gressive, always suggestive talk. Mr. Osmond's talk was not injured by
the indication of an eagerness to shine; Isabel found no difficulty
in believing that a person was sincere who had so many of the signs of
strong conviction--as for instance an explicit and graceful appreciation
of anything that might be said on his own side of the question, said
perhaps by Miss Archer in especial. What continued to please this young
woman was that while he talked so for amusement he didn't talk, as she
had heard people, for "effect." He uttered his ideas as if, odd as
they often appeared, he were used to them and had lived with them; old
polished knobs and heads and handles, of precious substance, that could
be fitted if necessary to new walking-sticks--not switches plucked in
destitution from the common tree and then too elegantly waved about. One
day he brought his small daughter with him, and she rejoiced to renew
acquaintance with the child, who, as she presented her forehead to be
kissed by every member of the circle, reminded her vividly of an ingenue
in a French play. Isabel had never seen a little person of this pattern;
American girls were very different--different too were the maidens of
England. Pansy was so formed and finished for her tiny place in the
world, and yet in imagination, as one could see, so innocent and
infantine. She sat on the sofa by Isabel; she wore a small grenadine
mantle and a pair of the useful gloves that Madame Merle had given
her--little grey gloves with a single button. She was like a sheet of
blank paper--the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that
so fair and smooth a page would be covered with an edifying text.

The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was
quite another affair. She was by no means a blank sheet; she had been
written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs. Touchett, who felt by no
means honoured by her visit, pronounced that a number of unmistakeable
blots were to be seen upon her surface. The Countess gave rise indeed to
some discussion between the mistress of the house and the visitor from
Rome, in which Madame Merle (who was not such a fool as to irritate
people by always agreeing with them) availed herself felicitously enough
of that large licence of dissent which her hostess permitted as freely
as she practised it. Mrs. Touchett had declared it a piece of audacity
that this highly compromised character should have presented herself at
su