“Do tell me everything about the poor dear thing,” said she, poutingly. “They say it is mad.”
“No, madam,” said Nelly, gravely; “Hans, with many eccentricities of manner, is very far from deficient in good sense or judgment, and is more than ordinarily endowed with right feeling and kindness of heart.”
“He is a dwarf, surely?”
“Yes, but in intelligence—”
“Oh, that, of course,” interrupted she; “they are rarely deficient in acuteness, but so spiteful, so full of malice. My dear child, there 's no trusting them. They never forget an injury, nor even an imaginary slight. There was that creature what was his name? that Polish thing, Benywowski, I think you remember, they baked him in a pie, to amuse Charles II. well, he never forgave it after wards, and to the day of his death could never bear the sight of pastry.”
“I must except poor Hans from this category,” said Nelly, mildly, and with difficulty restraining a smile. “He is amiability itself.”
Lady Hester shook her head doubtfully, and went on.
“Their very caprices, my dear, lead them into all kinds of extravagances. For instance, this poor thing, it would seem, is so enamored of these wooden toys that he makes himself, that he cannot bear to part with them. Now, there 's no saying to what excesses he might be carried by this absurd passion. I have read of the most atrocious murders committed under a similar fanaticism.”
“I assure you, madam, there need be no fear of such in the present instance. In the first case, Hans is too good; in the second, the objects are too valueless.”
“Very true, so they are; but he doesn't think them so, you know.”