“Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was knowing to hold forth, in the humble-virtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the time, ‘My good fellow, you are overdoing this!’ ”

“It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that man.”

“My dear Louisa⁠—as Tom says.” Which he never did say. “You know no good of the fellow?”

“No, certainly.”

“Nor of any other such person?”

“How can I,” she returned, with more of her first manner on her than he had lately seen, “when I know nothing of them, men or women?”