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170 170 THE PORTKAIT OF A LADY. letter the day one gets it, and that when one comes to stay with her one doesn't bring too much luggage, and is careful not to be taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue ; it's a blessing to be able to reduce it to its elements." Madame Merle's conversation, it will be perceived, was enriched with bold, free touches of criticism, which, even when they had a restrictive effect, never struck Isabel as ill-natured. It never occurred to the girl, for instance, that Mrs. Touchett's accom- plished guest was abusing her ; and this for very good reasons. In the first place Isabel agreed with her ; in the second Madame Merle implied that there was a great deal more to say ; and in the third, to speak to one without ceremony of one's near relations was an agreeable sign of intimacy. These signs of intimacy multiplied as the days elapsed, and there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion's prefer- ence for making* Miss Archer herself a topic. Though she alluded frequently to the incidents of her own life, she never lingered upon them ; she was as little of an egotist as she was of a gossip. " I am old, and stale, and faded," she said more than once ; " I am of no more interest 'than last week's newspaper. You are young and fresh, and of to-day; you have* the great thing y<*u have actuality. I once had it we all have it for an hour. You, however, will have it for longer. Let us talk about you, then, you can say nothing that I shall not care to hear. It is a sign that I am growing old that I like to talk with younger people. I think it's a very pretty compensation. If we can't have youth within us we can have it outside of us, and I really think we see it and feel it better that way. Of course we must be in sympathy with it that I shall always be. I don't know that I shall ever be ill-natured with old people I hope not ; there are certainly some old people that I adore. But I shall never be ill-natured with the young ; they touch me too much. I give you carte blanche, then ; you can even be impertinent if you like ; I shall let it pass. I talk as if I were a hundred years old, you say 1 ? Well, I am, if you please ; I was born before the French Revolution. Ah, my dear je viens de loin; I belong to the old world. Eut it is not of that I wish to talk; I wish to talk about the new. You must tell me more about America; you never tell me enough. Here I have been since I was brought here as a helpless child, and it is ridiculous, or rather it's scandalous, how little I know about the land of my birth. There are a great many of us like that, over here ; and I must say I think we are a wretched set of people. You should live in your own country ; whatever