Foolish talk some of it was, about unreal folk who will still live forever because of the genius that called them into being. Unknown names most of them were to her listener; and in another mood and place, he might have called it all folly or worse. But he listened now with the pleased interest that one gives to the fancies of a child. And all she said was not foolish, he acknowledged as she went on. There were little words now and then, clear and keen and wise, which pleased him well.
But nothing that was seen or said that day pleased him so much as this.
“You have made a day of it together,” said Mrs Manners laughing, as she met them at the door. “You must be tired enough by this time.”
“Yes, I am tired. And no wonder. I think I never had so much pleasure in one day in all my life before.”
She did not say it to him. He only heard it by chance as she passed up the stairs. But he said to himself that there should be more such days for one so easily pleased before he left London.
And so there were. They saw together pictures and people, parks and gardens. They went to Richmond and Kew and Hampton Court, and to more places besides. Mrs Manners went with them sometimes, but their energy and interest were too much for her, and usually she let them go without her. And Mr Dawson was fain to acknowledge to himself that he had a share in the pleasure which he meant to give “the blithe and bonny lassie” at such times.
She was “blithe and bonny” at all times, but when he saw her, as often happened, moving about among the guests that sometimes filled his daughter’s pretty rooms, none more admired and none more worthy of admiration than she, he owned that she was more than that.
They were not just well-dressed, well-mannered nobodies that Mrs Manners entertained. Many of them were men and women who had been heard of in the world for their worth or their wisdom, or for good work of one kind or another done by them. And this blithe and bonny lassie, who enjoyed her play with the child and her sight-seeing with the old man, was not out of place among them. She was young and a little shy of folk that seemed great folk to her, and she was very quiet and silent among them. But many eyes followed her with delight as she moved up and down among them in her pretty evening dress; and she had words of wisdom spoken to her now and then as well as the rest, and she could answer them too, on occasion, as he did not fail to see.
She sang too, not only the old songs that delighted him, but grand, grave music, to which they listened who were far wiser about such things than he. She was a wonder to him at such times, but in the morning she was just as usual, “bonny and blithe” and easily pleased.
“Ye mind me whiles of our Jean,” said he to her one day, and he could not but wonder at the sudden brightness that flashed over her face at the words. Mrs Manners laughed.