Have you forgotten how dear Avellanos can hold forth for hours here-- ?" "Oh, but that's different," protested Mrs.Gould, almost shocked.

The allusion was not to the point.

Don Jose was a dear good man, who talked very well, and was enthusiastic about the greatness of the San Tome mine.

"How can you compare them, Charles ?" she exclaimed, reproachfully.
"He has suffered--and yet he hopes." The working competence of men--which she never questioned--was very surprising to Mrs.Gould, because upon so many obvious issues they showed themselves strangely muddle-headed.
Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which secured for him at once his wife's anxious sympathy, assured her that he was not comparing.

He was an American himself, after all, and perhaps he could understand both kinds of eloquence--"if it were worth while to try," he added, grimly.
But he had breathed the air of England longer than any of his people had done for three generations, and really he begged to be excused.