o, as of one affected by the
curious end things come to.

Fenellan thought of him for a moment or two, that he was a better than
the common kind of lawyer; who doubtless knew as much of the wrong side
of the world as lawyers do, and held his knowledge for the being a man
of the world:--as all do, that have not Alpine heights in the mind to
mount for a look out over their own and the world's pedestrian tracks.
I could spot the lawyer in your composition, my friend, to the exclusion
of the man he mused. But you're right in what you mean to say of
yourself: you're a good fellow, for a lawyer, and together we may manage
somehow to score a point of service to Victor Radnor.

CHAPTER VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS

Nesta read her mother's face when Mrs. Victor entered the drawing-room
to receive the guests. She saw a smooth fair surface, of the kind as
much required by her father's eyes as innocuous air by his nostrils: and
it was honest skin, not the deceptive feminine veiling, to make a dear
man happy over his volcano. Mrs. Victor was to meet the friends with
whom her feelings were at home, among whom her musical gifts gave her
station: they liked her for herself; they helped her to feel at home
with herself and be herself: a rarer condition with us all than is
generally supposed. So she could determine to be cheerful in the
anticipation of an evening that would at least be restful to the outworn
sentinel nerve of her heart, which was perpetually alert and signalling
to the great organ; often colouring the shows and seems of adverse
things for an apeing of reality with too cruel a resemblance. One of the
scraps of practical wisdom gained by hardened sufferers is, to keep from
spying at horizons when they drop into a pleasant dingle. Such is the
comfort of it, that we can dream, and lull our fears, and half think
what we wish: and it is a heavenly truce with the fretful mind divided
from our wishes.

Nesta wondered at her mother's complacent questions concerning this
Lakelands: the house, the county, the kind of people about, the features
of the country. Physically unable herself to be regretful under a burden
three parts enrapturing her, the girl expected her mother to display
a shadowy vexation, with a proud word or two, that would summon
her thrilling sympathy in regard to the fourth part: namely, the
aristocratic iciness of country magnates, who took them up and cast them
off; as they had done, she thought, at Cray