Page:A London Life, The Patagonia, The Liar, Mrs Temperly.djvu/346

 'How do you mean, such an idea?' He had stopped, making the girl stand there before him.

'Well, she thinks so much of it without having ever seen it, or really knowing anything. She appears to have planned out such a great life there.'

'She thinks it's the best place,' Dora rejoined, with the dim smile that always charmed our young man.

'The best place for what?'

'Well, to learn French.' The girl continued to smile.

'Do you mean for her? She'll never learn it; she can't.'

'No; for us. And other things.'

'You know it already. And you know other things,' said Raymond.

'She wants us to know them better—better than any girls know them.'

'I don't know what things you mean,' exclaimed the young man, rather impatiently,

'Well, we shall see,' Dora returned, laughing.

He said nothing for a minute, at the end of which he resumed: 'I hope you won't be offended if I say that it seems curious your mother should have such aspirations—such Napoleonic plans. I mean being just a quiet little lady from California, who has never seen any of the kind of thing that she has in her head.'

'That's just why she wants to see it, I suppose; and I don't know why her being from California should prevent. At any rate she wants us to have the best. Isn't the best taste in Paris?'

'Yes; and the worst.' It made him gloomy when she defended the old lady, and to change the subject he asked: 'Aren't you sorry, this last night,