"Then she's a little heroine." "Rather--she's a little heroine.

But it's his innocence, above all," Mrs.Assingham added, "that will pull them through." Her companion, at this, focussed again Mr.Verver's innocence.

"It's awfully quaint." "Of course it's awfully quaint! That it's awfully quaint, that the pair are awfully quaint, quaint with all our dear old quaintness--by which I don't mean yours and mine, but that of my own sweet countrypeople, from whom I've so deplorably degenerated--that," Mrs.Assingham declared, "was originally the head and front of their appeal to me and of my interest in them.

And of course I shall feel them quainter still," she rather ruefully subjoined, "before they've done with me!" This might be, but it wasn't what most stood in the Colonel's way.

"You believe so in Mr.Verver's innocence after two years of Charlotte ?" She stared.