ses' mouths...." And poor Ashburnham would blush and mutter and
would say: "That's all right. Don't you bother about me."

I fancy his wife's irony did quite alarm poor Teddy; because one evening
he asked me seriously in the smoking-room if I thought that having too
much in one's head would really interfere with one's quickness in polo.
It struck him, he said, that brainy Johnnies generally were rather muffs
when they got on to four legs. I reassured him as best I could. I told
him that he wasn't likely to take in enough to upset his balance. At
that time the Captain was quite evidently enjoying being educated by
Florence. She used to do it about three or four times a week under
the approving eyes of Leonora and myself. It wasn't, you understand,
systematic. It came in bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of the
dark places of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than she
had found it. She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain the form
of a symphony, humming the first and second subjects to him, and so on;
she would explain to him the difference between Arminians and Erastians;
or she would give him a short lecture on the early history of the United
States. And it was done in a way well calculated to arrest a young
attention. Did you ever read Mrs Markham? Well, it was like that... .

But our excursion to M---- was a much larger, a much more full dress
affair. You see, in the archives of the Schloss in that city there was
a document which Florence thought would finally give her the chance to
educate the whole lot of us together. It really worried poor Florence
that she couldn't, in matters of culture, ever get the better of
Leonora. I don't know what Leonora knew or what she didn't know,
but certainly she was always there whenever Florence brought out any
information. And she gave, somehow, the impression of really knowing
what poor Florence gave the impression of having only picked up. I can't
exactly define it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seen
a retriever dashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two running
over a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever
makes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn't
there. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; but
there it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretched
muzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora in matters of culture.

But on this occasion I knew th