Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/106

 goose, if she couldn't dress a fat Frenchwoman. This lady confided to the fiddler that she thought Miss Pynsent exceedingly comme il faut—dans le genre anglais; and neither Amanda nor Hyacinth had ever passed an evening of such splendour. It took its place, in the boy's recollection, beside the visit, years before, to Mr. Vetch's theatre. He drank in the conversation which passed between that gentleman and M. Poupin. M. Poupin showed him his bindings, the most precious trophies of his skill, and it seemed to Hyacinth that on the spot he was initiated into a fascinating mystery. He handled the books for half an hour; Anastasius Vetch watched him, without giving any particular sign. When, therefore, presently, Miss Pynsent consulted her friend for the twentieth time on the subject of Hyacinth's 'career'—she spoke as if she were hesitating between the diplomatic service, the army and the church—the fiddler replied with promptitude, 'Make him, if you can, what the Frenchman is.' At the mention of a handicraft poor Pinnie always looked very solemn, yet when Mr. Vetch asked her if she were prepared to send the boy to one of the universities, or to pay the premium required for his being articled to a solicitor, or to make favour, on his behalf, with a bank-director or a mighty merchant, or, yet again, to provide him with a comfortable home while he should woo the muse and await the laurels of literature—when, I say, he put the case before her with this cynical, ironical lucidity, she only sighed and said that all the money she had ever saved was ninety pounds, which, as he knew perfectly well, it would cost her his acquaintance for evermore to take out of the bank. The fiddler had, in fact, declared to her in a manner not to be mistaken that if she