s fond of his joke too--a kind of supersubtly
satirical Cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for I am
no Cantab, and the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough
for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful
information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made
use of the choicest language in doing so; and Mrs. Scatcherd was
immensely genteel.

Young Scatcherd became the plague of my life. The worst of it is
that he grew quite civil--seemed to take a liking. His hobby was to
become a good French scholar, and he practised his French--which was
uncommonly good of its English kind--on me. And I am bound to say
that his manners were so agreeable (when he wasn't joking), and he
was such a thoroughly good fellow, that it was impossible to snub
him; besides, he wouldn't have cared if I had.

Once or twice he actually asked me to dine with him at his club, and
I actually did; and actually he with me, at mine! And we spoke
French all through dinner, and I taught him a lot of French
school-boy slang, with which he was delighted. Then he came to see
me in Barge Yard, and I even introduced him to my mother and sister,
who couldn't help being charmed with him. He was fond of the best
music only (he had no ear whatever, and didn't know a note), and
only cared for old pictures--the National Gallery, and all that; and
read no novels but French--Balzac and George Sand--and that only for
practice for he was a singularly pure young man, the purest in all
Cambridge, and in those days I thought him a quite unforgivable
prig.

So Scatcherd was in my thoughts all day and in my dreams all
night--a kind of incubus; and my mother made herself very unhappy
about him, on Leah's account and mine; except that now and then she
would fancy it was Ida he was thinking of. And that would have
pleased my mother very much; and me too!

His mother called on mine, who returned the call--but there was no
invitation for us to dine in Portland Place.

Nothing of all this interrupted for a moment the bosom-friendship
between my sister and Leah; nothing ever altered the genial
sweetness of Leah's manners to me, nor indeed the cordiality of her
parents: Mr. Gibson could not get on without that big guffaw of
mine, at Whatever he looked or said or did; no Scatcherd could laugh
as loudly and as readily as I! But I was very wretched indeed, and
poured out my woes to Barty in long letters of poetical Blaze, and