“Ah so am I,” said Nanda. “I assure you that in spite of what you say I want to make no mistakes either. I’ve seen a great many--though you mightn’t think it,” she persisted; “I really know what they may be. Do you like ME?” she brought forth. But even on this she spared him too; a look appeared to have been enough for her. “How can you say, of course, already?--if you can’t say for Mr. Van. I mean as you’ve seen him so much. When he asked me just now if I liked YOU I told him it was too soon. But it isn’t now; you see it goes fast. I DO like you.” She gave him no time to acknowledge this tribute, but--as if it were a matter of course--tried him quickly with something else. “Can you say if you like mother?” He could meet it pretty well now. “There are immense reasons why I should.” “Yes--I know about them, as I mentioned: mother has told me.” But what she had to put to him kept up his surprise. “Have reasons anything to do with it? I don’t believe you like her!” she exclaimed. “SHE doesn’t think so,” she added. The old man’s face at last, partly bewildered, partly reassured, showed something finer still in the effect she produced. “Into what mysteries you plunge!” “Oh we do; that’s what every one says of us. We discuss everything and every one--we’re always discussing each other. I think we must be rather celebrated for it, and it’s a kind of trick--isn’t it?--that’s catching. But don’t you think it’s the most interesting sort of talk? Mother says we haven’t any prejudices. YOU have, probably, quantities--and beautiful ones: so perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you. But you’ll find out for yourself.” “Yes--I’m rather slow; but I generally end by finding out. And I’ve got, thank heaven,” said Mr. Longdon, “quite prejudices enough.” “Then I hope you’ll tell me some of them,” Nanda replied in a tone evidently marking how much he pleased her. “Ah you must do as _I_ do--you must find out for yourself. Your resemblance to your grandmother is quite prodigious,” he immediately added. “That’s what I wish you’d tell me about--your recollection of her and your wonderful feeling about her. Mother has told me things, but that I should have something straight from you is exactly what she also wants. My grandmother must have been awfully nice,” the girl rambled on, “and I somehow don’t see myself at all as the same sort of person.” “Oh I don’t say you’re in the least the same sort: all I allude to,” Mr. Longdon returned, “is the miracle of the physical heredity. Nothing could be less like her than your manner and your talk.” Nanda looked at him with all her honesty. “They’re not so good, you must think.” He hung fire an instant, but was as honest as she. “You’re separated from her by a gulf--and not only of time. Personally, you see, you breathe a different air.” She thought--she quite took it in. “Of course. And you breathe the same--the same old one, I mean, as my grandmother.”