'
There was that in the tone of this short speech which made the
conscientious man to whom it was addressed uneasy. It hinted to
him that he might, without meaning it, turn aside a trustfulness
beneficial to a mis-shapen young mind and perhaps to his own power
of directing and improving it. They were within sight of the
lights in his windows, and he stopped.
'Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down, Mr. Neville,
or you may not have time to finish what you wish to say to me. You
are hasty in thinking that I mean to check you. Quite the
contrary. I invite your confidence.'
'You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since I came
here. I say "ever since," as if I had been here a week. The truth
is, we came here (my sister and I) to quarrel with you, and affront
you, and break away again.'
'Really?' said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for anything else to
say.
'You see, we could not know what you were beforehand, sir; could
we?'
'Clearly not,' said Mr. Crisparkle.
'And having liked no one else with whom we have ever been brought
into contact, we had made up our minds not to like you.'
'Really?' said Mr. Crisparkle again.
'But we do like you, sir, and we see an unmistakable difference
between your house and your reception of us, and anything else we
have ever known. This--and my happening to be alone with you--and
everything around us seeming so quiet and peaceful after Mr.
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