ntion on Beatrice, nearer Leo's age, in talk about games
and story-books and battles; nothing that he did when the girls were
present betrayed the strutting plumed cock, bent to attract, or the
sickly reptile, thirsty for a prize above him and meaning to have it,
like Satan in Eden. Still, of course, he could not help his being a
handsome fellow, having a vivid face and eyes transparent, whether blue
or green, to flame of the brain exciting them; and that becomes a picture
in the dream of girls--a picture creating the dream often. And Philippa
had asked her grandmother, very ingenuously indeed, with a most natural
candour, why "they saw so little of Leo's hero." Simple female child!

However, there was no harm done, and Lady Charlotte liked him. She liked
few. Forthwith, in the manner of her particular head, a restless head,
she fell to work at combinations.

Thus:--he is a nice young fellow, well bred, no cringing courtier,
accomplished, good at classics, fairish at mathematics, a scholar in
French, German, Italian, with a shrewd knowledge of the different races,
and with sound English sentiment too, and the capacity for writing good
English, although in those views of his the ideas are unusual, therefore
un-English, profoundly so. But his intentions are patriotic; they would
not displease Lord Ormont. He has a worship of Lord Ormont. All we can
say on behalf of an untried inferior is in that,--only the valiant admire
devotedly. Well, he can write grammatical, readable English. What if Lord
Ormont were to take him as a secretary while the Memoirs are in hand? He
might help to chasten the sentences laughed at by those newspapers. Or he
might, being a terrible critic of writing, and funny about styles, put it
in an absurd light, that would cause the Memoirs to be tossed into the
fire. He was made for the post of secretary! The young man's good looks
would be out of harm's way then. If any sprig of womankind come across
him there, it will, at any rate, not be a girl. Women must take care of
themselves. Only the fools among them run to mischief in the case of a
handsome young fellow.

Supposing a certain woman to be one of the fools? Lady Charlotte merely
suggested it in the dashing current of her meditations--did not strike it
out interrogatively. The woman would be a fine specimen among her class;
that was all. For the favourite of Lord Ormont to stoop from her place
beside him--ay, but women do; heroes have had the woe