CHAPTER XLVI.
Now that Kate had got a companion, Alec never saw her alone. But he had
so much the better opportunity of knowing her. Miss Warner was a nice,
open-eyed, fair-faced English girl, with pleasant manners, and plenty
of speech; and although more shy than Kate--English girls being
generally more shy than Scotch girls--was yet ready enough to take her
share in conversation. Between the two, Alec soon learned how ignorant
he was in the things that most interest girls. Classics and mathematics
were not _very_ interesting to himself, and anatomy was not available.
He soon perceived that they were both fond of poetry; but if it was not
the best poetry, he was incapable of telling them so, although the few
lessons he had had were from a better mistress than either of them, and
with some better examples than they had learned to rejoice in.
The two girls had got hold of some volumes of Byron, and had read them
together at school, chiefly after retiring to the chamber they shared
together. The consequences were an unbounded admiration and a facility
of reference, with the use of emotional adjectives. Alec did not know a
single poem of that writer, except the one about the Assyrian coming
down like a wolf on the fold.
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