ies, humoured his fancies, even
when she did not understand them, and read his verses as she would a
foreign language which she was determined to master.

Her culture, according to Waldershare, was to be carried on chiefly by
conversations. She was not to read, or at least not to read much, until
her taste was formed and she had acquired the due share of previous
knowledge necessary to profitable study. As Waldershare was eloquent,
brilliant, and witty, Imogene listened to him with wondering interest
and amusement, even when she found some difficulty in following him; but
her apprehension was so quick and her tact so fine, that her progress,
though she was almost unconscious of it, was remarkable. Sometimes in
the evening, while the others were smoking together or playing whist,
Waldershare and Imogene, sitting apart, were engaged in apparently
the most interesting converse. It was impossible not to observe the
animation and earnestness of Waldershare, and the great attention with
which his companion responded to his representations. Yet all this time
he was only giving her a lecture on Madame de Sevigne.

Waldershare used to take Imogene to the National Gallery and Hampton
Court, and other delightful scenes of popular education, but of late
Mrs. Rodney had informed her sister that she was no longer young enough
to permit these expeditions. Imogene accepted the announcement without
a murmur, but it occasioned Waldershare several sonnets of heartrending
remonstrance. Imogene continued, however, to make his breakfast, and
kept his Parliamentary papers in order, which he never could manage,
but the mysteries of which Imogene mastered with feminine quickness and
precision. Whenever Waldershare was away he always maintained a constant
correspondence with Imogene. In this he communicated everything to her
without the slightest reserve; describing everything he saw, almost
everything he heard, pages teeming with anecdotes of a world of which
she could know nothing--the secrets of courts and coteries, memoirs of
princes and ministers, of dandies and dames of fashion. "If anything
happens to me," Waldershare would say to Imogene, "this correspondence
may be worth thousands to you, and when it is published it will connect
your name with mine, and assist my grand idea of your becoming 'a great
woman.'"

"But I do not know Mr. Vigo," whispered Endymion to Imogene.

"But you have met him here, and you went together to Epsom. It i