not agreeable to look at but with some appearance of good looks too who attracted my attention perhaps because i had not expected to see her perhaps because i found myself sitting opposite to her perhaps op david because of something really remarkable in her she had black hair and eager black eyes and was thin and had a upon her lip it was an old � i should rather call it for it was not and had healed years ago � which had once cut through her mouth downward towards the chin but was now barely visible across the table except above and on her upper lip the shape of which it had altered i concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age and that she wished to be married she was a little � like a house � with having been so long to let yet had as i have said an appearance of good looks her seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her which found a vent in her gaunt eyes she was introduced as miss and both and his mother called her i found that she lived there and had been for a long time mrs s companion it appeared to me that she never said anything she wanted to say outright but hinted it and made a great deal more of it by this practice for example when mrs observed more in jest than earnest that she feared her son led but a wild life at college miss put in thus oh really you know how ignorant i am and that i only ask for information but isn t it always so i thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be � eh it is education for a very grave profession if you mean that mrs answered with some coldness oh yes that s very true returned miss but isn t it though � i want to be put right if i am wrong � isn t it really what said mrs oh you mean it s not returned miss well i m very glad to hear it now i know what to do that s the advantage of asking i shall never allow people to talk before me about and and so forth in connection with that life any more and you will be right said mrs my son s is a conscientious gentleman and if i had not reliance on my son i should have reliance on him should you said miss dear me conscientious is he conscientious now yes i am convinced of it said mrs how very nice exclaimed miss what a comfort conscientious then he s not � but of course he can t be if he s really conscientious well i shall be quite happy in my opinion of him from this time you can t think how it him in my opinion to know for certain that he s really conscientious her own views of every question and her of everything that was said to which she was opposed miss in the same way sometimes i could not conceal from myself with great power though in contradiction even of an instance happened before dinner was done mrs speaking to me about my intention of going down into i said at hazard how glad i should be if would only go there with me and explaining to him that i was going to see my old nurse and mr s family i reminded him of the whom he had seen at school the personal history and experience oh that bluff fellow said he had a son with him hadn t he no that was his nephew i replied whom he adopted though as a son he has a very pretty little niece too whom he adopted as a daughter in short his house or rather his boat for he lives in one on dry land is full of people who are objects of his generosity and kindness you would be delighted to see that household should i said well i think i should i must see what can be done it would be worth a journey � not to mention the pleasure of a journey with you � to see that sort of people together and to make one of em my heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure but it was in reference to the tone in which he had spoken of that sort of people that miss whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us now broke in again oh but really do tell me are they though she said are they what and are who what said that sort of people � are they really animals and and beings of another order i want to know so much why there s a pretty wide separation between them and us said with indifference they are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are their delicacy is not to be shocked or hurt very easily they are wonderfully virtuous i dare say � some people contend for that at least and i am sure i don t want to contradict them � but they have not very line natures and they may be thankful that like their coarse rough skins they are not easily wounded said miss well i don t know now when i have been better pleased than to hear that it s so it s such a delight to know that when they suffer they don t feel sometimes i have been quite uneasy for that sort of people but now i shall just dismiss the idea of them altogether live and learn i had my doubts i confess but now they re cleared up i didn t know and now i do know and that shows the advantage of asking � don t it i believed that 