"An actress!" contemptuously. "It isn"t like any of the actresses I"ve ever met. It"s a silly book."
"Is there any other book you like?"
"Oh yes. I like these." She pa.s.sed her hand lovingly over a row--not an unbroken row, of course--of solid-looking calf-bound volumes, full of old-fashioned line engravings of British scenery, the text containing a discursive account of the places ill.u.s.trated, enlivened by much historical information, apocryphal anecdote, and old-world scandal. "And _Jane Eyre_, and this." "This" was an ill.u.s.trated translation of _Don Quixote_. "Oh, and I like _Clarissa Harlowe_ and that book with the red cover."
"_Ivanhoe?_"
"Oh yes, _Ivanhoe_," she repeated carefully after me. Evidently, as in the case of _Don Quixote_, she had been uncertain how to p.r.o.nounce the t.i.tle.
"And these?" I pointed, one by one, to some modern novels. "Don"t you like any of these?" Already I began to be alarmed at the extent of her reading.
"Yes, I like some of them--pretty well."
"Why do you like _Don Quixote_ and _Ivanhoe_ better?"
She considered for a long time, her blue eyes fixed thoughtfully on the shelves.
"I think I feel more as if they"d really happened."
"But when you were reading _Armadale_, didn"t you feel as if that had happened?"
"Oh yes," with a flash of excitement. "One night I couldn"t sleep, because I thought of it so much."
"Then you thought as much about it as about _Ivanhoe_?"
"Ye-es, but----" A pause. "I thought about _Ivanhoe_ because I wanted to, and I thought about _Armadale_ because I couldn"t help it."
I went on asking her what she had read, and I own that I dare not give the list. But her frank young mind had absorbed no evil, and when I asked her how she liked one famous peccant hero, she answered quite simply--
"I liked him very much--part of the book. And when he did wrong things, I was always wanting to go to him, and tell him not to be so wicked and silly; and then, oh! I was so glad when he reformed and married Sophia."
"But he wasn"t good enough for her."
"Ah, but then he was a man!" Her tone implied "_only_ a man."
"Then you think women are better than men?"
"I think they ought to be."
"Why?"
"Well, men have to work, and women have only to be good."
I was surprised at this answer.
"That is not true always. Your mother is a very good woman, and has had to work very hard indeed."
"But mamma"s an exception; she says so. And she says it"s very hard to work as she does, and be good too."
I could scarcely help laughing, though it was pretty to see how innocently the young girl had taken the querulous speech.
"Well, and then I"m a man, and I don"t have to work."
"Perhaps that"s why you"re so good."
I was so utterly astonished at this nave speech that I had nothing to say. The blood rushed to the girl"s face; she was afraid she had been rude.
"How do you know that I am good, Babiole?" I asked gently.
But this was taxing her penetration too much.
"I don"t know," she answered shyly.
"Why do you think people are better when they don"t work?"
She looked at me, and was rea.s.sured that I was not offended.
"Well, sometimes when mamma has been working very hard--not now, you know; but it used to be like that--she used to say things that hurt me, and made me want to cry. And then I used to look at her poor tired face and say to myself, "It"s the hard work and not mamma that says those things;" and then, of course, I did not mind. And when you have once had to work too hard, you never get over it as you do over other things."
"What other things?"
"Oh--fancies and--and things like that."
"Love troubles?"
She looked up at me with a shy, sideways glance that was full of the most perfectly unconscious witchery.
"Yes, mamma says they"re nonsense."
"She liked nonsense, too, once."
Babiole looked up at me with the delight of a common perception.
"Yes, I"ve often thought that. And then all men are not like----"
She stopped short.
"Papa?"
She shook her head. "One mustn"t say that. One must make allowances for clever people, mamma says."
"You will be clever, too, some day, if you go on reading and thinking about what you read."
"No, I don"t want to be clever; it makes people so selfish. But," with a sigh, "I wish I knew something, and could play and sing and read all those books that are not English."
"Shall I teach you French?"
"Will you? Oh, Mr. Maude!"