“What sort of a fellow?” Mr. Moubray was so easy, and banished so carefully all meaning from his looks, that Effie was relieved. She began to laugh.
“I don’t know what to say. He is like the girls, but not quite like the girls.”
“That does not give me much information, my dear.”
“Oh, Uncle John, they are all so funny! What can I say? They talk and they talk, and it is all made up. It is about nothing, about fancies they take in their heads, about what they think—but not real thinking, only fancies, thinking what to say.”
“That’s the art of conversation, Effie,” the minister said.
“Conversation? Oh no, oh, surely not!—conversation would mean something. At Allonby it is all very pretty, but it means nothing at all. They just make stories out of nothing, and talk for the sake of talking. I laugh—I cannot help it, though I could not quite tell you why.”
“And the brother, does he do the same?”
“Oh, the brother! No, he is not so funny, he does not talk so much. He says little, really, on the whole, except”—here Effie stopped and coloured and laughed softly, but in a different tone.
“Except?” repeated Uncle John.
“Well, when he is walking home with me. Then he is obliged to speak, because there is no one else to say anything. When we are all together it is they who speak. But how can he help it? He has to talk when there is only me.”