I think he did look rather gratified.

For my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time--children give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is commonly supposed.] There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the ladies gave each other over their little affairs.

The main point was apt to be neglected for branches of the subject.

If Mrs.Minchin consulted Mrs.Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for five minutes, but the rest of a two hours' visit would probably be devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa's cooks past and present, Mrs.
Minchin's "coloured cooks" in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the mothers and grandmothers of both ladies.
Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda, they hardly kept to Matilda's case long enough even to master the facts, and on this particular occasion Mrs.St.John plunged at once into a series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she always talked, as she dressed, in extremes.

The moral of every story was that Matilda should be sent to school.
"And I'll send you over last year's numbers of the _Milliner and Mantua-maker_, dear Mrs.Buller.There are always lots of interesting letters about people's husbands and children, and education, and that sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks receipts.