صفحة 748 من 2288

"No, I'll walk. Children, who'd like to race the horses with me?"

The children knew Levin very little, and could not remember when

they had seen him, but they experienced in regard to him none of

that strange feeling of shyness and hostility which children so

often experience towards hypocritical, grown-up people, and for

which they are so often and miserably punished. Hypocrisy in

anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating

man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is

revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. Whatever

faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him, and

so the children showed him the same friendliness that they saw in

their mother's face. On his invitation, the two elder ones at

once jumped out to him and ran with him as simply as they would

have done with their nurse or Miss Hoole or their mother.