most, over there, is all I should have found
possible," Madame Munster remarked to her brother, after they had
taken possession of the little white house. "It would have been too
intime--decidedly too intime. Breakfast, dinner, and tea en famille--it
would have been the end of the world if I could have reached the third
day." And she made the same observation to her maid Augustine, an
intelligent person, who enjoyed a liberal share of her confidence. Felix
declared that he would willingly spend his life in the bosom of the
Wentworth family; that they were the kindest, simplest, most amiable
people in the world, and that he had taken a prodigious fancy to them
all. The Baroness quite agreed with him that they were simple and kind;
they were thoroughly nice people, and she liked them extremely. The
girls were perfect ladies; it was impossible to be more of a lady than
Charlotte Wentworth, in spite of her little village air. "But as for
thinking them the best company in the world," said the Baroness, "that
is another thing; and as for wishing to live porte-a-porte with
them, I should as soon think of wishing myself back in the convent
again, to wear a bombazine apron and sleep in a dormitory." And yet the
Baroness was in high good humor; she had been very much pleased. With
her lively perception and her refined imagination, she was capable of
enjoying anything that was characteristic, anything that was good of
its kind. The Wentworth household seemed to her very perfect in
its kind--wonderfully peaceful and unspotted; pervaded by a sort of
dove-colored freshness that had all the quietude and benevolence of what
she deemed to be Quakerism, and yet seemed to be founded upon a degree
of material abundance for which, in certain matters of detail, one
might have looked in vain at the frugal little court of
Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. She perceived immediately that her American
relatives thought and talked very little about money; and this of itself
made an impression upon Eugenia's imagination. She perceived at the same
time that if Charlotte or Gertrude should ask their father for a very
considerable sum he would at once place it in their hands; and this made
a still greater impression. The greatest impression of all, perhaps,
was made by another rapid induction. The Baroness had an immediate
conviction that Robert Acton would put his hand into his pocket every
day in the week if that rattle-pated little sister of his should bi