ore or less
humorously observed.

"Oh it isn't, thank goodness, that she's in love with you. It's not, as
I told you at first, the sort of thing for you to fear."

He had spoken with cheer, but it appeared to drop before this
reassurance, as if the latter overdid his alarm, and that should be
corrected. "Oh, my dear, I've always thought of her as a little girl."

"Ah, she's not a little girl," said the Princess.

"Then I'll write to her as a brilliant woman."

"It's exactly what she is."

Mr. Verver had got up as he spoke, and for a little, before retracing
their steps, they stood looking at each other as if they had really
arranged something. They had come out together for themselves, but it
had produced something more. What it had produced was in fact expressed
by the words with which he met his companion's last emphasis. "Well, she
has a famous friend in you, Princess."

Maggie took this in--it was too plain for a protest. "Do you know what
I'm really thinking of?" she asked.

He wondered, with her eyes on him--eyes of contentment at her freedom
now to talk; and he wasn't such a fool, he presently showed, as not,
suddenly, to arrive at it. "Why, of your finding her at last yourself a
husband."

"Good for YOU!" Maggie smiled. "But it will take," she added, "some
looking."

"Then let me look right here with you," her father said as they walked
on.

XI

Mrs. Assingham and the Colonel, quitting Fawns before the end of
September, had come back later on; and now, a couple of weeks after,
they were again interrupting their stay, but this time with the question
of their return left to depend, on matters that were rather hinted at
than importunately named. The Lutches and Mrs. Rance had also, by the
action of Charlotte Stant's arrival, ceased to linger, though with hopes
and theories, as to some promptitude of renewal, of which the lively
expression, awakening the echoes of the great stone-paved, oak-panelled,
galleried hall that was not the least interesting feature of the place,
seemed still a property of the air. It was on this admirable spot that,
before her October afternoon had waned, Fanny Assingham spent with her
easy host a few moments which led to her announcing her own and her
husband's final secession, at the same time as they tempted her to point
the moral of all vain reverberations. The double door of the house
stood open to an effect of hazy autumn sunshine, a wo