Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/148

 have taken upon himself to tell her so. And it was from her we got our education—she was determined we should rise above the common. You might have thought, in her position, that she couldn't go into such things; but she was a rare one for keeping you at your book. She could hold to her idea when my poor father couldn't; and her idea, for us, was that Paul should get learning and should look after me. You can see for yourself that that's what has come about. How he got it is more than I can say, as we never had a penny to pay for it; and of course my mother's cleverness wouldn't have been of much use if he hadn't been clever himself. Well, it was all in the family. Paul was a boy that would learn more from a yellow placard pasted on a wall, or a time-table at a railway station, than many a young fellow from a year at college. That was his only college, poor lad—picking up what he could. Mother was taken when she was still needed, nearly five years ago. There was an epidemic of typhoid, and of course it must pass me over, the goose of a thing—only that I'd have made a poor feast—and just lay that gallant creature on her back. Well, she never again made it ache over her soapsuds, straight and broad as it was. Not having seen her, you wouldn't believe,' said Rose Muniment, in conclusion; 'but I just wanted you to understand that our parents had intellect, at least, to give us.'

Hyacinth listened to this recital with the deepest interest, and without being in the least moved to allow for filial exaggeration; inasmuch as his impression of the brother and sister was such as it would have taken a much more marvellous tale to account for. The very way Rose Muniment sounded the word 'intellect' made him