was fine, as fine as one of the drawings
in the long gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi. And his
very voice was fine—the more strangely that, with its clear-
ness, it yet somehow wasn’t sweet. This had had really to do
with making her abstain from interference. His utterance
was the vibration of glass, and if she had put out her finger
she might have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert.
Yet before he went she had to speak.
‘Madame Merle,’ he said, ‘consents to come up to my
hill-top some day next week and drink tea in my garden.
It would give me much pleasure if you would come with
her. It’s thought rather prettythere’s what they call a general
view. My daughter too would be so glad—or rather, for she’s
too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad—so
very glad.’ And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of em-
barrassment, leaving his sentence unfinished.
‘I should be so happy if you could know my daughter,’ he
went on a moment afterwards.
Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss
Osmond and that if Madame Merle would show her the way
to the hill-top she should be very grateful. Upon this as-
surance the visitor took his leave; after which Isabel fully
expected her friend would scold her for having been so stu-
pid. But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into
the mere matter-of-course, said to her in a few moments:
‘You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would
have wished you. You’re never disappointing.’
A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it

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