Surely as the world of night goes round, with clusters of stars thronging after one another, and loose wafts of vapour ever ready to flout them, and the spirit of dreams flitting over us, without any guidance of mind or matter, so surely will the dawn of our own little days bring new things to us, which we cannot understand in the clearest light of our wits beneath the sun. And of this I must give an instance now, sorry as I am to do it. My sister Grace (the very sweetest girl, always excepting one of course, that ever tied a hat-string), what did she do but take a little touch of Cupid, without knowing anything about it? She denied it strongly, and hotly even; as a Swiss hotel-keeper abjures scarlet fever. But I insisted the more upon it; because it was quite picturesque to see Grace Cranleigh in a passion. I found it worth while to go as near the brink of a downright lie as a truthful man can step, without falling over, in order to rouse and work up this dear girl, till she actually longed to stamp her feet. There was a vivid element--the father calls it gold, and the brother calls it carrots--in her most abundant locks; and if you could only hit upon a gentle strain of chaff, which must have a little grain left in it, and pour it upon her with due gravity, she became a charming sight to a philosopher. Her affection was so deep, and her character so placid, that a sharp word or two, or a knowing little sneer, produced nothing better than a look of wonder, or sometimes a smile that abased us. She made no pretence to any varied knowledge, or power to settle moot questions,--though she would have known where Daghestan was,--and as for contradiction, her tongue was never made for it, though her mind must have whispered to her often enough that brother George's words outran his wits. In spite of all this, it was possible to put her in a very noble passion, when one had the time to spare. And it certainly was worth while for the beauty of the sight, as well as for increase of perception concerning the turns of the feminine mind. The first sign of success for the most part was a deepening of the delicate and limpid tint that flitted on the soft curves of cheek; and then if one went on with calm aggravation, that terrible portent, lightning in the blue sky of the eyes, and a seam (as of the finest needlework of an angel who hems her own handkerchief), just perceptible and no more, in the white simplicity of forehead. And after that (if you had the heart to go on), no tears, none of that opening of the dikes, which the Low Country quenches an invasion with, but a genuine burst of righteous wrath--queenly figure, and all that sort of thing, such as Britannia alone can achieve, when unfeeling nations have poked fun at her too long.