Fancy yourself for the moment my dear father, about to give to me, your daughter, good counsel on the eve of my entering into the world." She said these words with so much feeling, and in a voice that seemed to come so directly from the bottom of her heart, that Mr.Varga, for the life of him, could not help drawing from the inside pocket of his dolman a checkered cotton pocket-handkerchief, with which he dried his eyes.
"What is it your ladyship deigns to command ?" he inquired, in a voice that sounded as if every syllable he uttered were shod with as tight jackboots as the ones he was himself wearing.
"I want you to be so good as to go through all the names written on this list, one by one, and tell me quite frankly, quite openly, what your opinion is of each one of them, what their dispositions are, how the world regards them, which of them are likely to love one, and which are likely to give one the cold shoulder." In all his life Mr.Varga had never had to face so rigorous an ordeal.
If Lady Karpathy had charged him to call out five or six of the persons who were down on the list, or take a message to each one of them individually and to go on foot, or to work out the genealogy of every one of them in the shortest conceivable space of time, he would have considered all such commissions as mere trifles compared with what was required of him now.

What! he, the humblest of retainers in his own estimation, who regarded with such boundless respect every member of the higher circles that he would have considered himself the most miserable of men had he failed, in addressing them, to give them every tittle of their proper titles and designations--he, forsooth, was now to sit in judgment on these great gentlemen and ladies who did him too much honour in allowing him to address them at all?
In his despair Mr.Varga scoured the floor with his heel, and his forehead with the checkered handkerchief.
Fanny, perceiving the confusion of the good old man, turned towards him with a look of tender encouragement.
"My dear friend, look upon yourself as my father, as the one person whom I can ask for advice in this new and strange world, of which I know absolutely nothing.

_I_ cannot help looking upon you as my father.

Why are you so good and kind to me ?" The good old man felt his heart fortified by the genuine and touching sincerity of these words, and, after coughing once more with uncommon vigour and resolution, by way of a parting adieu to the temptations of cowardice, and thereby steeling his mind the more, thus replied-- "My lady, you honour me far above my merits by your ladyship's boundless favour, and I feel myself inexpressibly happy and fortunate when I am able to do your ladyship any service, however small.

And although it is a hateful thing for such an insignificant person as myself to give his judgment or opinion concerning such distinguished gentlemen and ladies as those whose names stand here before me, nevertheless the love--I beg pardon--the respect I bear towards your ladyship----" "I like the first word better; let it stand, please!" "And it is true.