"Then why are you here?" I returned.
"Can any person without a history be interesting?"
"Yes," he answered: "a person that was going to have a history might be
interesting."
"Could a person with a history that was not worth telling, be
interesting? But I know yours will interest me in the hearing, therefore
it ought to interest you in the telling.
"I see," he rejoined, with his merry laugh, I shall have to be careful!
My lady will at once pounce upon the weak points of my logic!"
"I am no logician," I answered; "I only know when I don't know a thing.
My uncle has taught me that wisdom lies in that,"
"Yours must be a very unusual kind of uncle!" he returned.
"If God had made many men like my uncle, I think the world wouldn't be
the same place."
"I wonder why he didn't!" he said thoughtfully.
"I have wondered much, and cannot tell," I replied.
"What if it wouldn't be good for the world to have many good men in it
before it was ready to treat them properly?" he suggested.
The words let me know that at least he could think. Hitherto my uncle had
seemed to me the only man that thought. But I had seen very few men.
"Perhaps that is it," I answered. "I will think about it.--Were you
brought up at Rising? Have you been there all the time? Were you there
that night? I should surely have known had you been in the house!"
He looked at me with a grateful smile.
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