His fears were further reduced by Beatrix's treatment of him during that day, and when they went up to London together the next morning. She was very clinging and affectionate, and very amusing too. Surely no girl who was not completely heart-whole would have been so light-hearted and merry over all the little experiences of life that her entry into the world was bringing her! And she hardly mentioned Lassigny's name at all, though there was scarcely one of the numerous acquaintances she had made whom she had not something to say about, and generally to make fun of. Her fun was never ill-natured, but everybody and everything presented itself to her in the light of her gay humour, and was presented to her audience in that light. She was far the wittiest of the three of them, and her bright audacities enchanted her father when she was in the mood for them, when her eyes danced and sparkled with mischief and her laugh rang out like music. He had never been able to think of Beatrix as quite grown up; she was more of a child to him even than Barbara, whom nobody could have thought of as grown up, or anywhere near it. It dismayed him to think of losing her, even if it should be to a man of whom he should fully approve. But, filling his eyes as she did with a sense of the sweet perfection of girlhood, he was wondering if it were possible that she of all the girls who would be married or affianced before the season was over would escape, even if there was nothing to be feared as to the particular attachment that had been put into his mind. But though it might be impossible to think that she would tread her first gay measure without having hearts laid at her feet, it was quite possible to think of her as dancing through it without picking any of them up. In fact, she as good as told him that that was her attitude towards all the admiration she was receiving when she went up to fish with him in the evening, and was as charmingly companionable and confidential to him as even he could wish her to be.