“Very few. Who is so good-tempered?”
“I think nobody, mamma,” Theo acknowledges.
“Or so brave?”
“Why, I dare say Mr. Wolfe, or Harry, or Mr. George, are very brave.”
“Or so learned and witty?”
“I am sure Mr. George seems very learned, and witty too, in his way,” says Theo; “and his manners are very fine—you own they are. Madame de Bernstein says they are, and she hath seen the world. Indeed, Mr. George has a lofty way with him, which I don't see in other people; and, in reading books, I find he chooses the fine noble things always, and loves them in spite of all his satire. He certainly is of a satirical turn, but then he is only bitter against mean things and people. No gentleman hath a more tender heart I am sure; and but yesterday, after he had been talking so bitterly as you said, I happened to look out of window, and saw him stop and treat a whole crowd of little children to apples at the stall at the corner. And the day before yesterday, when he was coming and brought me the Moliere, he stopped and gave money to a beggar, and how charmingly, sure, he reads the French! I agree with him though about Tartuffe, though 'tis so wonderfully clever and lively, that a mere villain and hypocrite is a figure too mean to be made the chief of a great piece. Iago, Mr. George said, is near as great a villain; but then he is not the first character of the tragedy, which is Othello, with his noble weakness. But what fine ladies and gentlemen Moliere represents—so Mr. George thinks—and—but oh, I don't dare to repeat the verses after him.”
“But you know them by heart, my dear?” asks Mrs. Lambert.
And Theo replies, “Oh yes, mamma! I know them by... Nonsense!”
I here fancy osculations, palpitations, and exit Miss Theo, blushing like a rose. Why had she stopped in her sentence? Because mamma was looking at her so oddly. And why was mamma looking at her so oddly? And why had she looked after Mr. George when he was going away, and looked for him when he was coming? Ah, and why do cheeks blush, and why do roses bloom? Old Time is still a-flying. Old spring and bud time; old summer and bloom time; old autumn and seed time; old winter time, when the cracking, shivering old tree-tops are bald or covered with snow.
A few minutes after George arrived, Theo would come downstairs with a fluttering heart, may be, and a sweet nosegay in her cheeks, just culled, as it were, fresh in his honour; and I suppose she must have been constantly at that window which commanded the street, and whence she could espy his generosity to the sweep, or his purchases from the apple-woman. But if it was Harry who knocked, she remained in her own apartment with her work or her books, sending her sister to receive the young gentleman, or her brothers when the elder was at home from college, or Doctor Crusius from the Chartreux gave the younger leave to go home. And what good eyes Theo must have had—and often in the evening, too—to note the difference between Harry's yellow hair and George's dark locks—and between their figures, though they were so like that people continually were mistaking one for the other brother. Now it is certain that Theo never mistook one or t'other; and that Hetty, for her part, was not in the least excited, or rude, or pert, when she found the black-haired gentleman in her mother's drawing-room.