"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "She then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue spoken without accent by an English girl."
"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than it found it."
"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who had not yet lifted her face.
"Are you sure you are present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."
"She is here now."
"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it pale and lofty as a marble Juno."
"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to stone."
Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?" He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some German pondering metaphysics.
"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so chill the kind heart."
"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you are welcome to hold it valid. I don't care."