"The saucy speeches are for your own satisfaction, no doubt, and the compliments for that of your friends, I suppose," replied Elinor, smiling a little archly; for she had very good reasons for mistrusting the sincerity of either mode of speech from the lips of the gay widow; whom, for that very reason, she liked much less than her brother.
"Do you really think me too severe?—wait till we are better acquainted!"
"I shall always think you very charming," replied Elinor, with her usual frank smile; for, in fact, she admired Mrs. Creighton quite as much as the rest of the world. And then observing that Mr. Ellsworth was listening to their conversation, she turned to him and asked, if the true golden hair, so much admired by the Italian poets, and so often sung by them, were still common in Italy?
"Judging from books and pictures, I should think it must have been much more common some centuries ago than at the present day; for, certainly, there is not one Italian woman in a hundred, who has not very decidedly black hair and eyes. I remember once in a translation from English into Italian, I used the expression 'grey eyes,' which diverted my master very much: he insisted upon it, there was no 'such thing in nature;' and even after I had reminded him of Napoleon, he would not believe the Emperor's eyes were not black. He was a thorough Italian, of course, and knew nothing of the northern languages, or he would have met with the expression before."
"Let me tell you, Ellsworth," said Harry, after a short pause in the conversation, "that it is very pleasant to pass an agreeable evening in this way, chatting with old friends. You have no idea how much I enjoy it after a three years' exile!"
"I can readily believe it."
"No, I don't think you understand it at all. It is true you were roving about the world several years, but you were not alone, my dear sir. You had indeed the advantage of particularly agreeable companions with you: in Paris you had Mrs. Creighton, and in Egypt you had your humble servant. And then, in the next place, your mind was constantly occupied; you lived with the past while in Italy and Greece, and with the present in Paris. Now, at Rio, there is no past at all, and not much of a present."
"Is there no general society at Rio?" inquired Miss Wyllys.
"Oh, yes; society enough, in the usual meaning of the word. I was very fortunate in meeting with some very agreeable people, and have really a strong regard for Manezes {sic}—a good fellow he is, and I hope to see him here one of these days. But they were all new acquaintances. You cannot think how much I wanted to see a face I had known all my life; I was positively at one time on the verge of being home-sick."
"You found out that you were more tender-hearted than you had believed yourself," said Mr. Ellsworth.