eant what I said.

"I wish she would let us have the benefit of them," said the other
sister, laughing, imagining, of course, that I had spoken satirically.
"She never favours us with any of those lofty ideas."

"No?" said I, affecting astonishment. "Then I must be a favoured
individual. Miss Maud's case is, however, not without parallel. Many of
our greatest minds have been most reserved and unassuming. It is a
characteristic of genius to be retired, though, if I had the abilities
of Miss Maud, I am sure I should be too vain to keep them secret."

This was uttered with a sincerity of manner on my part that checked the
laugh that might have arisen from the sisters, and they were silent. The
mother looked at us both, first at one and then at the other, in
amazement, as if she half-believed me, and scrutinised Maud very
narrowly, as if she fancied she must either be a great fool or very
deep.

In the course of the afternoon the lady of the house took me aside and
asked me if I were in earnest in my eulogium of Maud's intellect.

I replied that I was decidedly.

"What a strange girl it is!" she exclaimed. "She never seems to take any
interest in anything or anybody around her. In fact, we none of us can
make her out. What do you think now is the reason of this strange
reserve towards her own kindred?"

"Well, madam," I answered, "if I must tell you my real opinion, her
nature is an uncommon one, and can only live in the society of other
uncommon natures. Her silence I attribute to an excessive sensitiveness,
which not rarely accompanies genius, and which proceeds from a
consciousness that she is not easily understood."

"But surely, Mr. Blackdeed," said the lady of the house, "one would
expect that she would open her heart to her own flesh and blood, rather
than to a comparative stranger like yourself."

"The idiosyncrasies of temperament, madam," said I, "are difficult to
explain. The mere accident of relationship will not necessarily give a
similarity of disposition. Occasionally we do find one in a family
totally unlike the rest, and therefore misunderstood by them. The reason
why Miss Maud takes no interest in what is conventionally termed society
is that she feels above it. She pants, as it were, for a higher
atmosphere. For this reason she prefers lone rambles and the
contemplation of beautiful nature, with no companion save her own
thoughts, to the artificial society of the ball-room, with its insipid
con