Wonders come natural at fifteen; the farmer’s son of Ramore, though a little dazzled at the moment, was by no means thrown off his balance by the flattering attentions of Lady Frankland, who said everything that was agreeable and forgot that she had said it, and went over the same ground again half a dozen times, somewhat to the contempt of Colin, who knew nothing about fine ladies, but had all a boy’s disdain¹ for a silly woman. Thanks to his faculty² of silence, and his intense pride, Colin conducted himself with great external propriety³ when he dined with his new friends. Nobody knew the fright he was in, nor the strain of determination not to commit himself, which was worthy⁴ of something more important than a dinner. But after all, though it shed a reflected glory over his path for a short time, Sir Thomas Frankland’s dinner and all its bewildering accessories was but an affair of a day, and the only real result it left behind was a conviction in the mind of Lauderdale that his young protégé was born to better fortune. From that day the tall student hovered⁵, benignly⁶ reflective, like a tall genie⁷ over Colin’s boyish career. He was the boy’s tutor so far as that was possible where the teacher was himself but one step in advance of the pupil; and as to matters speculative⁸ and philosophical⁹, Lauderdale’s monologue¹⁰, delivered high up in the air over his head, became the accompaniment and perpetual stimulation

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