Ah, you know the world well.

That is indeed good advice." Mr.Varga looked beseechingly at Fanny, as if to insist that she was not to praise him too much, or he should get confused again and forget what he wished to say.
Then he took up the long list, and began to go through it, running his finger along it, but so as not to touch the names, lest he might offend their owners by such ignoble contact.

Now and then the conducting finger would pause at a name, and Mr.Varga would look up as if about to speak; but in the very act of coughing to give the proper shade of respect to his voice, he would look again at the name singled out by his finger, think better of it, and tacitly schedule it among those who, though blessed with all recognized good qualities, he did not think suitable for his purpose.

But as he drew near to the end of the list, he was horror-stricken to observe how many names he had been obliged to pass over in silence, and drops of honest sweat began to congregate on his forehead as the index finger left ever more and more names behind it--the names of people whom he always treated with the most awful reverence, but not one of whom he would have recommended to the confidence of his daughter, if he had had one.

And he had now begun to regard Fanny as his own daughter.
Ah! at last his long-drawn features grew round again with satisfaction, and his hand trembled on the paper when it reached a name that it had long been in search of.
"Look, my lady!" said he, extending the list towards her.