When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind.
Le permisi pure di prendere alcune piccole libertà che le piacevano tanto, perché in questo rivelavasi il carattere leggiero ereditato dalla madre, così diverso da quello inglese.