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suggestive talk. Mr. Osmond’s talk was not injured by the
indication of an eagerness to shine; Isabel found no difficul-
ty in believing that a person was sincere who had so many
of the signs of strong conviction—as for instance an explicit
and graceful appreciation of anything that might be said on
his own side of the question, said perhaps by Miss Archer
in especial. What continued to please this young woman
was that while he talked so for amusement he didn’t talk, as
she had heard people, for ‘effect.’ He uttered his ideas as if,
odd as they often appeared, he were used to them and had
lived with them; old polished knobs and heads and handles,
of precious substance, that could be fitted if necessary to
new walking-sticks—not switches plucked in destitution
from the common tree and then too elegantly waved about.
One day he brought his small daughter with him, and she
rejoiced to renew acquaintance with the child, who, as she
presented her forehead to be kissed by every member of
the circle, reminded her vividly of an ingenue in a French
play. Isabel had never seen a little person of this pattern;
American girls were very different—different too were the
maidens of England. Pansy was so formed and finished for
her tiny place in the world, and yet in imagination, as one
could see, so innocent and infantine. She sat on the sofa by
Isabel; she wore a small grenadine mantle and a pair of the
useful gloves that Madame Merle had given her—little grey
gloves with a single button. She was like a sheet of blank
paper—the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped
that so fair and smooth a page would be covered with an
edifying text.

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