Philippa,
he behaved well: he bestowed more of his attention 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 p