ther-in-law frankly counselled was that the reasonable, the
really too reasonable, pair should, while they were about it, take three
or four weeks of Paris as well--Paris being always, for Mr. Verver, in
any stress of sympathy, a suggestion that rose of itself to the lips.
If they would only do that, on their way back, or however they preferred
it, Charlotte and he would go over to join them there for a small
look--though even then, assuredly, as he had it at heart to add, not in
the least because they should have found themselves bored at being left
together. The fate of this last proposal indeed was that it reeled,
for the moment, under an assault of destructive analysis from Maggie,
who--having, as she granted, to choose between being an unnatural
daughter or an unnatural mother, and "electing" for the former--wanted
to know what would become of the Principino if the house were cleared of
everyone but the servants. Her question had fairly resounded, but it had
afterwards, like many of her questions, dropped still more effectively
than it had risen: the highest moral of the matter being, before the
couple took their departure, that Mrs. Noble and Dr. Brady must mount
unchallenged guard over the august little crib. If she hadn't supremely
believed in the majestic value of the nurse, whose experience was in
itself the amplest of pillows, just as her attention was a spreading
canopy from which precedent and reminiscence dropped as thickly as
parted curtains--if she hadn't been able to rest in this confidence she
would fairly have sent her husband on his journey without her. In the
same manner, if the sweetest--for it was so she qualified him--of
little country doctors hadn't proved to her his wisdom by rendering
irresistible, especially on rainy days and in direct proportion to
the frequency of his calls, adapted to all weathers, that she should
converse with him for hours over causes and consequences, over what he
had found to answer with his little five at home, she would have
drawn scant support from the presence of a mere grandfather and a mere
brilliant friend. These persons, accordingly, her own predominance
having thus, for the time, given way, could carry with a certain ease,
and above all with mutual aid, their consciousness of a charge. So far
as their office weighed they could help each other with it--which was
in fact to become, as Mrs. Noble herself loomed larger for them, not a
little of a relief and a divers