ou all his bibelots and
gives you a lecture on each," said the Countess Gemini.

"I'm not afraid of that; but if I'm tired I shall at least have learned
something."

"Very little, I suspect. But my sister's dreadfully afraid of learning
anything," said Mr. Osmond.

"Oh, I confess to that; I don't want to know anything more--I know too
much already. The more you know the more unhappy you are."

"You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished
her education," Madame Merle interposed with a smile. "Pansy will
never know any harm," said the child's father. "Pansy's a little
convent-flower."

"Oh, the convents, the convents!" cried the Countess with a flutter of
her ruffles. "Speak to me of the convents! You may learn anything there;
I'm a convent-flower myself. I don't pretend to be good, but the nuns
do. Don't you see what I mean?" she went on, appealing to Isabel.

Isabel was not sure she saw, and she answered that she was very bad
at following arguments. The Countess then declared that she herself
detested arguments, but that this was her brother's taste--he would
always discuss. "For me," she said, "one should like a thing or one
shouldn't; one can't like everything, of course. But one shouldn't
attempt to reason it out--you never know where it may lead you. There
are some very good feelings that may have bad reasons, don't you know?
And then there are very bad feelings, sometimes, that have good reasons.
Don't you see what I mean? I don't care anything about reasons, but I
know what I like."

"Ah, that's the great thing," said Isabel, smiling and suspecting that
her acquaintance with this lightly flitting personage would not lead to
intellectual repose. If the Countess objected to argument Isabel at this
moment had as little taste for it, and she put out her hand to Pansy
with a pleasant sense that such a gesture committed her to nothing that
would admit of a divergence of views. Gilbert Osmond apparently took a
rather hopeless view of his sister's tone; he turned the conversation to
another topic. He presently sat down on the other side of his daughter,
who had shyly brushed Isabel's fingers with her own; but he ended by
drawing her out of her chair and making her stand between his knees,
leaning against him while he passed his arm round her slimness. The
child fixed her eyes on Isabel with a still, disinterested gaze which
seemed void of an intention, yet conscious of an attraction. Mr.