His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted.

I am sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps not yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was scarcely less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the pretty dream.
We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr.
Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said, "From Boythorn?
Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with evident pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit.

Now who was Boythorn, we all thought.

And I dare say we all thought too--I am sure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all interfere with what was going forward?
"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr.
Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than five and forty years ago.

He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man.