to sigh, tapping her left side familiarly, "And all overclouded by
_this_, you know; all at the mercy of a weakness--!" Pemberton gathered
that the weakness was in the region of the heart. He had known the poor
child was not robust: this was the basis on which he had been invited to
treat, through an English lady, an Oxford acquaintance, then at Nice, who
happened to know both his needs and those of the amiable American family
looking out for something really superior in the way of a resident tutor.

The young man's impression of his prospective pupil, who had come into
the room as if to see for himself the moment Pemberton was admitted, was
not quite the soft solicitation the visitor had taken for granted. Morgan
Moreen was somehow sickly without being "delicate," and that he looked
intelligent--it is true Pemberton wouldn't have enjoyed his being
stupid--only added to the suggestion that, as with his big mouth and big
ears he really couldn't be called pretty, he might too utterly fail to
please. Pemberton was modest, was even timid; and the chance that his
small scholar might prove cleverer than himself had quite figured, to his
anxiety, among the dangers of an untried experiment. He reflected,
however, that these were risks one had to run when one accepted a
position, as it was called, in a private family; when as yet one's
university honours had, pecuniarily speaking, remained barren. At any
rate when Mrs. Moreen got up as to intimate that, since it was understood
he would enter upon his duties within the week she would let him off now,
he succeeded, in spite of the presence of the child, in squeezing out a
phrase about the rate of payment. It was not the fault of the conscious
smile which seemed a reference to the lady's expensive identity, it was
not the fault of this demonstration, which had, in a sort, both vagueness
and point, if the allusion didn't sound rather vulgar. This was exactly
because she became still more gracious to reply: "Oh I can assure you
that all that will be quite regular."