Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/22

Rh What could any man ever offer me that would he better?"

Lord Clairvaux was obliged to grumble that he did not know what any man could.

"Unless you were to care for the man," he muttered shamefacedly.

"Oh!—h!—h!" said the Lady Hilda, with the most prolonged delicate and eloquent interjection of amazed scorn.

Lord Clairvaux felt that he had been as silly and rustic as if he were a ploughboy. He was an affectionate creature himself, in character very like a Newfoundland dog, and had none of his sister's talent and temperament; he loved her dearly, but he was always a little afraid of her.

"Hilda don't say much to you, but she just gives you a look; and don't you sink into your shoes!" he said once to a friend.

He stood six feet three without the shoes, to whose level her single glance could so pathetically reduce him.

But except before herself, Lord Clairvaux, in his shoes or out of them, was the bravest and frankest gentleman that ever walked the