"
"Oho!" said Rolfe, "is it so? See how discussion brings out things."
"And then," said Lady Bassett, "Charles dear, tell Mr. Rolfe what I
think."
"Ay, do," said Rolfe; "that will be a new form of circumlocution."
Sir Charles complied, with a smile. "Lady Bassett's theory is, that
children derive their nature quite as much from their wet-nurses as
from their parents, and she thinks the faults we deplore in Reginald
are to be traced to his nurse; by-the-by, she is a dark woman too."
"Well," said Rolfe, "there's a good deal of truth in that, as far as
regards the disposition. But I never heard color so accounted for; yet
why not? It has been proved that the very bones of young animals can be
colored pink, by feeding them on milk so colored."
"There!" said Lady Bassett.
"But no nurse could give your son a color which is not her own. I have
seen the woman; she is only a dark Englishwoman. Her arms were
embrowned by exposure, but her forehead was not brown. Mr. Reginald is
quite another thing. The skin of his body, the white of his eye, the
pupil, all look like a reversion to some Oriental type; and, mark the
coincidence, he has mental peculiarities that point toward the East."
Sir Charles lost patience. "On the contrary," said he, "he talks and
feels just like an English snob, and makes me miserable.
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