"Oh! yes, dreadfully. I always adore to see men in dark blue. Think how nice a blue serge morning-suit looks on a man, and how sweet sailors always are! Of course a pink coat looks jolly for hunting, but I don't like red uniforms half as well as blue ones—especially for fair hair."
Lady Esdaile's way of looking at life was a source of never-ending amusement to Paul; she always seemed to be gazing at the world through the wrong end of a telescope. And Paul was not as severe on frivolity as he had been in the days when he so ruthlessly passed sentence on Alice; he was becoming more a man of the world, and consequently more sympathetic with, and tender towards, human nature. For life teaches a man more than all the Universities rolled in one.
"I've just had such a fright," Lady Esdaile confided to her son's tutor, when the latter had been about a year at Esdaile.
"What is the matter? Can I assist in anyway?" asked Paul, who was the help of the family in all difficulties, from the writing of French menus to the letting of cats out of traps.
"I was afraid Isabel Carnaby was coming to live with us."
"But who is Isabel Carnaby? I fear I cannot gauge the extent of your anxiety till I know who the lady is."
"Oh! I thought everybody knew Isabel. She is my husband's niece He had two sisters, Lady Farley and Mrs. Carnaby. Isabel was the Carnabys' only child, and Mrs. Carnaby died when she was born. It was a pity Mrs. Carnaby died, she had such lovely blue eyes and such a knack of knowing what suited her. She was the best-dressed woman I ever met, and Major Carnaby was devoted to her."
"Is Major Carnaby dead?" asked Paul.
"Yes; he died out in India while Isabel was still a child, and she has lived with the Farleys ever since. She is fairly well off; and her father left word in his will that when she was of age she must decide whether to live with the Farleys or with us, as both Sir Benjamin and my husband were ready to take her for her mother's sake. She has just come of age, and I was dreadfully afraid she would decide to come to us."
"And you wouldn't have liked it?"