unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman,
you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her
studies, - I should introduce a mercenary element into this
conversation, and ask you on what terms - '

I entreated my lady to go no further. My lady saw that I was
troubled, and did me the honour to comply with my request.



EIGHTH CHAPTER



EVERYTHING in mental acquisition that her brother might have been,
if he would, and everything in all gracious charms and admirable
qualities that no one but herself could be, - this was Adelina.

I will not expatiate upon her beauty; I will not expatiate upon her
intelligence, her quickness of perception, her powers of memory,
her sweet consideration, from the first moment, for the slow-paced
tutor who ministered to her wonderful gifts. I was thirty then; I
am over sixty now: she is ever present to me in these hours as she
was in those, bright and beautiful and young, wise and fanciful and
good.

When I discovered that I loved her, how can I say? In the first
day? in the first week? in the first month? Impossible to trace.
If I be (as I am) unable to represent to myself any previous period
of my life as quite separable from her attracting power, how can I