Yet neither the talk of her Boston cousins, nor the gossip of the Lewinsons
at Florence had left any very clear impression. She remembered well her
first and only sight of Miss Manisty at Boston. The little spinster, so
much a lady, so kind, cheerful and agreeable, had left a very favourable
impression in America. Mr. Manisty had left an impression too--that was
certain--for people talked of him perpetually. Not many persons, however,
had liked him, it seemed. She could remember, as it were, a whole track
of resentments, hostilities, left behind. 'He cares nothing about us'--an
irate Boston lady had said in her hearing--but he will exploit us! He
despises us,--but he'll make plenty of speeches and articles out of
us--you'll see!'

As for Major Lewinson, the husband of Mr. Manisty's first cousin,--she had
been conscious all the time of only half believing what he said, of holding
out against it. He must be so different from Mr. Manisty--the little smart,
quick-tempered soldier--with his contempt for the undisciplined civilian
way of doing things. She did not mean to remember his remarks. For after
all, she had her own ideas of what Mr. Manisty would be like. She had
secretly formed her own opinion. He had been a man of letters and a
traveller before he entered politics. She remembered--nay, she would never
forget--a volume of letters from Palestine, written by him, which had
reached her through the free library of the little town near her home.
She who read slowly, but, when she admired, with a silent and worshipping
ardour, had read this book, had hidden it under her pillow, had been
haunted for days by its pliant sonorous sentences, by the colour, the
perfume, the melancholy of pages that seemed to her dreaming youth
marvellous, inimitable. There were descriptions of a dawn at Bethlehem--a
night wandering at Jerusalem--a reverie by the sea of Galilee--the very
thought of which made her shiver a little, so deeply had they touched her