"I find only one type here!" cried Felix, laughing.

"The type adorable!" This sally was received in perfect silence, but Felix, who learned all things quickly, had already learned that the silences frequently observed among his new acquaintances were not necessarily restrictive or resentful.

It was, as one might say, the silence of expectation, of modesty.

They were all standing round his sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibition of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent.

Their attitude seemed to imply that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in gauze and spangles.