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of luxuries and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than
I. As I’m a consistent radical I go in only for equality; I don’t
go in for the superiority of the younger brothers.’ Two of
his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one
of them having done very well, as they said, the other only
so-so. The husband of the elder, Lord Haycock, was a very
good fellow, but unfortunately a horrid Tory; and his wife,
like all good English wives, was worse than her husband.
The other had espoused a smallish squire in Norfolk and,
though married but the other day, had already five children.
This information and much more Lord Warburton impart-
ed to his young American listener, taking pains to make
many things clear and to lay bare to her apprehension the
peculiarities of English life. Isabel was often amused at his
explicitness and at the small allowance he seemed to make
either for her own experience or for her imagination. ‘He
thinks I’m a barbarian,’ she said, ‘and that I’ve never seen
forks and spoons”; and she used to ask him artless questions
for the pleasure of hearing him answer seriously. Then when
he had fallen into the trap, ‘It’s a pity you can’t see me in my
war-paint and feathers,’ she remarked; ‘if I had known how
kind you are to the poor savages I would have brought over
my native costume!’ Lord Warburton had travelled through
the United States and knew much more about them than
Isabel; he was so good as to say that America was the most
charming country in the world, but his recollections of it
appeared to encourage the idea that Americans in England
would need to have a great many things explained to them.
‘If I had only had you to explain things to me in America!’

96 The Portrait of a Lady