"So I thought, when she first wrote me word," assented Captain Andinnian. "But after I came home and got used to call the lad by it, you don't know how I grew to like it. The name gains upon your favour in a wonderful manner, Joseph: and I have heard other people say the same. It is Charles in English, you know."
"Then why not call him Charles?"
"Because the name is really Karl, and not Charles. He was baptized in Germany, but christened in England, and in both places it was done as 'Karl.' His mother has never cared very much for him."
"For him or his name, do you mean?"
"Oh, for him."
Sir Joseph opened his eyes. "Why on earth not?"
"Because all the love her nature's capable of--and in her it's tolerably strong--is given to Adam. She can't spare an atom from him: her love for him is as a kind of idolatry. For one thing, she was very ill when Karl was born, and neither nursed nor tended him: he was given over to the care of her sister who lived with her, and who had him wholly, so to say, for the first three years of his life."
"And what's Karl like?" repeated Sir Joseph.
"You ought to see him," burst forth the Captain with animation. "He's everything that's good and noble arid worthy. Joseph, there are not many young men of the present day so attractive as Karl."
"With a tendency to be passionate, like his brother?"