"I never care for female beauty that does not display itself in action,--either speaking, moving, laughing, or perhaps only frowning," said Hampstead enthusiastically. "I was talking the other day to a sort of cousin of mine who has a reputation of being a remarkably handsome young woman. She had ever so much to say to me, and when I was in company with her a page in buttons kept coming into the room. He was a round-faced, high-cheeked, ugly boy; but I thought him so much better-looking than my cousin, because he opened his mouth when he spoke, and showed his eagerness by his eyes." "Your cousin is complimented." "She has made her market, so it does not signify. The Greeks seem to me to have regarded form without expression. I doubt whether Phidias would have done much with your Miss Fay. To my eyes she is the perfection of loveliness." "She is not my Miss Fay. She is my mother's friend." "Your mother is lucky. A woman without vanity, without jealousy, without envy--" "Where will you find one?" "Your mother. Such a woman as that can, I think, enjoy feminine loveliness almost as much as a man." "I have often heard my mother speak of Marion's good qualities, but not much of her loveliness. To me her great charm is her voice. She speaks musically." "As one can fancy Melpomene did. Does she come here often?" "Every day, I fancy;--but not generally when I am here. Not but what she and I are great friends. She will sometimes go with me into town on a Thursday morning, on her way to the meeting house." "Lucky fellow!" Roden shrugged his shoulders as though conscious that any luck of that kind must come to him from another quarter, if it came at all. "What does she talk about?" "Religion generally." "And you?" "Anything else, if she will allow me. She would wish to convert me. I am not at all anxious to convert her, really believing that she is very well as she is." "Yes," said Hampstead; "that is the worst of what we are apt to call advanced opinions. With all my self-assurance I never dare to tamper with the religious opinions of those who are younger or weaker than myself. I feel that they at any rate are safe if they are in earnest. No one, I think, has ever been put in danger by believing Christ to be a God." "They none of them know what they believe," said Roden; "nor do you or I. Men talk of belief as though it were a settled thing. It is so but with few; and that only with those who lack imagination. What sort of a time did you have down at Castle Hautboy?" "Oh,--I don't know,--pretty well. Everybody was very kind, and my sister likes it. The scenery is lovely. You can look up a long reach of Ulleswater from the Castle terrace, and there is Helvellyn in the distance. The house was full of people,--who despised me more than I did them." "Which is saying a great deal, perhaps."