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224 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. himself, had invited her, a young lady not lavish of her favours, to come to his house. Now that she had done so, the burden of the entertainment rested naturally upon himself. Isabel was not rendered less observant, and for the moment, I am afraid, she was not rendered more indulgent, by perceiving that Mr. Osmond carried his burden less complacently than might have been expected. " What a fool I was to have invited these women here ! " she could fancy his exclaiming to himself. " You will be tired when you go home, if he shows you all his bibelots and gives you a lecture on each," said the Countess Gemini. " I am not afraid of that ; but if I am tired, I shall at least have learned something." " Very little, I suspect. But my sister is dreadfully afraid of learning anything," said Mr. Osmond. " Oh, I confess to that ; I don't want to know anything more I know too much already. The more you know, the more unhappy you are." "You should not undervalue knowledge before Pansy, who has not finished her education," Madame Merle interposed, with a smile. " Pansy will never know any harm," said the child's father. " Pansy is a little convent-flower." " Oh, the convents, the convents ! " cried the Countess, with a sharp laugh. " Speak to me of the convents. You may learn anything there ; I am a convent-flower myself. I don't pretend to be good, but the nuns do. Don't you see what I mean 1 " she went on, appealing to Isabel. Isabel was not sure that she saw, and she answered that she was very bad at following arguments. The Countess then declared that she herself detested arguments, but that this was her brother's taste he would always discuss. " For me," she said, " one should like a thing or one shouldn't ; one can't like everything, of course. But one shouldn't attempt to reason it out you never know where it may lead you. There are some very good feelings that may have bad reasons ; don't you know ] And then there are very bad feelings, sometimes, that have good reasons. Don't you see what I mean 1 ? I don't care anything ibout reasons, but I know what I like." " Ah, that's the great thing," said Isabel, smiling, but sus- pecting that her acquaintance with this lightly-flitting personage would not lead to intellectual repose. If the Countess objected to argument, Isabel at this moment had as little taste for it, and she put out her hand to Pansy with a pleasant sense that such