I looked at Miss Stanley inquiringly, and site read my look correctly, for she volunteered in a low tone the information that it was all off between them.
“That is a thorough genuine, nice girl,” said Howard, as we parted from her. “Who is she?”
I explained to him all I knew about her, and he again declared she was charming. That he thought so, there was no doubt.
Chapter Sixteen.
My Last Half.
My vacation passed very quietly till within ten days of its termination, at which time Miss Stanley came to stay at the Heronry. I soon went over to call, and found everything much as it was formerly, except that the pedantic cousin was not mentioned. I soon after learnt that he had behaved very discreditably at Oxford and had been obliged to leave, and that his match had been broken off by Miss Stanley.
It is a curious fact, but it is one that experience has taught us, that in almost every case where a man assumes a superiority over all others, and is always endeavouring to expose weak points or want of knowledge in others whilst he thrusts his only slender information forward, that man is an impostor, and, if found out, will generally “go to the bad.” This was the case with Snipson, with Stanley, and with many others we have known; and, if others will recall their own experiences, we believe they also will find they are led to the same conclusion. There is no necessity for a really clever man to be always blowing his own trumpet; his actual works will show what he has in him; whereas a shallow-pated impostor is always trying by tricks to arrive at a notoriety to which he never could attain by fair work and genuine competition, and so loses no opportunity of taking a prominent position for want of assumption.
I found that Miss Stanley had seen Howard several times in London, and pronounced him “charming.” It was supposed that Howard would have to go to Southampton on some duty, and if so he was expected to pass a few days at the Heronry. Now, had it been any one else, I believe I should have been jealous, for, although I had ceased to be spoony on Miss Stanley, yet I liked her society, and should not have felt happy in knowing she was much with any one else. He, however, was an exception. Each time I met Howard I found that my latest experience had given me the capacity to appreciate in him some quality which had before escaped my observation, whereas when I met other men whom I had known when I was a boy, and of whom I had thought most highly, I found them to be rough, uncultivated, and unintellectual—the change really being in myself, not in them.