He had listened, leaning against the mantelpiece, and with shaded eyes looking down; and now to Miss Essie's question returned only a grave bend of the head.
"If you have been looking at the floor all this while, you have lost something," said the lady. "Do you know your turn comes next? Mr. Linden—ladies and gentlemen!—is condemned to tell us what he holds the most precious thing in this world; and to justify himself in his opinion by an argument, a quotation, and an illustration!"—
"Now will he find means to evade his sentence!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh laughing.
"He has confessed himself addicted to witchcraft in my hearing," said the doctor, who had remained standing by Faith's chair.
"The most precious thing in the world," said Mr. Linden, in a tone as carelessly graceful as his attitude, "is that which cannot be bought,—for if money could buy it, then were money equally valuable. Take for illustration, the perfection of a friend."
"I don't understand,"—said Miss Essie; "but perhaps I shall when I hear the rest."
He smiled a little and gave the quotation on that point in his own clear and perfect manner.
"'A sweet, attractive kind of grace;
A full assurance given by looks;
Continual comfort in a face;
The lineaments of gospel books,—
I trow that countenance cannot lye
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.'"
The quotation was received variously, but in general with vast admiration. Miss Essie turned to Mrs. Stoutenburgh and remarked, half loud,
"That's easy to understand. I was dull."