t apparently.

What was said, I cannot remember; I do not think one of us could. But an
hour slipped away, and there was no gap in the conversation.

With curious interest, and a survey I strove to make impartial, I
compared Lady Ellinor with my mother; and I comprehended the fascination
which the high-born lady must, in their earlier youth, have exercised
over both brothers, so dis-similar to each other. For charm was the
characteristic of Lady Ellinor,--a charm indefinable. It was not the
mere grace of refined breeding, though that went a great way, it was
a charm that seemed to spring from natural sympathy. Whomsoever she
addressed, that person appeared for the moment to engage all her
attention, to interest her whole mind. She had a gift of conversation
very peculiar. She made what she said like a continuation of what was
said to her. She seemed as if she had entered into your thoughts, and
talked them aloud. Her mind was evidently cultivated with great care,
but she was perfectly void of pedantry. A hint, an allusion, sufficed
to show how much she knew, to one well instructed, without mortifying
or perplexing the ignorant. Yes, there probably was the only woman my
father had ever met who could be the companion to his mind, walk through
the garden of knowledge by his side, and trim the flowers while he
cleared the vistas. On the other hand, there was an inborn nobility in
Lady Ellinor's sentiments that must have struck the most susceptible
chord in Roland's nature, and the sentiments took eloquence from the
look, the mien, the sweet dignity of the very turn of the head. Yes, she
must have been a fitting Oriana to a young Amadis. It was not hard to
see that Lady Ellinor was ambitious, that she had a love of fame for
fame itself, that she was proud, that she set value (and that morbidly)
on the world's opinion. This was perceptible when she spoke of her
husband, even of her daughter. It seemed to me as if she valued the
intellect of the one, the beauty of the other, by the gauge of the
social distinction it conferred. She took measure of the gift as I was
taught at Dr. Herman's to take measure of the height of a tower,--by the
length of the shadow it cast upon the ground.

My dear father, with such a wife you would never have lived eighteen
years shivering on the edge of a Great Book!

My dear uncle, with such a wife you would never have been contented with
a cork leg and a Waterloo medal!

And I understand why M