She laughingly rejected, however, my offer to turn back, so as to afford time for those remaining dozens of questions. This was but the first of a series of similar delightful excursions. The conversation was not always on the same topic, yet was most frequently suggested by some new question that had occurred to her since our previous meeting. Round Edith Alston and the former Ismar, as centres, Reva learned to group the varied panorama of the social fabric of the nineteenth century,—so far, that is, as was suitable for her to hear, and me to tell. For her unsullied mind, even that vague impression—the shadow cast by certain forms of evil—was non-existent. Extensive as was her reading, her ignorance of the lonna character had preserved her from even a suspicion of the darkest side of human history.
Nor was the instruction by any means one-sided. I, too, had much to learn,—much of great practical importance in my new surroundings. In Reva I found an efficient informant on all suitable subjects. Much that I could have learned from Utis or Hulmar, I preferred to learn through Reva: it was so delightful for me thus to learn, and—as she told me with charming ingenuousness—for her to teach. What she did not know when asked, she took care, therefore, to learn from her father, who laughingly compared her to a sister giving instruction to a younger brother, and receiving most benefit herself from the task. Though, meanwhile, not a word was uttered by me that she could hesitate to repeat to her father, with whom, I knew, she was wont to rediscuss the topics discussed by us during our ride; though I never so much as touched her hand, except in the customary courtesy of
