"I am afraid, mother dear," said Nancy, leaning her billowy head against her mother's arm and looking up at her new friend with May-morning eyes, "that Mr. Kingsley will think I have no character."
"You have a complexion," interposed Aunt Carlotta. "That is enough for a girl."
Valeria laughed. "It is true. Italian girls must not have characters until they marry. Then their husbands make it for them, according to their own tastes."
Mr. Kingsley smiled down at Nancy. "Why should I think you have no character?"
"Because you told me to work. And I promised; and I have not," said Nancy.
"Have you done nothing at all since I saw you?" he asked.
Nancy shook her head.
"And have you no thoughts, no ideas that urge for expression?"
"Oh yes!" said Nancy, waving eloquent, impatient fingers. "Ideas and thoughts grow and bloom and blow in my mind like flowers in a garden. Then all these people come and talk to me.... Alas," she sighed, looking round the murmuring, laughing room, "in the evening my garden is barren, for I have cut all my flowers and given them away."
The Englishman forgot that he was English, and said what he thought: