Her husband, who at that moment was thinking of nothing at all, unless it might be of a worn place which he had detected in the red and white matting at his feet, raised his eyes and looked at her with amiable expectancy. He had long ago learned to acquiesce in all the discoveries respecting himself made by his clever Penelope; he even believed in them after a vague fashion, and was much interested in hearing the latest. But he was so unmitigatedly modest, he took such impersonal views of everything, including himself, that he could listen to her eulogistic divinations by the hour without the least real appropriation of them, as though they had been spoken of some one else. He thought them very wonderful, and he thought her almost a sibyl as she brought them forth; but no glow of self-appreciation followed, this frugal man was not easily made to glow. At present, when his wife had unrolled before him the interesting thoughts which she knew he was thinking (and the rector himself was always of the opinion that he must be thinking them somewhere, in some remote part of his mind which for the moment he had forgotten), she concluded, triumphantly, as follows: "I can always tell what you are thinking of from the expression of your face, Middleton; it's not in the _least_ necessary for you to speak." Which was on the whole, perhaps, fortunate for Middleton. Mrs. Thorne, not having succeeded in obtaining "definite" information from the Rev. Mr. Moore, addressed herself, at length, to Evert Winthrop. Something that was almost a friendship had established itself between these two; Mrs. Thorne found Winthrop very "satisfying," she mentioned that she found him so; she mentioned it to Margaret Harold, with whom, also, she now had an acquaintance which was almost intimate, though in this case the intimacy had been formed and kept up principally by herself. "Yes, extremely satisfying," she repeated; "on every subject of importance he has definite information, or a definite opinion, and these he gives you--when you ask for them--with the utmost clearness. Touch him anywhere," continued the lady, tapping her delicately starched handkerchief (which she held up for the purpose) with her little knuckle, "anywhere, I say," she went on, still tapping, "and--he _resounds_." "Dear me, mamma! is he hollow?" said Garda, while Margaret gave way to laughter. But Mrs. Thorne liked even Margaret's laughs; Margaret too she found "very satisfying," she said. When she spoke to Winthrop about Lucian Spenser, however, she found him perhaps not so satisfying as usual. "I know nothing whatever about Mr. Spenser," he answered. "We are seeing a good deal of him at present," remarked the little mother, in a conversational tone, ignoring his reply. "It's rather better--don't you think so?--to know something--_definite_--of those one is seeing a good deal of?" "That is the way to learn, isn't it--seeing a good deal of them?" Winthrop answered.