initial commit of ebook 9182HEADmain

8 files changed, 87348 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/7vill10.txt b/old/7vill10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f4d03ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7vill10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21956 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+#4 in our series by Charlotte Bronte
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Villette
+
+Author: Charlotte Bronte
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9182]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 12, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+BY
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.       BRETTON
+
+II.      PAULINA
+
+III.     THE PLAYMATES
+
+IV.      MISS MARCHMONT
+
+V.       TURNING A NEW LEAF
+
+VI.      LONDON
+
+VII.     VILLETTE
+
+VIII.    MADAME BECK
+
+IX.      ISIDORE
+
+X.       DR. JOHN
+
+XI.      THE PORTRESS'S CABINET
+
+XII.     THE CASKET
+
+XIII.    A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON
+
+XIV.     THE FETE
+
+XV.      THE LONG VACATION
+
+XVI.     AULD LANG SYNE
+
+XVII.    LA TERRASSE
+
+XVIII.   WE QUARREL
+
+XIX.     THE CLEOPATRA
+
+XX.      THE CONCERT
+
+XXI.     REACTION
+
+XXII.    THE LETTER
+
+XXIII.   VASHTI
+
+XXIV.    M. DE BASSOMPIERRE
+
+XXV.     THE LITTLE COUNTESS
+
+XXVI.    A BURIAL
+
+XXVII.   THE HOTEL CRECY
+
+XXVIII.  THE WATCHGUARD
+
+XXIX.    MONSIEUR'S FETE
+
+XXX.     M. PAUL
+
+XXXI.    THE DRYAD
+
+XXXII.   THE FIRST LETTER
+
+XXXIII.  M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE
+
+XXXIV.   MALEVOLA
+
+XXXV.    FRATERNITY
+
+XXXVI.   THE APPLE OF DISCORD
+
+XXXVII.  SUNSHINE
+
+XXXVIII. CLOUD
+
+XXXIX.   OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XL.      THE HAPPY PAIR
+
+XLI.     FAUBOURG CLOTILDE
+
+XLII.    FINIS
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRETTON.
+
+
+My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town
+of Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for
+generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace--Bretton
+of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor
+had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his
+neighbourhood, I know not.
+
+When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I
+liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The
+large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide
+windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street,
+where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide--so quiet was its
+atmosphere, so clean its pavement--these things pleased me well.
+
+One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of,
+and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton,
+who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her
+husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and
+handsome woman.
+
+She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome,
+tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing
+always the clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity
+in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous
+pity that she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes
+were blue--though, even in boyhood, very piercing--and the colour of
+his long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as
+the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the
+lines of his mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her
+stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-
+grown), and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits
+of that tone and equality which are better than a fortune to the
+possessor.
+
+In the autumn of the year ---- I was staying at Bretton; my godmother
+having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at
+that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw
+events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the
+faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad
+to change scene and society.
+
+Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with
+tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river
+through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian
+and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on
+each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The
+charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I
+liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the
+latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had
+still held aloof.
+
+One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused
+Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from
+home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous
+communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud
+seemed to pass.
+
+The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my
+bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in
+its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with
+white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny
+rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
+
+"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer
+was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other
+visitors."
+
+On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was
+told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and
+distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was
+added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere
+long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear.
+Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a
+giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed
+and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union
+proved, that separation at last ensued--separation by mutual consent,
+not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having
+over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died
+after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very
+sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden
+communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded
+but that some over-severity on his part--some deficiency in patience
+and indulgence--had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over
+this idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men
+insisted on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs.
+Bretton had offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope,"
+added my godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her
+mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was
+weak enough to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home _is_ a sensible
+man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and
+lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments--a thing his
+butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed"
+confessed my godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
+
+In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late
+husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a
+maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed
+French and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France,
+of whom more than one wrote _de_ before his name, and called
+himself noble.
+
+That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet
+the coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I
+sat alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton
+being absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the
+country. My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I
+sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind
+sounded angry and restless.
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for
+her journey! I wish she were safe here."
+
+A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner
+was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk
+and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and
+at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his
+arms.
+
+"Is that the child?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face,
+but it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
+
+"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the
+drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker,
+extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious
+haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared
+made a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too
+heavy and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms.
+"Give it to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put
+it away." This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you
+are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
+
+The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared
+exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure,
+light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she
+looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky
+curls, increased, I thought, the resemblance.
+
+Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's
+hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze,
+but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a
+caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was
+rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger
+smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
+
+"Missy."
+
+"But besides Missy?"
+
+"Polly, papa calls her."
+
+"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
+
+"Not _always_; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She
+shook her head expressively.
+
+"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
+
+"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
+
+Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a
+movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said--
+"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
+
+She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool,
+she carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated
+herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even
+a peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the
+child her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did
+take notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee,
+her head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of
+pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I
+heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without
+shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff
+testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was
+quite as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded--
+"May the bell be rung for Harriet!"
+
+I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
+
+"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must
+ask where my bed is."
+
+Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
+
+"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
+
+"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's
+room," designating me.
+
+Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some
+minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
+
+"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she
+passed me mute.
+
+"Good-night, Polly," I said.
+
+"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was
+the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard
+Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her
+answer--"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the
+staircase.
+
+On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She
+had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a
+sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested
+quietly on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I
+abstained from speaking to her for some time, but just before
+extinguishing the light, I recommended her to lie down.
+
+"By and by," was the answer.
+
+"But you will take cold, Missy."
+
+She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side,
+and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she
+pleased. Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still
+wept,--wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
+
+On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold!
+there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with
+pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so
+as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as
+she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she
+was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons,
+strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered
+with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she
+smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a
+corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became
+still. I half rose, and advanced my, head to see how she was occupied.
+On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that
+she was praying.
+
+Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
+
+"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do
+not feel neat. Make me neat!"
+
+"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
+
+"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking _the girl_"
+(meaning me, who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to
+learn, against the time you leave me."
+
+"Do you want me to go?"
+
+"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
+Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
+
+"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
+
+"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
+
+"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress
+you."
+
+"On no account."
+
+"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave
+prettily to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
+
+"She shall dress me on no account."
+
+"Comical little thing!"
+
+"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the
+line will be crooked."
+
+"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
+
+"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
+
+"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
+
+"Come, then."
+
+They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
+
+"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these
+people."
+
+"Be a good child, Missy."
+
+"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and
+moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
+
+I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet
+within bounds.
+
+"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said,
+"Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet
+temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but
+her full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs.
+Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread
+filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not
+eating.
+
+"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to
+me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not
+slept."
+
+I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
+
+"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon
+settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PAULINA.
+
+
+Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of
+a fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or
+wilful: she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to
+comfort--to tranquillity even--than she presented, it was scarcely
+possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could
+have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of
+adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more
+legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She
+seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of
+that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever,
+opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in
+her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
+
+And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure,
+white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and
+praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast--some precocious
+fanatic or untimely saint--I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but
+they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that
+child's mind must have been.
+
+I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low:
+sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up
+unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the
+burden, "Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd
+nature; betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the
+most unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
+
+What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued
+unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden
+turn.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station
+in a corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of
+occupying her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count
+how many ladies should go down the street in a given time. She
+had sat listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when--my eye
+being fixed on hers--I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling
+transfiguration. These sudden, dangerous natures--_sensitive_ as
+they are called--offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler
+temperament has secured from participation in their angular vagaries.
+The fixed and heavy gaze swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the
+small, overcast brow cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit
+up; the sad countenance vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden
+eagerness, an intense expectancy. "It _is_!" were her words.
+
+Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from
+the room, How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it
+might be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest,
+which would be impetuous enough. I--watching calmly from the window--
+saw her, in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she
+had an antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was
+on the point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that
+the child was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw
+her caught up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the
+wondering stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good
+turn, and now, covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to
+the house whence he had seen her issue.
+
+I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but
+he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
+
+His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton.
+She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered,
+surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even
+expostulatory; and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,
+--"I could not help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the
+country without seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
+
+"But you will unsettle her."
+
+"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
+
+This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her
+gently on the ground before him.
+
+"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and
+gazed up into his face.
+
+It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it
+was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not
+foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On
+all occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain
+or ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever
+felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own
+will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
+
+Mr. Home was a stern-featured--perhaps I should rather say, a hard-
+featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were marked
+and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but there
+was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated countenance.
+His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his physiognomy. He
+was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid his hand on the
+child's uplifted head. She said--"Kiss Polly."
+
+He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I
+might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise:
+she seemed to have got what she wanted--_all_ she wanted, and to
+be in a trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this
+creature like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had
+been filled from his, as the cup from the flagon.
+
+Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might
+secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his
+little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying
+on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-
+handkerchief there; bring it to me."
+
+She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to
+Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief
+in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny
+stature, and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he
+continued to talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his
+hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the
+handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not
+to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she
+nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the
+other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
+
+During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual,
+full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed
+the chairs.
+
+"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
+Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea."
+
+She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
+
+"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
+
+And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the
+sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home;
+papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
+
+Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they
+were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had
+to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the
+bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her
+insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand
+that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly
+speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like
+other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and
+even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
+
+"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That
+lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and,
+for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
+
+This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening.
+I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.
+Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated
+round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should
+rather say, broke it up--for, of course, his arrival made a bustle;
+and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be
+provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl
+he took no notice for a time.
+
+His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he
+turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed
+himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say
+_child_ I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term--a term
+suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in
+a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a
+good-sized doll--perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon
+was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands
+a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at
+which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers
+seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the
+cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when
+the perverse weapon--swerving from her control--inflicted a deeper
+stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
+
+Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of
+sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very
+perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper
+to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks;
+his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent,
+and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad
+sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
+
+"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in
+silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from
+the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was
+all he knew of timidity---"Mother, I see a young lady in the present
+society to whom I have not been introduced."
+
+"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the
+least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in
+venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
+
+"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter
+yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
+
+"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance,
+"might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems
+willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham
+Bretton."
+
+She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately
+put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her
+perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you
+do?"
+
+"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued
+with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
+
+"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and
+she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could
+not be done without some climbing and straining--a sacrifice of
+decorum not to be thought of--and being utterly disdainful of aid in
+the presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high
+chair for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his
+chair.
+
+"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to
+you a convenient place of abode?"
+
+"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
+
+"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
+I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
+a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
+Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
+
+"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your
+mother's."
+
+"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which
+you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
+
+"Are _you_ going to live here now?"
+
+"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I think you queer."
+
+"My face, ma'am?"
+
+"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
+
+"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so
+do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his
+mane with a sort of triumph--tawny he himself well knew that it was,
+and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer
+than is your ladyship."
+
+"You call me queer?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
+
+"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since;
+but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I
+was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
+
+"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
+
+"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before
+papa soon, I daresay."
+
+She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating
+whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he
+caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised
+aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the
+glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect
+of the action were too much.
+
+"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and
+when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were
+to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that
+mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
+
+So saying, she departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PLAYMATES.
+
+
+Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed
+on to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent,
+sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton's chat, which was just
+of the proper sort for a man in his morbid mood--not over-sympathetic,
+yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of the
+motherly--she was sufficiently his senior to be permitted this touch.
+
+As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and
+watchful. Her father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit
+there till she felt or fancied he grew restless; then it was--"Papa,
+put me down; I shall tire you with my weight."
+
+And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on
+carpet or stool just at "papa's" feet, the white work-box and the
+scarlet-speckled handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it
+seems, was intended as a keepsake for "papa," and must be finished
+before his departure; consequently the demand on the sempstress's
+industry (she accomplished about a score of stitches in half-an-hour)
+was stringent.
+
+The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were
+passed at school), brought us an accession of animation--a quality not
+diminished by the nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted
+between him and Miss Paulina.
+
+A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity
+put upon her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when
+he addressed her, was--"I can't attend to you; I have other things to
+think about." Being implored to state _what_ things:
+
+"Business."
+
+Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and
+displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax,
+pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings--some of them gaily
+coloured--which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this
+powerful temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from
+her work, cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in
+scattered pictures. An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim
+spaniel happened to flutter to the floor.
+
+"Pretty little dog!" said she, delighted.
+
+Graham prudently took no notice. Ere long, stealing from her corner,
+she approached to examine the treasure more closely. The dog's great
+eyes and long ears, and the child's hat and feathers, were
+irresistible.
+
+"Nice picture!" was her favourable criticism.
+
+"Well--you may have it," said Graham.
+
+She seemed to hesitate. The wish to possess was strong, but to accept
+would be a compromise of dignity. No. She put it down and turned away.
+
+"You won't have it, then, Polly?"
+
+"I would rather not, thank you."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?"
+
+She half turned to listen.
+
+"Cut it into strips for lighting the taper."
+
+"No!"
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Please--don't."
+
+Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the
+scissors from his mother's work-basket.
+
+"Here goes!" said he, making a menacing flourish. "Right through
+Fido's head, and splitting little Harry's nose."
+
+"No! _No!_ NO!"
+
+"Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done."
+
+She hesitated, lingered, but complied.
+
+"Now, will you have it?" he asked, as she stood before him.
+
+"Please."
+
+"But I shall want payment."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A kiss."
+
+"Give the picture first into my hand."
+
+Polly, as she said this, looked rather faithless in her turn. Graham
+gave it. She absconded a debtor, darted to her father, and took refuge
+on his knee. Graham rose in mimic wrath and followed. She buried her
+face in Mr. Home's waistcoat.
+
+"Papa--papa--send him away!"
+
+"I'll not be sent away," said Graham.
+
+With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off
+
+"Then, I shall kiss the hand," said he; but that moment it became a
+miniature fist, and dealt him payment in a small coin that was not
+kisses.
+
+Graham--not failing in his way to be as wily as his little playmate--
+retreated apparently quite discomfited; he flung himself on a sofa,
+and resting his head against the cushion, lay like one in pain. Polly,
+finding him silent, presently peeped at him. His eyes and face were
+covered with his hands. She turned on her father's knee, and gazed at
+her foe anxiously and long. Graham groaned.
+
+"Papa, what is the matter?" she whispered.
+
+"You had better ask him, Polly."
+
+"Is he hurt?" (groan second.)
+
+"He makes a noise as if he were," said Mr. Home.
+
+"Mother," suggested Graham, feebly, "I think you had better send for
+the doctor. Oh my eye!" (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from
+Graham.)
+
+"If I were to become blind----?" suggested this last.
+
+His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him
+directly.
+
+"Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and
+I did not think I hit so _very_ hard."
+
+Silence answered her. Her features worked,--"I am sorry; I am sorry!"
+
+Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping.
+
+"Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"It is all nonsense, my pet," cried Mr. Home.
+
+And Graham once more snatched her aloft, and she again punished him;
+and while she pulled his lion's locks, termed him--"The naughtiest,
+rudest, worst, untruest person that ever was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of Mr. Home's departure, he and his daughter had some
+conversation in a window-recess by themselves; I heard part of it.
+
+"Couldn't I pack my box and go with you, papa?" she whispered
+earnestly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Should I be a trouble to you?"
+
+"Yes, Polly."
+
+"Because I am little?"
+
+"Because you are little and tender. It is only great, strong people
+that should travel. But don't look sad, my little girl; it breaks my
+heart. Papa, will soon come back to his Polly."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all."
+
+"Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?"
+
+"Sorrier than sorry."
+
+"Then Polly must be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards.
+She must look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy meanwhile.
+Can she do this?"
+
+"She will try."
+
+"I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go."
+
+"_Now_?--just _now_?
+
+"Just now."
+
+She held up quivering lips. Her father sobbed, but she, I remarked,
+did not. Having put her down, he shook hands with the rest present,
+and departed.
+
+When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with
+a cry--"Papa!"
+
+It was low and long; a sort of "Why hast thou forsaken me?" During an
+ensuing space of some minutes, I perceived she endured agony. She went
+through, in that brief interval of her infant life, emotions such as
+some never feel; it was in her constitution: she would have more of
+such instants if she lived. Nobody spoke. Mrs. Bretton, being a
+mother, shed a tear or two. Graham, who was writing, lifted up his
+eyes and gazed at her. I, Lucy Snowe, was calm.
+
+The little creature, thus left unharassed, did for herself what none
+other could do--contended with an intolerable feeling; and, ere long,
+in some degree, repressed it. That day she would accept solace from
+none; nor the next day: she grew more passive afterwards.
+
+On the third evening, as she sat on the floor, worn and quiet, Graham,
+coming in, took her up gently, without a word. She did not resist: she
+rather nestled in his arms, as if weary. When he sat down, she laid
+her head against him; in a few minutes she slept; he carried her
+upstairs to bed. I was not surprised that, the next morning, the first
+thing she demanded was, "Where is Mr. Graham?"
+
+It happened that Graham was not coming to the breakfast-table; he had
+some exercises to write for that morning's class, and had requested
+his mother to send a cup of tea into the study. Polly volunteered to
+carry it: she must be busy about something, look after somebody. The
+cup was entrusted to her; for, if restless, she was also careful. As
+the study was opposite the breakfast-room, the doors facing across the
+passage, my eye followed her.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing on the threshold.
+
+"Writing," said Graham.
+
+"Why don't you come to take breakfast with your mamma?"
+
+"Too busy."
+
+"Do you want any breakfast?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"There, then."
+
+And she deposited the cup on the carpet, like a jailor putting a
+prisoner's pitcher of water through his cell-door, and retreated.
+Presently she returned.
+
+"What will you have besides tea--what to eat?"
+
+"Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that's a kind
+little woman."
+
+She came back to Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Please, ma'am, send your boy something good."
+
+"You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?"
+
+She selected a portion of whatever was best on the table; and, ere
+long, came back with a whispered request for some marmalade, which was
+not there. Having got it, however, (for Mrs. Bretton refused the pair
+nothing), Graham was shortly after heard lauding her to the skies;
+promising that, when he had a house of his own, she should be his
+housekeeper, and perhaps--if she showed any culinary genius--his cook;
+and, as she did not return, and I went to look after her, I found
+Graham and her breakfasting _tete-a-tete_--she standing at his
+elbow, and sharing his fare: excepting the marmalade, which she
+delicately refused to touch, lest, I suppose, it should appear that
+she had procured it as much on her own account as his. She constantly
+evinced these nice perceptions and delicate instincts.
+
+The league of acquaintanceship thus struck up was not hastily
+dissolved; on the contrary, it appeared that time and circumstances
+served rather to cement than loosen it. Ill-assimilated as the two
+were in age, sex, pursuits, &c., they somehow found a great deal to
+say to each other. As to Paulina, I observed that her little character
+never properly came out, except with young Bretton. As she got
+settled, and accustomed to the house, she proved tractable enough with
+Mrs. Bretton; but she would sit on a stool at that lady's feet all day
+long, learning her task, or sewing, or drawing figures with a pencil
+on a slate, and never kindling once to originality, or showing a
+single gleam of the peculiarities of her nature. I ceased to watch her
+under such circumstances: she was not interesting. But the moment
+Graham's knock sounded of an evening, a change occurred; she was
+instantly at the head of the staircase. Usually her welcome was a
+reprimand or a threat.
+
+"You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your
+mamma."
+
+"Little busybody! Are you there?"
+
+"Yes--and you can't reach me: I am higher up than you" (peeping
+between the rails of the banister; she could not look over them).
+
+"Polly!"
+
+"My dear boy!" (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in
+imitation of his mother.)
+
+"I am fit to faint with fatigue," declared Graham, leaning against the
+passage-wall in seeming exhaustion. "Dr. Digby" (the headmaster) "has
+quite knocked me up with overwork. Just come down and help me to carry
+up my books."
+
+"Ah! you're cunning!"
+
+"Not at all, Polly--it is positive fact. I'm as weak as a rush. Come
+down."
+
+"Your eyes are quiet like the cat's, but you'll spring."
+
+"Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn't in me. Come down."
+
+"Perhaps I may--if you'll promise not to touch--not to snatch me up,
+and not to whirl me round."
+
+"I? I couldn't do it!" (sinking into a chair.)
+
+"Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off"
+
+This being done, she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from
+the feeble Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new
+and spasmodic life: the game of romps was sure to be exacted.
+Sometimes she would be angry; sometimes the matter was allowed to pass
+smoothly, and we could hear her say as she led him up-stairs: "Now, my
+dear boy, come and take your tea--I am sure you must want something."
+
+It was sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham,
+while he took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but
+with him the most officious, fidgety little body possible. I often
+wished she would mind herself and be tranquil; but no--herself was
+forgotten in him: he could not be sufficiently well waited on, nor
+carefully enough looked after; he was more than the Grand Turk in her
+estimation. She would gradually assemble the various plates before
+him, and, when one would suppose all he could possibly desire was
+within his reach, she would find out something else: "Ma'am," she
+would whisper to Mrs. Bretton,--"perhaps your son would like a little
+cake--sweet cake, you know--there is some in there" (pointing to the
+sideboard cupboard). Mrs. Bretton, as a rule, disapproved of sweet
+cake at tea, but still the request was urged,--"One little piece--only
+for him--as he goes to school: girls--such as me and Miss Snowe--don't
+need treats, but _he_ would like it."
+
+Graham did like it very well, and almost always got it. To do him
+justice, he would have shared his prize with her to whom he owed it;
+but that was never allowed: to insist, was to ruffle her for the
+evening. To stand by his knee, and monopolize his talk and notice, was
+the reward she wanted--not a share of the cake.
+
+With curious readiness did she adapt herself to such themes as
+interested him. One would have thought the child had no mind or life
+of her own, but must necessarily live, move, and have her being in
+another: now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to
+Graham, and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence.
+She learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a trice: she got by
+heart their characters as given from his lips: a single description of
+an individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused
+identities: she would talk with him the whole evening about people she
+had never seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect,
+manners, and dispositions. Some she learned to mimic: an under-master,
+who was an aversion of young Bretton's, had, it seems, some
+peculiarities, which she caught up in a moment from Graham's
+representation, and rehearsed for his amusement; this, however, Mrs.
+Bretton disapproved and forbade.
+
+The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her
+feelings received a severe shock.
+
+One day Graham, on the occasion of his birthday, had some friends--
+lads of his own age--to dine with him. Paulina took much interest in
+the coming of these friends; she had frequently heard of them; they
+were amongst those of whom Graham oftenest spoke. After dinner, the
+young gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, where they
+soon became very merry and made a good deal of noise. Chancing to pass
+through the hall, I found Paulina sitting alone on the lowest step of
+the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels of the dining-room
+door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her little
+brow knit in anxious, meditation.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Polly?"
+
+"Nothing particular; only I wish that door was clear glass--that I
+might see through it. The boys seem very cheerful, and I want to go to
+them: I want to be with Graham, and watch his friends."
+
+"What hinders you from going?"
+
+"I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door,
+and ask to be let in?"
+
+I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and
+therefore encouraged the attempt.
+
+She knocked--too faintly at first to be heard, but on a second essay
+the door unclosed; Graham's head appeared; he looked in high spirits,
+but impatient.
+
+"What do you want, you little monkey?"
+
+"To come to you."
+
+"Do you indeed? As if I would be troubled with you! Away to mamma and
+Mistress Snowe, and tell them to put you to bed." The auburn head and
+bright flushed face vanished,--the door shut peremptorily. She was
+stunned.
+
+"Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before," she said in
+consternation. "What have I done?"
+
+"Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends."
+
+"And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are
+here!"
+
+I had some thoughts of consoling her, and of improving the occasion by
+inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a
+tolerable stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by
+putting her fingers in her ears at the first words I uttered, and then
+lying down on the mat with her face against the flags; nor could
+either Warren or the cook root her from that position: she was allowed
+to lie, therefore, till she chose to rise of her own accord.
+
+Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted
+her as usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from
+his hand; her eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she
+would not look in his face. The next day he treated her with
+indifference, and she grew like a bit of marble. The day after, he
+teased her to know what was the matter; her lips would not unclose. Of
+course he could not feel real anger on his side: the match was too
+unequal in every way; he tried soothing and coaxing. "Why was she so
+angry? What had he done?" By-and-by tears answered him; he petted her,
+and they were friends. But she was one on whom such incidents were not
+lost: I remarked that never after this rebuff did she seek him, or
+follow him, or in any way solicit his notice. I told her once to carry
+a book or some other article to Graham when he was shut up in his
+study.
+
+"I shall wait till he comes out," said she, proudly; "I don't choose
+to give him the trouble of rising to open the door."
+
+Young Bretton had a favourite pony on which he often rode out; from
+the window she always watched his departure and return. It was her
+ambition to be permitted to have a ride round the courtyard on this
+pony; but far be it from her to ask such a favour. One day she
+descended to the yard to watch him dismount; as she leaned against the
+gate, the longing wish for the indulgence of a ride glittered in her
+eye.
+
+"Come, Polly, will you have a canter?" asked Graham, half carelessly.
+
+I suppose she thought he was _too_ careless.
+
+"No, thank you," said she, turning away with the utmost coolness.
+
+"You'd better," pursued he. "You will like it, I am sure."
+
+"Don't think I should care a fig about it," was the response.
+
+"That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride."
+
+"Lucy Snowe is a _tatter_-box," I heard her say (her imperfect
+articulation was the least precocious thing she had about her); and
+with this; she walked into the house.
+
+Graham, coming in soon after, observed to his mother,--"Mamma, I
+believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of
+oddities; but I should be dull without her: she amuses me a great deal
+more than you or Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Miss Snowe," said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of
+occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at
+night), "do you know on what day in the week I like Graham best?"
+
+"How can I possibly know anything so strange? Is there one day out of
+the seven when he is otherwise than on the other six?"
+
+"To be sure! Can't you see? Don't you know? I find him the most
+excellent on a Sunday; then we have him the whole day, and he is
+quiet, and, in the evening, _so_ kind."
+
+This observation was not altogether groundless: going to church, &c.,
+kept Graham quiet on the Sunday, and the evening he generally
+dedicated to a serene, though rather indolent sort of enjoyment by the
+parlour fireside. He would take possession of the couch, and then he
+would call Polly.
+
+Graham was a boy not quite as other boys are; all his delight did not
+lie in action: he was capable of some intervals of contemplation; he
+could take a pleasure too in reading, nor was his selection of books
+wholly indiscriminate: there were glimmerings of characteristic
+preference, and even of instinctive taste in the choice. He rarely, it
+is true, remarked on what he read, but I have seen him sit and think
+of it.
+
+Polly, being near him, kneeling on a little cushion or the carpet, a
+conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I
+caught a snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some
+influence better and finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe
+Graham at such times into no ungentle mood.
+
+"Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?"
+
+"I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?"
+
+"Speak nicely, then: don't be in a hurry."
+
+The hymn being rehearsed, or rather half-chanted, in a little singing
+voice, Graham would take exceptions at the manner, and proceed to give
+a lesson in recitation. She was quick in learning, apt in imitating;
+and, besides, her pleasure was to please Graham: she proved a ready
+scholar. To the hymn would succeed some reading--perhaps a chapter in
+the Bible; correction was seldom required here, for the child could
+read any simple narrative chapter very well; and, when the subject was
+such as she could understand and take an interest in, her expression
+and emphasis were something remarkable. Joseph cast into the pit; the
+calling of Samuel; Daniel in the lions' den;--these were favourite
+passages: of the first especially she seemed perfectly to feel the
+pathos.
+
+"Poor Jacob!" she would sometimes say, with quivering lips. "How he
+loved his son Joseph! As much," she once added--"as much, Graham, as I
+love you: if you were to die" (and she re-opened the book, sought the
+verse, and read), "I should refuse to be comforted, and go down into
+the grave to you mourning."
+
+With these words she gathered Graham in her little arms, drawing his
+long-tressed head towards her. The action, I remember, struck me as
+strangely rash; exciting the feeling one might experience on seeing an
+animal dangerous by nature, and but half-tamed by art, too heedlessly
+fondled. Not that I feared Graham would hurt, or very roughly check
+her; but I thought she ran risk of incurring such a careless,
+impatient repulse, as would be worse almost to her than a blow. On:
+the whole, however, these demonstrations were borne passively:
+sometimes even a sort of complacent wonder at her earnest partiality
+would smile not unkindly in his eyes. Once he said:--"You like me
+almost as well as if you were my little sister, Polly."
+
+"Oh! I _do_ like you," said she; "I _do_ like you very
+much."
+
+I was not long allowed the amusement of this study of character. She
+had scarcely been at Bretton two months, when a letter came from Mr.
+Home, signifying that he was now settled amongst his maternal kinsfolk
+on the Continent; that, as England was become wholly distasteful to
+him, he had no thoughts of returning hither, perhaps, for years; and
+that he wished his little girl to join him immediately.
+
+"I wonder how she will take this news?" said Mrs. Bretton, when she
+had read the letter. _I_ wondered, too, and I took upon myself to
+communicate it.
+
+Repairing to the drawing-room--in which calm and decorated apartment
+she was fond of being alone, and where she could be implicitly
+trusted, for she fingered nothing, or rather soiled nothing she
+fingered--I found her seated, like a little Odalisque, on a couch,
+half shaded by the drooping draperies of the window near. She seemed
+happy; all her appliances for occupation were about her; the white
+wood workbox, a shred or two of muslin, an end or two of ribbon
+collected for conversion into doll-millinery. The doll, duly night-
+capped and night-gowned, lay in its cradle; she was rocking it to
+sleep, with an air of the most perfect faith in its possession of
+sentient and somnolent faculties; her eyes, at the same time, being
+engaged with a picture-book, which lay open on her lap.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said she in a whisper, "this is a wonderful book.
+Candace" (the doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed
+complexion gave it much of an Ethiopian aspect)--"Candace is asleep
+now, and I may tell you about it; only we must both speak low, lest
+she should waken. This book was given me by Graham; it tells about
+distant countries, a long, long way from England, which no traveller
+can reach without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild men
+live in these countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from
+ours: indeed, some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of
+being cool, you know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a
+picture of thousands gathered in a desolate place--a plain, spread
+with sand--round a man in black,--a good, _good_ Englishman--a
+missionary, who is preaching to them under a palm-tree." (She showed
+a little coloured cut to that effect.) "And here are pictures" (she
+went on) "more stranger" (grammar was occasionally forgotten) "than
+that. There is the wonderful Great Wall of China; here is a Chinese
+lady, with a foot littler than mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary;
+and here, most strange of all--is a land of ice and snow, without
+green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land, they found some mammoth
+bones: there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I
+can tell you, because Graham told me. A mighty, goblin creature, as
+high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not a fierce, flesh-
+eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I met one in a forest, it
+would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would
+trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread on a grasshopper
+in a hayfield without knowing it."
+
+Thus she rambled on.
+
+"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
+
+"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps in twenty years,
+when I am grown a woman, as tall as Mrs. Bretton, I may travel with
+Graham. We intend going to Switzerland, and climbing Mount Blanck; and
+some day we shall sail over to South America, and walk to the top of
+Kim-kim-borazo."
+
+"But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?"
+
+Her reply--not given till after a pause--evinced one of those
+unexpected turns of temper peculiar to her.
+
+"Where is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "Why do
+you mention papa? What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be
+happy, and not think about him so much; and there it will be all to do
+over again!"
+
+Her lip trembled. I hastened to disclose the fact of a letter having
+been received, and to mention the directions given that she and
+Harriet should immediately rejoin this dear papa. "Now, Polly, are you
+not glad?" I added.
+
+She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll;
+she gazed at me with gravity and earnestness.
+
+"Shall not you like to go to papa?"
+
+"Of course," she said at last in that trenchant manner she usually
+employed in speaking to me; and which was quite different from that
+she used with Mrs. Bretton, and different again from the one dedicated
+to Graham. I wished to ascertain more of what she thought but no: she
+would converse no more. Hastening to Mrs. Bretton, she questioned her,
+and received the confirmation of my news. The weight and importance of
+these tidings kept her perfectly serious the whole day. In the
+evening, at the moment Graham's entrance was heard below, I found her
+at my side. She began to arrange a locket-ribbon about my neck, she
+displaced and replaced the comb in my hair; while thus busied, Graham
+entered.
+
+"Tell him by-and-by," she whispered; "tell him I am going."
+
+In the course of tea-time I made the desired communication. Graham, it
+chanced, was at that time greatly preoccupied about some school-prize,
+for which he was competing. The news had to be told twice before it
+took proper hold of his attention, and even then he dwelt on it but
+momently.
+
+"Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to
+lose her: she must come to us again, mamma."
+
+And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to
+himself and his books, and was soon buried in study.
+
+"Little Mousie" crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at his
+feet, her face to the floor; mute and motionless she kept that post
+and position till bed-time. Once I saw Graham--wholly unconscious of
+her proximity--push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or
+two. A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face,
+to which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot.
+When summoned by her nurse she rose and departed very obediently,
+having bid us all a subdued good-night.
+
+I will not say that I dreaded going to bed, an hour later; yet I
+certainly went with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that
+child in no peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but
+fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like
+a white bird on the outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost
+her; she was not to be managed like another child. She, however,
+accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the dressing-
+table, she turned tome with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_
+sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!"
+
+I asked what ailed her.
+
+"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
+
+"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I
+well knew that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she
+would have nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst
+lavishing her eccentricities regardlessly before me--for whom she
+professed scarcely the semblance of affection--she never showed my
+godmother one glimpse of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but
+a docile, somewhat quaint little maiden. I examined her; her cheek was
+crimson; her dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and painfully
+restless: in this state it was obvious she must not be left till
+morning. I guessed how the case stood.
+
+"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not
+gone to his room yet."
+
+She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a
+shawl round her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was
+just coming out.
+
+"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I
+said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
+
+"I've spoilt her," said he, taking her from me with good humour, and
+kissing her little hot face and burning lips. "Polly, you care for me
+more than for papa, now--"
+
+"I _do_ care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her
+whisper.
+
+She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I
+carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
+
+When I thought she could listen to me, I said--"Paulina, you should
+not grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for
+him. It must be so."
+
+Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
+
+"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are
+only six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
+
+"But I love him so much; he _should_ love me a little."
+
+"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
+
+"Am I Graham's favourite?"
+
+"Yes, more than any little child I know."
+
+The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
+
+"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or
+else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over."
+
+"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be
+good, Lucy Snowe."
+
+I put her to bed.
+
+"Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself.
+I assured her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated;
+that she had only to be careful for the future.
+
+"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever--ever--see
+him again, after I leave England?"
+
+I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a
+still half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white
+shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice asked--
+"Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"
+
+"Like him! Yes, a little."
+
+"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
+
+"I think not. No: not as you do."
+
+"Do you like him much?"
+
+"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him
+so very much: he is full of faults."
+
+"Is he?"
+
+"All boys are."
+
+"More than girls?"
+
+"Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect;
+and as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and
+worship none."
+
+"Are you a wise person?"
+
+"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
+
+"I _cannot_ go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her
+elfish hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think _you_ shall
+have to leave Graham; for _your_ home is not here?"
+
+"Surely, Polly," said I, "you should not feel so much pain when you
+are very soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do
+you no longer wish to be his little companion?"
+
+Dead silence succeeded this question.
+
+"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
+
+"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
+
+I saw the little thing shiver. "Come to me," I said, wishing, yet
+scarcely hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange,
+capricious, little creature, and especially whimsical with me. She
+came, however, instantly, like a small ghost gliding over the carpet.
+I took her in. She was chill: I warmed her in my arms. She trembled
+nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and cherished she at last
+slumbered.
+
+"A very unique child," thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance
+by the fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her
+glittering eyelids and her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. "How will
+she get through this world, or battle with this life? How will she
+bear the shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which
+books, and my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?"
+
+She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave,
+but exercising self-command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MISS MARCHMONT.
+
+
+On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina's
+departure--little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never
+more to tread its calm old streets--I betook myself home, having been
+absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to
+return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does
+no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from
+saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the
+next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a
+harbour still as glass--the steersman stretched on the little deck,
+his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long
+prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives
+something in that fashion; why not I with the rest?
+
+Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a
+cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes
+indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I
+must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck
+at last. I too well remember a time--a long time--of cold, of danger,
+of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the
+rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure
+on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour
+nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;
+we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy
+tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In
+fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.
+
+As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.
+Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost
+sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way
+of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes
+for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for
+her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock
+undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original
+amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a
+profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were
+understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of
+dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I
+was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion
+were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands
+besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,
+sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me
+some task I could undertake.
+
+Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome
+residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,
+and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her
+drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss
+Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being
+very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a
+furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long
+affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a
+maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was
+about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for
+me, with the idea that I might supply this person's place. She made
+the proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.
+
+"It will not be an easy life;" said she candidly, "for I require a
+good deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,
+contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear
+tolerable."
+
+I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued
+inwardly; but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live
+here, in this close room, the watcher of suffering--sometimes,
+perhaps, the butt of temper--through all that was to come of my youth;
+while all that was gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully!
+My heart sunk one moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself
+to _realise_ evils, I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_,
+and consequently to exaggerate them.
+
+"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
+observed.
+
+"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out
+creature."
+
+So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,
+hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The
+blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life's
+sources.
+
+"What else have you in view--anything?"
+
+"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."
+
+"So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and
+if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be
+left open to you for three months."
+
+This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was
+speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the
+necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time
+she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I,
+for my part, had learned from the manner in which she bore this
+attack, that she was a firm, patient woman (patient under physical
+pain, though sometimes perhaps excitable under long mental canker);
+and she, from the good-will with which I succoured her, discovered
+that she could influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent
+for me the next day; for five or six successive days she claimed my
+company. Closer acquaintance, while it developed both faults and
+eccentricities, opened, at the same time, a view of a character I
+could respect. Stern and even morose as she sometimes was, I could
+wait on her and sit beside her with that calm which always blesses us
+when we are sensible that our manners, presence, contact, please and
+soothe the persons we serve. Even when she scolded me--which she did,
+now and then, very tartly--it was in such a way as did not humiliate,
+and left no sting; it was rather like an irascible mother rating her
+daughter, than a harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture,
+indeed, she could not, though she could occasionally storm. Moreover,
+a vein of reason ever ran through her passion: she was logical even
+when fierce. Ere long a growing sense of attachment began to present
+the thought of staying with her as companion in quite a new light; in
+another week I had agreed to remain.
+
+Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman,
+my mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty--her pain, my
+suffering--her relief, my hope--her anger, my punishment--her regard,
+my reward. I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an
+ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick
+chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became
+narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I
+demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than
+the tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the
+originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues,
+I will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her
+feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these things I
+clung to her.
+
+For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if
+for twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But
+another decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into
+action. I must be goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little
+morsel of human affection, which I prized as if it were a solid pearl,
+must melt in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone.
+My small adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented
+conscience. I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional
+great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small
+pains. Fate would not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction
+this shrinking sloth and cowardly indolence.
+
+One February night--I remember it well--there came a voice near Miss
+Marchmont's house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps,
+only by one. After a calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring.
+I had put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The
+wind was wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night
+deepened, it took a new tone--an accent keen, piercing, almost
+articulate to the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the
+nerves, trilled in every gust.
+
+"Oh, hush! hush!" I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and
+making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching
+cry. I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation
+had forced on me a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the
+course of my life, events had taught me that these strange accents in
+the storm--this restless, hopeless cry--denote a coming state of the
+atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I believed, were
+often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting east
+wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied,
+too, I had noticed--but was not philosopher enough to know whether
+there was any connection between the circumstances--that we often at
+the same time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of
+the world; of rivers suddenly rushing above their banks; and of
+strange high tides flowing furiously in on low sea-coasts. "Our
+globe," I had said to myself, "seems at such periods torn and
+disordered; the feeble amongst us wither in her distempered breath,
+rushing hot from steaming volcanoes."
+
+I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.
+
+About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The
+fire, which had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air
+change, and become keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and
+saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost.
+
+Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,
+lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
+earnestness.
+
+"Is it a fine night?" she asked.
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"I thought so," she said; "for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I
+feel young to-night," she continued: "young, light-hearted, and happy.
+What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to
+enjoy health? It would be a miracle!"
+
+"And these are not the days of miracles," I thought to myself, and
+wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation
+to the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and
+personages, with singular vividness."
+
+"I love Memory to-night," she said: "I prize her as my best friend.
+She is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my
+heart, in warm and beautiful life, realities--not mere empty ideas,
+but what were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed,
+dissolved, mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours,
+the thoughts, the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life--its
+only love--almost its only affection; for I am not a particularly good
+woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and
+concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its
+single self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are
+all the unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While
+I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a
+glorious year I can recall--how bright it comes back to me! What a
+living spring--what a warm, glad summer--what soft moonlight,
+silvering the autumn evenings--what strength of hope under the ice-
+bound waters and frost-hoar fields of that year's winter! Through that
+year my heart lived with Frank's heart. O my noble Frank--my faithful
+Frank--my _good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard
+in all things so much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women
+have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his
+love. It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts
+about it or him: it was such a love as honoured, protected, and
+elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me
+now ask, just at this moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let
+me reflect why it was taken from me? For what crime was I condemned,
+after twelve months of bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?
+
+"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_
+see the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I
+never tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at
+this moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank. I never
+believed it till now."
+
+"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.
+
+"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and
+decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband,
+would come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see
+that moment--I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over
+which the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up
+the white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing
+on my silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a
+glass. I see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and
+cold, over the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my
+grounds. I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my
+breast. The flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet;
+the moon was mounting high, but she was still visible from the
+lattice; the clock neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but
+once or twice he had been delayed so long.
+
+"Would he for once fail me? No--not even for once; and now he was
+coming--and coming fast-to atone for lost time. 'Frank! you furious
+rider,' I said inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his
+approaching gallop, 'you shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it
+is _my_ neck you are putting in peril; for whatever is yours is,
+in a dearer and tenderer sense, mine.' There he was: I saw him; but I
+think tears were in my eyes, my sight was so confused. I saw the
+horse; I heard it stamp--I saw at least a mass; I heard a clamour.
+_Was_ it a horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing,
+strangely dark, the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight
+before me? or how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul?
+
+"I could only run out. A great animal--truly, Frank's black horse--
+stood trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held it
+Frank, as I thought.
+
+"'What is the matter?' I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by
+saying sharply, 'Go into the house, madam.' And then calling to
+another servant, who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by
+some instinct, 'Ruth, take missis into the house directly.' But I was
+kneeling down in the snow, beside something that lay there--something
+that I had seen dragged along the ground--something that sighed, that
+groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew it to ms. He was not dead;
+he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; I refused to be
+ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected enough, not
+only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had begun
+by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people
+struck by God's hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and
+when he had done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He
+had strength to fold me in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he
+heard me as I prayed over him very softly; he felt me as I tenderly
+and fondly comforted him.
+
+"'Maria,' he said, 'I am dying in Paradise.' He spent his last breath
+in faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my
+Frank was with God.
+
+"And that," she went on, "happened thirty years ago. I have suffered
+since. I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft,
+amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong,
+evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been
+a woe-struck and selfish woman."
+
+"You have done much good," I said; for she was noted for her liberal
+almsgiving.
+
+"I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage
+affliction. What of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I
+think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind, to
+prepare myself for reunion with Frank. You see I still think of Frank
+more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the
+creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least
+blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. What do you
+think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me."
+
+This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she
+thought I _had_ answered it.
+
+"Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not
+always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever
+it be, and try to render happy that of others. Should we not? Well,
+to-morrow I will begin by trying to make you happy. I will endeavour
+to do something for you, Lucy: something that will benefit you when I
+am dead. My head aches now with talking too much; still I am happy. Go
+to bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit up; or rather how late
+I, in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no more anxiety
+for me; I feel I shall rest well."
+
+She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a
+closet within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her
+doom must at last have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning
+she was found without life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed.
+Her previous excitement of spirits and change of mood had been the
+prelude of a fit; one stroke sufficed to sever the thread of an
+existence so long fretted by affliction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TURNING A NEW LEAF.
+
+
+My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for
+a new place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--
+shaken in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the
+contrary, thin, haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night,
+like an overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt,
+however, I was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not
+had time to benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended,
+yet, after the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin,
+the heir, an avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow
+temples, who, indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough
+miser: a direct contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her
+memory, blessed to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor,
+then, of fifteen pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a
+spirit in similar condition; I might still; in comparison with many
+people, be regarded as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing
+one it was, however, at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness
+on a certain day, of which the corresponding one in the next week was
+to see my departure from my present abode, while with another I was
+not provided.
+
+In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and
+consult an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper
+at a grand mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours
+with her; she comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all
+inward darkness, I left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay
+before me; it was a clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my
+poverty, and my perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the
+vigour of a youth that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat
+light and not feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled
+in that lonely walk, which lay through still fields, and passed
+neither village nor farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in
+the absence of moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I
+traced the dim path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted
+presence of that which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--
+the Aurora Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise
+than through my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in
+energy with the keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought
+was sent to my mind; my mind was made strong to receive it.
+
+"Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence."
+
+"Where?" was the query.
+
+I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that
+flat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I had
+never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London.
+
+The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the
+housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
+
+Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more
+of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did
+not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid
+manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and
+hood of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to
+achieve with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted
+with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me
+as a dreamer and zealot.
+
+The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she
+prepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window
+and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it
+danced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed,
+was its mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I
+took it on my knee.
+
+Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and I
+had been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady
+of sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower
+class than mine.
+
+I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young
+Mrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the
+good-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and
+maternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change
+others even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was
+changed too, though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to
+recall myself to her memory; why should I? She came for her son to
+accompany her in a walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an
+infant. I only mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse,
+Mrs. Leigh spoke French (very bad French, by the way, and with an
+incorrigibly bad accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-
+days): and I found the woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered
+volubly in French too. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs.
+Barrett remarked that her young lady had brought that foreign nurse
+home with her two years ago, on her return from a Continental
+excursion; that she was treated almost as well as a governess, and had
+nothing to do but walk out with the baby and chatter French with
+Master Charles; "and," added Mrs. Barrett, "she says there are many
+Englishwomen in foreign families as well placed as she."
+
+I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives
+store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their
+prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my
+old friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn
+in the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former
+days.
+
+In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than
+the reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My
+means would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and
+also to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it
+as a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, rather
+than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking
+all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil;
+whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever.
+
+Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by:
+my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies
+now, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About
+nine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London.
+
+My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate
+reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as
+I had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late,
+on a dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of
+which the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers
+of clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence
+of more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.
+
+When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others
+waiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never
+before heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I
+managed to understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself
+and trunk safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address.
+How difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In
+London for the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with
+travelling; confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished
+with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to
+act obliged.
+
+Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense,
+however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and
+it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she
+spasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter:
+considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she was
+hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously called
+for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being wholly
+overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young
+lady, when she appeared.
+
+I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and
+smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how they
+had all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its
+mincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce
+attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and
+the circumstances; I shall gain good."
+
+Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and
+subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking, black-
+coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere long. I
+believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a little while
+they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state between
+patronage and politeness.
+
+I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself
+by a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by
+the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible
+oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a
+ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was I
+doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What
+prospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did I
+come? Whither should I go? What should I do?
+
+I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark
+interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not
+regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it A strong, vague
+persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I
+_could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult,
+would in time open--predominated over other feelings: its influence
+hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be
+able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my
+candle and lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the
+night. At first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at
+the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: "I lie in the
+shadow of St. Paul's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LONDON.
+
+
+The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and
+opened my curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above
+my head, above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I
+saw a solemn, orbed mass, dark blue and dim--THE DOME. While I looked,
+my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half
+loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were
+at last about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as
+Jonah's gourd.
+
+"I did well to come," I said, proceeding to dress with speed and care.
+"I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who
+but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever
+abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?"
+
+Being dressed, I went down; not travel-worn and exhausted, but tidy
+and refreshed. When the waiter came in with my breakfast, I managed to
+accost him sedately, yet cheerfully; we had ten minutes' discourse, in
+the course of which we became usefully known to each other.
+
+He was a grey-haired, elderly man; and, it seemed, had lived in his
+present place twenty years. Having ascertained this, I was sure he
+must remember my two uncles, Charles and Wilmot, who, fifteen, years
+ago, were frequent visitors here. I mentioned their names; he recalled
+them perfectly, and with respect. Having intimated my connection, my
+position in his eyes was henceforth clear, and on a right footing. He
+said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke truth, because
+Mrs. Barrett was accustomed to say the same thing. A ready and
+obliging courtesy now replaced his former uncomfortably doubtful
+manner; henceforth I need no longer be at a loss for a civil answer to
+a sensible question.
+
+The street on which my little sitting-room window looked was narrow,
+perfectly quiet, and not dirty: the few passengers were just such as
+one sees in provincial towns: here was nothing formidable; I felt sure
+I might venture out alone.
+
+Having breakfasted, out I went. Elation and pleasure were in my heart:
+to walk alone in London seemed of itself an adventure. Presently I
+found myself in Paternoster Row--classic ground this. I entered a
+bookseller's shop, kept by one Jones: I bought a little book--a piece
+of extravagance I could ill afford; but I thought I would one day give
+or send it to Mrs. Barrett. Mr. Jones, a dried-in man of business,
+stood behind his desk: he seemed one of the greatest, and I one of the
+happiest of beings.
+
+Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself
+before St. Paul's, I went in; I mounted to the dome: I saw thence
+London, with its river, and its bridges, and its churches; I saw
+antique Westminster, and the green Temple Gardens, with sun upon them,
+and a glad, blue sky, of early spring above; and between them and it,
+not too dense, a cloud of haze.
+
+Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still
+ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got--I know not how--I got
+into the heart of city life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into
+the Strand; I went up Cornhill; I mixed with the life passing along; I
+dared the perils of crossings. To do this, and to do it utterly alone,
+gave me, perhaps an irrational, but a real pleasure. Since those days,
+I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the
+city far better. The city seems so much more in earnest: its business,
+its rush, its roar, are such serious things, sights, and sounds. The
+city is getting its living--the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At
+the West End you may be amused, but in the city you are deeply
+excited.
+
+Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy
+hunger), I returned, about two o'clock, to my dark, old, and quiet
+inn. I dined on two dishes--a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed
+excellent: how much better than the small, dainty messes Miss
+Marchmont's cook used to send up to my kind, dead mistress and me, and
+to the discussion of which we could not bring half an appetite between
+us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an hour (the
+room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two
+hours.
+
+My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now
+such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and daring--
+perhaps desperate--line of action. I had nothing to lose. Unutterable
+loathing of a desolate existence past, forbade return. If I failed in
+what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would suffer? If I
+died far away from--home, I was going to say, but I had no home--from
+England, then, who would weep?
+
+I might suffer; I was inured to suffering: death itself had not, I
+thought, those terrors for me which it has for the softly reared. I
+had, ere this, looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye.
+Prepared, then, for any consequences, I formed a project.
+
+That same evening I obtained from my friend, the waiter, information
+respecting, the sailing of vessels for a certain continental port,
+Boue-Marine. No time, I found, was to be lost: that very night I must
+take my berth. I might, indeed, have waited till the morning before
+going on board, but would not run the risk of being too late.
+
+"Better take your berth at once, ma'am," counselled the waiter. I
+agreed with him, and having discharged my bill, and acknowledged my
+friend's services at a rate which I now know was princely, and which
+in his eyes must have seemed absurd--and indeed, while pocketing the
+cash, he smiled a faint smile which intimated his opinion of the
+donor's _savoir-faire_--he proceeded to call a coach. To the
+driver he also recommended me, giving at the same time an injunction
+about taking me, I think, to the wharf, and not leaving me to the
+watermen; which that functionary promised to observe, but failed in
+keeping his promise: on the contrary, he offered me up as an oblation,
+served me as a dripping roast, making me alight in the midst of a
+throng of watermen.
+
+This was an uncomfortable crisis. It was a dark night. The coachman
+instantly drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen
+commenced a struggle for me and my trunk. Their oaths I hear at this
+moment: they shook my philosophy more than did the night, or the
+isolation, or the strangeness of the scene. One laid hands on my
+trunk. I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid hands on
+me, I spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat,
+desired austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me--"Just
+there,"--which was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had
+chosen became now an ally: I was rowed off.
+
+Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the
+piles of building round, ships rocked on its bosom. They rowed me up
+to several vessels; I read by lantern-light their names painted in
+great white letters on a dark ground. "The Ocean," "The Phoenix," "The
+Consort," "The Dolphin," were passed in turns; but "The Vivid" was my
+ship, and it seemed she lay further down.
+
+Down the sable flood we glided, I thought of the Styx, and of Charon
+rowing some solitary soul to the Land of Shades. Amidst the strange
+scene, with a chilly wind blowing in my face and midnight clouds
+dropping rain above my head; with two rude rowers for companions,
+whose insane oaths still tortured my ear, I asked myself if I was
+wretched or terrified. I was neither. Often in my life have I been far
+more so under comparatively safe circumstances. "How is this?" said I.
+"Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and
+apprehensive?" I could not tell how it was.
+
+"THE VIVID" started out, white and glaring, from the black night at
+last.--"Here you are!" said the waterman, and instantly demanded six
+shillings.
+
+"You ask too much," I said. He drew off from the vessel and swore he
+would not embark me till I paid it. A young man, the steward as I
+found afterwards, was looking over the ship's side; he grinned a smile
+in anticipation of the coming contest; to disappoint him, I paid the
+money. Three times that afternoon I had given crowns where I should
+have given shillings; but I consoled myself with the reflection, "It
+is the price of experience."
+
+"They've cheated you!" said the steward exultingly when I got on
+board. I answered phlegmatically that "I knew it," and went below.
+
+A stout, handsome, and showy woman was in the ladies' cabin. I asked
+to be shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about
+its being unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and
+seemed disposed to be less than civil. What a face she had--so comely
+--so insolent and so selfish!
+
+"Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here," was my answer.
+"I will trouble you to show me my berth."
+
+She complied, but sullenly. I took off my bonnet, arranged my things,
+and lay down. Some difficulties had been passed through; a sort of
+victory was won: my homeless, anchorless, unsupported mind had again
+leisure for a brief repose. Till the "Vivid" arrived in harbour, no
+further action would be required of me; but then.... Oh! I could not
+look forward. Harassed, exhausted, I lay in a half-trance.
+
+The stewardess talked all night; not to me but to the young steward,
+her son and her very picture. He passed in and out of the cabin
+continually: they disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again
+twenty times in the course of the night. She professed to be writing a
+letter home--she said to her father; she read passages of it aloud,
+heeding me no more than a stock--perhaps she believed me asleep.
+Several of these passages appeared to comprise family secrets, and
+bore special reference to one "Charlotte," a younger sister who, from
+the bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating
+a romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder
+lady against the distasteful union. The dutiful son laughed his
+mother's correspondence to scorn. She defended it, and raved at him.
+They were a strange pair. She might be thirty-nine or forty, and was
+buxom and blooming as a girl of twenty. Hard, loud, vain and vulgar,
+her mind and body alike seemed brazen and imperishable. I should
+think, from her childhood, she must have lived in public stations; and
+in her youth might very likely have been a barmaid.
+
+Towards morning her discourse ran on a new theme: "the Watsons," a
+certain expected family-party of passengers, known to her, it
+appeared, and by her much esteemed on account of the handsome profit
+realized in their fees. She said, "It was as good as a little fortune
+to her whenever this family crossed."
+
+At dawn all were astir, and by sunrise the passengers came on board.
+Boisterous was the welcome given by the stewardess to the "Watsons,"
+and great was the bustle made in their honour. They were four in
+number, two males and two females. Besides them, there was but one
+other passenger--a young lady, whom a gentlemanly, though languid-
+looking man escorted. The two groups offered a marked contrast. The
+Watsons were doubtless rich people, for they had the confidence of
+conscious wealth in their bearing; the women--youthful both of them,
+and one perfectly handsome, as far as physical beauty went--were
+dressed richly, gaily, and absurdly out of character for the
+circumstances. Their bonnets with bright flowers, their velvet cloaks
+and silk dresses, seemed better suited for park or promenade than for
+a damp packet deck. The men were of low stature, plain, fat, and
+vulgar; the oldest, plainest, greasiest, broadest, I soon found was
+the husband--the bridegroom I suppose, for she was very young--of the
+beautiful girl. Deep was my amazement at this discovery; and deeper
+still when I perceived that, instead of being desperately wretched in
+such a union, she was gay even to giddiness. "Her laughter," I
+reflected, "must be the mere frenzy of despair." And even while this
+thought was crossing my mind, as I stood leaning quiet and solitary
+against the ship's side, she came tripping up to me, an utter
+stranger, with a camp-stool in her hand, and smiling a smile of which
+the levity puzzled and startled me, though it showed a perfect set of
+perfect teeth, she offered me the accommodation of this piece of
+furniture. I declined it of course, with all the courtesy I could put
+into my manner; she danced off heedless and lightsome. She must have
+been good-natured; but what had made her marry that individual, who
+was at least as much like an oil-barrel as a man?
+
+The other lady passenger, with the gentleman-companion, was quite a
+girl, pretty and fair: her simple print dress, untrimmed straw-bonnet
+and large shawl, gracefully worn, formed a costume plain to quakerism:
+yet, for her, becoming enough. Before the gentleman quitted her, I
+observed him throwing a glance of scrutiny over all the passengers, as
+if to ascertain in what company his charge would be left. With a most
+dissatisfied air did his eye turn from the ladies with the gay
+flowers; he looked at me, and then he spoke to his daughter, niece, or
+whatever she was: she also glanced in my direction, and slightly
+curled her short, pretty lip. It might be myself, or it might be my
+homely mourning habit, that elicited this mark of contempt; more
+likely, both. A bell rang; her father (I afterwards knew that it was
+her father) kissed her, and returned to land. The packet sailed.
+
+Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted
+to travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of
+English parents and guardians. As for the "jeunes Meess," by some
+their intrepidity is pronounced masculine and "inconvenant," others
+regard them as the passive victims of an educational and theological
+system which wantonly dispenses with proper "surveillance." Whether
+this particular young lady was of the sort that can the most safely be
+left unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not _then_ know;
+but it soon appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her
+taste. She paced the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she
+looked with a little sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and
+velvets, and the bears which thereon danced attendance, and eventually
+she approached me and spoke.
+
+"Are you fond of a sea-voyage?" was her question.
+
+I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to
+undergo the test of experience; I had never made one.
+
+"Oh, how charming!" cried she. "I quite envy you the novelty: first
+impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I
+quite forget the first: I am quite _blasee_ about the sea and all
+that."
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+"Why do you laugh at me?" she inquired, with a frank testiness that
+pleased me better than her other talk.
+
+"Because you are so young to be _blasee_ about anything."
+
+"I am seventeen" (a little piqued).
+
+"You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?"
+
+"Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times,
+alone; but then I take care never to be long alone: I always make
+friends."
+
+"You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think" (glancing
+at the Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of
+noise on deck).
+
+"Not of those odious men and women," said she: "such people should be
+steerage passengers. Are you going to school?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have not the least idea--beyond, at least, the port of Boue-
+Marine."
+
+She stared, then carelessly ran on:
+
+"I am going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been
+at in my life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing--
+nothing in the world--I assure you; except that I play and dance
+beautifully,--and French and German of course I know, to speak; but I
+can't read or write them very well. Do you know they wanted me to
+translate a page of an easy German book into English the other day,
+and I couldn't do it. Papa was so mortified: he says it looks as if M.
+de Bassompierre--my godpapa, who pays all my school-bills--had thrown
+away all his money. And then, in matters of information--in history,
+geography, arithmetic, and so on, I am quite a baby; and I write
+English so badly--such spelling and grammar, they tell me. Into the
+bargain I have quite forgotten my religion; they call me a Protestant,
+you know, but really I am not sure whether I am one or not: I don't
+well know the difference between Romanism and Protestantism. However,
+I don't in the least care for that. I was a Lutheran once at Bonn--
+dear Bonn!--charming Bonn!--where there were so many handsome
+students. Every nice girl in our school had an admirer; they knew our
+hours for walking out, and almost always passed us on the promenade:
+'Schoenes Maedchen,' we used to hear them say. I was excessively happy
+at Bonn!"
+
+"And where are you now?" I inquired.
+
+"Oh! at--_chose_," said she.
+
+Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person's name) only
+substituted this word "_chose_" in temporary oblivion of the real
+name. It was a habit she had: "_chose_" came in at every turn in
+her conversation--the convenient substitute for any missing word in
+any language she might chance at the time to be speaking. French girls
+often do the like; from them she had caught the custom.
+"_Chose_," however, I found in this instance, stood for Villette--the
+great capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour.
+
+"Do you like Villette?" I asked.
+
+"Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar;
+but there are some nice English families."
+
+"Are you in a school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A good one?"
+
+"Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the
+_maitresses_ or the _professeurs_, or the _eleves_, and send lessons
+_au diable_ (one daren't say that in English, you know, but it sounds
+quite right in French); and thus I get on charmingly.... You are laughing
+at me again?"
+
+"No--I am only smiling at my own thoughts."
+
+"What are they?" (Without waiting for an answer)--"Now, _do_ tell
+me where you are going."
+
+"Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can
+find it."
+
+"To earn!" (in consternation) "are you poor, then?"
+
+"As poor as Job."
+
+(After a pause)--"Bah! how unpleasant! But _I_ know what it is to
+be poor: they are poor enough at home--papa and mamma, and all of
+them. Papa is called Captain Fanshawe; he is an officer on half-pay,
+but well-descended, and some of our connections are great enough; but
+my uncle and godpapa De Bassompierre, who lives in France, is the only
+one that helps us: he educates us girls. I have five sisters and three
+brothers. By-and-by we are to marry--rather elderly gentlemen, I
+suppose, with cash: papa and mamma manage that. My sister Augusta is
+married now to a man much older-looking than papa. Augusta is very
+beautiful--not in my style--but dark; her husband, Mr. Davies, had the
+yellow fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but
+then he is rich, and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and
+we all think she has done perfectly well. Now, this is better than
+'earning a living,' as you say. By the way, are you clever?"
+
+"No--not at all."
+
+"You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"Still I think you are clever" (a pause and a yawn).
+
+"Shall you be sea-sick?"
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"Oh, immensely! as soon as ever we get in sight of the sea: I begin,
+indeed, to feel it already. I shall go below; and won't I order about
+that fat odious stewardess! Heureusement je sais faire aller mon
+monde."
+
+Down she went.
+
+It was not long before the other passengers followed her: throughout
+the afternoon I remained on deck alone. When I recall the tranquil,
+and even happy mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at
+the same time, the position in which I was placed; its hazardous--some
+would have said its hopeless--character; I feel that, as--
+
+  Stone walls do not a prison make,
+  Nor iron bars--a cage,
+
+so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils,
+so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so
+long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by
+her star.
+
+I was not sick till long after we passed Margate, and deep was the
+pleasure I drank in with the sea-breeze; divine the delight I drew
+from the heaving Channel waves, from the sea-birds on their ridges,
+from the white sails on their dark distance, from the quiet yet
+beclouded sky, overhanging all. In my reverie, methought I saw the
+continent of Europe, like a wide dream-land, far away. Sunshine lay on
+it, making the long coast one line of gold; tiniest tracery of
+clustered town and snow-gleaming tower, of woods deep massed, of
+heights serrated, of smooth pasturage and veiny stream, embossed the
+metal-bright prospect. For background, spread a sky, solemn and dark
+blue, and--grand with imperial promise, soft with tints of
+enchantment--strode from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of
+hope.
+
+Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader--or rather let it
+stand, and draw thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy--
+
+  Day-dreams are delusions of the demon.
+
+Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin.
+
+Miss Fanshawe's berth chanced to be next mine; and, I am sorry to say,
+she tormented me with an unsparing selfishness during the whole time
+of our mutual distress. Nothing could exceed her impatience and
+fretfulness. The Watsons, who were very sick too, and on whom the
+stewardess attended with shameless partiality, were stoics compared
+with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra
+Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of
+beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in
+adversity, like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman
+for his wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all
+sunshine. Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly
+requested her "to hold her tongue." The rebuff did her good, and it
+was observable that she liked me no worse for it.
+
+As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong
+against the vessel's side. It was strange to reflect that blackness
+and water were round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on
+her pathless way, despite noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of
+furniture began to fall about, and it became needful to lash them to
+their places; the passengers grew sicker than ever; Miss Fanshawe
+declared, with groans, that she must die.
+
+"Not just yet, honey," said the stewardess. "We're just in port."
+Accordingly, in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all;
+and about midnight the voyage ended.
+
+I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my
+difficulties--my stringent difficulties--recommenced. When I went on
+deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me
+for my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign
+sea-port town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like
+unnumbered threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the
+Watsons; a whole family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss
+Fanshawe; I--but I dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of
+positions.
+
+Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be
+nice. As I gave the stewardess her fee--and she seemed surprised at
+receiving a coin of more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse
+calculations had probably reckoned on--I said, "Be kind enough to
+direct me to some quiet, respectable inn, where I can go for the
+night."
+
+She not only gave me the required direction, but called a
+commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and--_not_ my
+trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
+
+I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful
+gleam of moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence,
+which he refused to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a
+shilling; but this also he declined, speaking rather sharply, in a
+language to me unknown. A waiter, coming forward into the lamp-lit
+inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, that my money was foreign
+money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to change. This little
+matter settled, I asked for a bedroom; supper I could not take: I was
+still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply glad I
+was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and
+my exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be
+as thick to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent,
+the peril (of destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more
+severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed:
+physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt
+and clear.
+
+Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: I said, "Come
+in," expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and
+said,--
+
+"Gif me your keys, Meess."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Gif!" said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand,
+he added, "All right! haf your tronc soon."
+
+Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house.
+Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded,
+not without hesitation, to descend.
+
+I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last
+night, viz. that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly
+descended the broad staircase, halting on each step (for I was in
+wonderfully little haste to get down), I gazed at the high ceiling
+above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which
+filled the house with light, at the veined marble I trod (for the
+steps were all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and
+contrasting all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me
+as a chamber, with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell
+into a philosophizing mood.
+
+Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chamber-maids
+in proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inn-
+servants and ship-stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for
+instance, was an individual of no social significance, and little
+burdened by cash? They _did_ know it evidently: I saw quite well
+that they all, in a moment's calculation, estimated me at about the
+same fractional value. The fact seemed to me curious and pregnant: I
+would not disguise from myself what it indicated, yet managed to keep
+up my spirits pretty well under its pressure.
+
+Having at last landed in a great hall, full of skylight glare, I made
+my way somehow to what proved to be the coffee-room. It cannot be
+denied that on entering this room I trembled somewhat; felt uncertain,
+solitary, wretched; wished to Heaven I knew whether I was doing right
+or wrong; felt convinced that it was the last, but could not help
+myself. Acting in the spirit and with the calm of a fatalist, I sat
+down at a small table, to which a waiter presently brought me some
+breakfast; and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not greatly
+calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people
+breakfasting at other tables in the room; I should have felt rather
+more happy if amongst them all I could have seen any women; however,
+there was not one--all present were men. But nobody seemed to think I
+was doing anything strange; one or two gentlemen glanced at me
+occasionally, but none stared obtrusively: I suppose if there was
+anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it by this word
+"Anglaise!"
+
+Breakfast over, I must again move--in what direction? "Go to
+Villette," said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the
+recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random
+by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to
+Madame Beck's; she has some marmots whom you might look after; she
+wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago."
+
+Who Madame Beck was, where she lived, I knew not; I had asked, but the
+question passed unheard: Miss Fanshawe, hurried away by her friends,
+left it unanswered. I presumed Villette to be her residence--to
+Villette I would go. The distance was forty miles. I knew I was
+catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found
+myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Having inquired about the
+means of travelling to Villette, and secured a seat in the diligence,
+I departed on the strength of this outline--this shadow of a project.
+Before you pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look
+back to the point whence I started; consider the desert I had left,
+note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot
+lose and may win.
+
+Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess
+something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present
+pleasure: that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I
+enjoyed that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold,
+though it rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route
+along which our journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid
+green snakes, beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level
+fields, tilled like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was
+monotonously gray; the atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst
+all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart
+basked in sunshine. These feelings, however, were well kept in check
+by the secret but ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on
+enjoyment, like a tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that
+beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce heart panted close
+against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he
+waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous from his ambush.
+
+I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I
+might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw
+round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow
+progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense
+rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by
+the time we gained its suburbs.
+
+I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much
+I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry
+Chaussee, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty
+surface. At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers
+alighted. My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter
+enough, but important to me. Understanding that it was best not to be
+importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly
+the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim
+and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle
+in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon
+which piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one,
+I saw these removed, lowered, and seized on.
+
+I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had
+tied on the direction-card with a piece of green ribbon, that I might
+know it at a glance: not a fringe or fragment of green was
+perceptible. Every package was removed; every tin-case and brown-paper
+parcel; the oilcloth cover was lifted; I saw with distinct vision that
+not an umbrella, cloak, cane, hat-box or band-box remained.
+
+And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book
+enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?
+
+I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing
+whatever; not possessing a phrase of _speaking_ French: and it was
+French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around
+me. _What_ should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my
+hand on his arm, pointed to a trunk, thence to the  diligence-roof, and
+tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized
+the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle.
+
+"Let that alone--will you?" said a voice in good English; then, in
+correction, "Qu'est-ce que vous faites donc? Cette malle est a moi."
+
+But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I
+turned: "Sir," said I, appealing to the stranger, without, in my
+distress, noticing what he was like, "I cannot speak French. May I
+entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk?"
+
+Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to
+which my eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its
+expression half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of
+interference.
+
+"_Do_ ask him; I would do as much for you," said I.
+
+I don't know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone--
+that is to say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,--"What sort of trunk
+was yours?"
+
+I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And
+forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all
+the storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed
+your trunk after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-
+Marine with other parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it
+to-morrow; the day after, therefore, you will find it safe at this
+bureau."
+
+"Thank you," said I: but my heart sank.
+
+Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the
+failure of courage in my face; he inquired kindly, "Have you any
+friends in this city?"
+
+"No, and I don't know where to go."
+
+There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more
+fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young,
+distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I
+knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His
+face was very pleasant; he looked high but not arrogant, manly but not
+overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep consciousness of all
+absence of claim to look for further help from such a one as he.
+
+"Was all your money in your trunk?" he asked, stopping me.
+
+How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth--"No. I have enough
+in my purse" (for I had near twenty francs) "to keep me at a quiet inn
+till the day after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette,
+and don't know the streets and the inns."
+
+"I can give you the address of such an inn as you want," said he; "and
+it is not far off: with my direction you will easily find it."
+
+He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to
+me. I _did_ think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his
+advice, or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of
+distrusting the Bible. There was goodness in his countenance, and
+honour in his bright eyes.
+
+"Your shortest way will be to follow the Boulevard and cross the
+park," he continued; "but it is too late and too dark for a woman to
+go through the park alone; I will step with you thus far."
+
+He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small
+soaking rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water
+dripping from its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double
+gloom of trees and fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow
+his tread. Not the least fear had I: I believe I would have followed
+that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end.
+
+"Now," said he, when the park was traversed, "you will go along this
+broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where
+they are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below;
+following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak
+English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, sir," said I: "accept my sincerest thanks." And we
+parted.
+
+The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not
+unbenignant to the friendless--the sound in my ear of his voice, which
+spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the
+youthful and fair--were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a
+true young English gentleman.
+
+On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with
+the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more
+than one overbearing pile; which might be palace or church--I could
+not tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came
+suddenly from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars: their
+dress implied pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things!
+they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast
+as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort
+of patrol, and my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but
+they had driven me beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my
+faculties, I no longer knew where I was; the staircase I must long
+since have passed. Puzzled, out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in
+inevitable agitation, I knew not where to turn. It was terrible to
+think of again encountering those bearded, sneering simpletons; yet
+the ground must be retraced, and the steps sought out.
+
+I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted
+that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into
+which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I
+wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved
+street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house,
+loftier by a story than those round it. _This_ might be the inn
+at last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting
+quite exhausted.
+
+No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochere:
+"Pensionnat de Demoiselles" was the inscription; and beneath, a name,
+"Madame Beck."
+
+I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a
+moment. Yet I planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time.
+Providence said, "Stop here; this is _your_ inn." Fate took me in
+her strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rang the
+door-bell.
+
+While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the street-
+stones, where the door-lamp shone, and counted them and noted their
+shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They
+opened at last. A bonne in a smart cap stood before me.
+
+"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired.
+
+I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but,
+as I spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on
+business connected with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour,
+she let me in, without a word of reluctance, or a moment of
+hesitation.
+
+The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain
+stove, unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on
+the mantel-piece struck nine o'clock.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame!
+How I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the
+door--a great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to
+see a leaf move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred;
+the white doors were closed and motionless.
+
+"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
+unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
+
+No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a
+motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a
+clean, trim nightcap.
+
+I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we
+fell to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck
+it was--she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod
+with the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor
+approach)--Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech
+when she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away
+volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood
+me, but as I did not at all understand her--though we made together an
+awful clamour (anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not
+hitherto heard or imagined)--we achieved little progress. She rang,
+ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who
+had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a
+perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this
+maitresse was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did
+slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale,
+which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent
+on extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to
+turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or
+degrading; how I would be a child's-nurse, or a lady's-maid, and would
+not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this;
+and, questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her
+ear:
+
+"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
+"sont-elles donc intrepides ces femmes la!"
+
+She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me--not pityingly,
+not with interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of
+compassion, crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she
+was not one to be led an inch by her feelings: grave and considerate,
+she gazed, consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell
+rang.
+
+"Voila pour la priere du soir!" said she, and rose. Through her
+interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the
+morrow; but this did not suit me: I could not bear to return to the
+perils of darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected
+and controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally, and not
+the maitresse: "Be assured, madame, that by instantly securing my
+services, your interests will be served and not injured: you will find
+me one who will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her
+wages; and if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here
+this night: having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the
+language of the country, how can I secure a lodging?"
+
+"It is true," said she; "but at least you can give a reference?"
+
+"None."
+
+She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She
+mused. At that moment a man's step was heard in the vestibule, hastily
+proceeding to the outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale
+as if I had understood all that passed; for though it was then scarce
+intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards).
+
+"Who goes out now?" demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.
+
+"M. Paul," replied the teacher. "He came this evening to give a
+reading to the first class."
+
+"The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him."
+
+The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a
+small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.
+
+"Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill
+in physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance."
+
+The little man fixed on me his spectacles: A resolute compression of
+the lips, and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to
+see through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him.
+
+"I read it," he pronounced.
+
+"Et qu'en dites vous?"
+
+"Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer.
+
+"Bad or good?"
+
+"Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner.
+
+"May one trust her word?"
+
+"Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"
+
+"She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale
+full of integrity, but gives no reference."
+
+"She is a stranger?"
+
+"An Englishwoman, as one may see."
+
+"She speaks French?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"She understands it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"One may then speak plainly in her presence?"
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He gazed steadily. "Do you need her services?"
+
+"I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini."
+
+Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as
+indefinite as what had gone before it.
+
+"Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will
+bring its own reward; if evil--eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours
+une bonne oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," this vague arbiter
+of my destiny vanished.
+
+And Madame did engage me that very night--by God's blessing I was
+spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary,
+hostile street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MADAME BECK.
+
+
+Being delivered into the charge of the maitresse, I was led through a
+long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very
+strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking--neither fireplace
+nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which
+filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride
+was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense
+of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half
+anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a
+"cabinet." A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought
+my supper: to wit--some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and
+acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I
+know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of
+bread and butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was
+grateful.
+
+After the "priere du soir," Madame herself came to have another look
+at me. She desired me to follow her up-stairs. Through a series of the
+queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been
+nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and
+through the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung,
+pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils--she conducted
+me to an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny
+beds. A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to
+mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than
+delicate: a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected
+under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some
+spirituous essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.
+
+Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to
+waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad
+striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast
+asleep. To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of
+matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's
+elbow.
+
+Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she
+neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise,
+ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the
+woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to
+be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a
+night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the
+entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was
+discernible through the aperture.
+
+My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been
+led since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely
+could I believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left
+London, under no other guardianship than that which protects the
+passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of
+hope.
+
+I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke. All was
+hushed, but a white figure stood in the room--Madame in her night-
+dress. Moving without perceptible sound, she visited the three
+children in the three beds; she approached me: I feigned sleep, and
+she studied me long. A small pantomime ensued, curious enough. I
+daresay she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of my bed, gazing at
+my face. She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly raised my
+cap, and turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked at
+my hand lying on the bedclothes. This done, she turned to the chair
+where my clothes lay: it was at the foot of the bed. Hearing her touch
+and lift them, I opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt
+curious to see how far her taste for research would lead her. It led
+her a good way: every article did she inspect. I divined her motive
+for this proceeding, viz. the wish to form from the garments a
+judgment respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, &c. The
+end was not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In my
+dress was a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out: she counted the
+money in my purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused
+its contents, and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of
+Miss Marchmont's grey hair. To a bunch of three keys, being those of
+my trunk, desk, and work-box, she accorded special attention: with
+these, indeed, she withdrew a moment to her own room. I softly rose in
+my bed and followed her with my eye: these keys, reader, were not
+brought back till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining room
+the impress of their wards in wax. All being thus done decently and in
+order, my property was returned to its place, my clothes were
+carefully refolded. Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from
+this scrutiny? Were they favourable or otherwise? Vain question.
+Madame's face of stone (for of stone in its present night aspect it
+looked: it had been human, and, as I said before, motherly, in the
+salon) betrayed no response.
+
+Her duty done--I felt that in her eyes this business was a duty--she
+rose, noiseless as a shadow: she moved towards her own chamber; at the
+door, she turned, fixing her eye on the heroine of the bottle, who
+still slept and loudly snored. Mrs. Svini (I presume this was Mrs.
+Svini, Anglice or Hibernice, Sweeny)--Mrs. Sweeny's doom was in Madame
+Beck's eye--an immutable purpose that eye spoke: Madame's visitations
+for shortcomings might be slow, but they were sure. All this was very
+un-English: truly I was in a foreign land.
+
+The morrow made me further acquainted with Mrs. Sweeny. It seems she
+had introduced herself to her present employer as an English lady in
+reduced circumstances: a native, indeed, of Middlesex, professing to
+speak the English tongue with the purest metropolitan accent. Madame--
+reliant on her own infallible expedients for finding out the truth in
+time--had a singular intrepidity in hiring service off-hand (as indeed
+seemed abundantly proved in my own case). She received Mrs. Sweeny as
+nursery-governess to her three children. I need hardly explain to the
+reader that this lady was in effect a native of Ireland; her station I
+do not pretend to fix: she boldly declared that she had "had the
+bringing-up of the son and daughter of a marquis." I think myself, she
+might possibly have been a hanger-on, nurse, fosterer, or washerwoman,
+in some Irish family: she spoke a smothered tongue, curiously overlaid
+with mincing cockney inflections. By some means or other she had
+acquired, and now held in possession, a wardrobe of rather suspicious
+splendour--gowns of stiff and costly silk, fitting her indifferently,
+and apparently made for other proportions than those they now adorned;
+caps with real lace borders, and--the chief item in the inventory, the
+spell by which she struck a certain awe through the household,
+quelling the otherwise scornfully disposed teachers and servants, and,
+so long as her broad shoulders _wore_ the folds of that majestic
+drapery, even influencing Madame herself--_a real Indian shawl_--
+"un veritable cachemire," as Madame Beck said, with unmixed reverence
+and amaze. I feel quite sure that without this "cachemire" she would
+not have kept her footing in the pensionnat for two days: by virtue of
+it, and it only, she maintained the same a month.
+
+But when Mrs. Sweeny knew that I was come to fill her shoes, then it
+was that she declared herself--then did she rise on Madame Beck in her
+full power--then come down on me with her concentrated weight. Madame
+bore this revelation and visitation so well, so stoically, that I for
+very shame could not support it otherwise than with composure. For one
+little moment Madame Beck absented herself from the room; ten minutes
+after, an agent of the police stood in the midst of us. Mrs. Sweeny
+and her effects were removed. Madame's brow had not been ruffled
+during the scene--her lips had not dropped one sharply-accented word.
+
+This brisk little affair of the dismissal was all settled before
+breakfast: order to march given, policeman called, mutineer expelled;
+"chambre d'enfans" fumigated and cleansed, windows thrown open, and
+every trace of the accomplished Mrs. Sweeny--even to the fine essence
+and spiritual fragrance which gave token so subtle and so fatal of the
+head and front of her offending--was annihilated from the Rue
+Fossette: all this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame
+Beck's issuing like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she
+coolly sat down to pour out her first cup of coffee.
+
+About noon, I was summoned to dress Madame. (It appeared my place was
+to be a hybrid between gouvernante and lady's-maid.) Till noon, she
+haunted the house in her wrapping-gown, shawl, and soundless slippers.
+How would the lady-chief of an English school approve this custom?
+
+The dressing of her hair puzzled me; she had plenty of it: auburn,
+unmixed with grey: though she was forty years old. Seeing my
+embarrassment, she said, "You have not been a femme-de-chambre in your
+own country?" And taking the brush from my hand, and setting me aside,
+not ungently or disrespectfully, she arranged it herself. In
+performing other offices of the toilet, she half-directed, half-aided
+me, without the least display of temper or impatience. N.B.--That was
+the first and last time I was required to dress her. Henceforth, on
+Rosine, the portress, devolved that duty.
+
+When attired, Madame Beck appeared a personage of a figure rather
+short and stout, yet still graceful in its own peculiar way; that is,
+with the grace resulting from proportion of parts. Her complexion was
+fresh and sanguine, not too rubicund; her eye, blue and serene; her
+dark silk dress fitted her as a French sempstress alone can make a
+dress fit; she looked well, though a little bourgeoise; as bourgeoise,
+indeed, she was. I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person;
+and yet her face offered contrast, too: its features were by no means
+such as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such
+blended freshness and repose: their outline was stern: her forehead
+was high but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but
+no expanse; nor did her peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire
+which is kindled in the heart or the softness which flows thence. Her
+mouth was hard: it could be a little grim; her lips were thin. For
+sensibility and genius, with all their tenderness and temerity, I felt
+somehow that Madame would be the right sort of Minos in petticoats.
+
+In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her
+name was Modeste Maria Beck, nee Kint: it ought to have been Ignacia.
+She was a charitable woman, and did a great deal of good. There never
+was a mistress whose rule was milder. I was told that she never once
+remonstrated with the intolerable Mrs. Sweeny, despite her tipsiness,
+disorder, and general neglect; yet Mrs. Sweeny had to go the moment
+her departure became convenient. I was told, too, that neither masters
+nor teachers were found fault with in that establishment; yet both
+masters and teachers were often changed: they vanished and others
+filled their places, none could well explain how.
+
+The establishment was both a pensionnat and an externat: the externes
+or day-pupils exceeded one hundred in number; the boarders were about
+a score. Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she
+ruled all these, together with four teachers, eight masters, six
+servants, and three children, managing at the same time to perfection
+the pupils' parents and friends; and that without apparent effort;
+without bustle, fatigue, fever, or any symptom of undue, excitement:
+occupied she always was--busy, rarely. It is true that Madame had her
+own system for managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a
+very pretty system it was: the reader has seen a specimen of it, in
+that small affair of turning my pocket inside out, and reading my
+private memoranda. "Surveillance," "espionage,"--these were her
+watchwords.
+
+Still, Madame knew what honesty was, and liked it--that is, when it
+did not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and
+interest. She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les
+Anglaises," she would have the women of no other country about her own
+children, if she could help it.
+
+Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-
+plotting, spying and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would
+come up to my room--a trace of real weariness on her brow--and she
+would sit down and listen while the children said their little prayers
+to me in English: the Lord's Prayer, and the hymn beginning "Gentle
+Jesus," these little Catholics were permitted to repeat at my knee;
+and, when I had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon gained
+enough French to be able to understand, and even answer her) about
+England and Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to
+term their superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity.
+Very good sense she often showed; very sound opinions she often
+broached: she seemed to know that keeping girls in distrustful
+restraint, in blind ignorance, and under a surveillance that left them
+no moment and no corner for retirement, was not the best way to make
+them grow up honest and modest women; but she averred that ruinous
+consequences would ensue if any other method were tried with
+continental children: they were so accustomed to restraint, that
+relaxation, however guarded, would be misunderstood and fatally
+presumed on. She was sick, she would declare, of the means she had to
+use, but use them she must; and after discoursing, often with dignity
+and delicacy, to me, she would move away on her "souliers de silence,"
+and glide ghost-like through the house, watching and spying
+everywhere, peering through every keyhole, listening behind every
+door.
+
+After all, Madame's system was not bad--let me do her justice. Nothing
+could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being
+of her scholars. No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well
+distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a
+liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the
+girls healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny
+faces were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. She never grudged
+a holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing,
+eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary,
+and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly
+well to imitate her--and I believe many would be glad to do so, if
+exacting English parents would let them.
+
+As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of
+spies: she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while
+she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty occasion--
+flinging this sort from her like refuse rind, after the orange has
+been duly squeezed--I have known her fastidious in seeking pure metal
+for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless instrument was
+found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk and cotton-
+wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one inch
+beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy: interest
+was the master-key of Madame's nature--the mainspring of her motives--
+the alpha and omega of her life. I have seen her _feelings_
+appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the
+appellants. None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed
+her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to touch her
+heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a
+secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it
+reminded her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the
+distinction between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her.
+While devoid of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational
+benevolence: she would give in the readiest manner to people she had
+never seen--rather, however, to classes than to individuals. "Pour les
+pauvres," she opened her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as
+a rule, she kept it closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit
+of society at large she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow
+touched her: no force or mass of suffering concentrated in one heart
+had power to pierce hers. Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death
+on Calvary, could have wrung from her eyes one tear.
+
+I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That
+school offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to
+have swayed a nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent
+legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated
+her nerves, exhausted her patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In
+her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first
+minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless;
+secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and
+insensate--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?
+
+The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge
+here condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No!
+what I saw at first was the thriving outside of a large and
+flourishing educational establishment. Here was a great house, full of
+healthy, lively girls, all well-dressed and many of them handsome,
+gaining knowledge by a marvellously easy method, without painful
+exertion or useless waste of spirits; not, perhaps, making very rapid
+progress in anything; taking it easy, but still always employed, and
+never oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, more
+stringently tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by
+them, in order to save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged
+that they relieved each other in quick succession whenever the work
+was severe: here, in short, was a foreign school; of which the life,
+movement, and variety made it a complete and most charming contrast to
+many English institutions of the same kind.
+
+Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost
+lived out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under
+the vast and vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer
+afternoons, and send for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and
+sew and read. Meantime, masters came and went, delivering short and
+lively lectures, rather than lessons, and the pupils made notes of
+their instructions, or did _not_ make them--just as inclination
+prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes
+of their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de
+sortie_, the Catholic fete-days brought a succession of holidays
+all the year round; and sometimes on a bright summer morning, or soft
+summer evening; the boarders were taken out for a long walk into the
+country, regaled with _gaufres_ and _vin blanc_, or new milk
+and _pain bis_, or _pistolets au beurre_ (rolls) and coffee.
+All this seemed very pleasant, and Madame appeared goodness itself;
+and the teachers not so bad but they might be worse; and the pupils,
+perhaps, a little noisy and rough, but types of health and glee.
+
+Thus did the view appear, seen through the enchantment of distance;
+but there came a time when distance was to melt for me--when I was to
+be called down from my watch-tower of the nursery, whence I had
+hitherto made my observations, and was to be compelled into closer
+intercourse with this little world of the Rue Fossette.
+
+I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their
+English lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame,
+when she came sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow
+of hard thought she sometimes wore, and which made her look so little
+genial. Dropping into a seat opposite mine, she remained some minutes
+silent. Desiree, the eldest girl, was reading to me some little essay
+of Mrs. Barbauld's, and I was making her translate currently from
+English to French as she proceeded, by way of ascertaining that she
+comprehended what she read: Madame listened.
+
+Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of
+one making an accusation, "Meess, in England you were a governess?"
+
+"No, Madame," said I smiling, "you are mistaken."
+
+"Is this your first essay at teaching--this attempt with my children?"
+
+I assured her it was. Again she became silent; but looking up, as I
+took a pin from the cushion, I found myself an object of study: she
+held me under her eye; she seemed turning me round in her thoughts--
+measuring my fitness for a purpose, weighing my value in a plan.
+Madame had, ere this, scrutinized all I had, and I believe she
+esteemed herself cognizant of much that I was; but from that day, for
+the space of about a fortnight, she tried me by new tests. She
+listened at the nursery door when I was shut in with the children; she
+followed me at a cautious distance when I walked out with them,
+stealing within ear-shot whenever the trees of park or boulevard
+afforded a sufficient screen: a strict preliminary process having thus
+been observed, she made a move forward.
+
+One morning, coming on me abruptly, and with the semblance of hurry,
+she said she found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the
+English master, had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill;
+the pupils were waiting in classe; there was no one to give a lesson;
+should I, for once, object to giving a short dictation exercise, just
+that the pupils might not have it to say they had missed their English
+lesson?
+
+"In classe, Madame?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, in classe: in the second division."
+
+"Where there are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and
+with my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a
+snail into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a
+pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have
+let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of
+practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching
+infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's
+frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated
+resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my
+interest; but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy
+anxiety, and relieved from intimate trial: the negation of severe
+suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know.
+Besides, I seemed to hold two lives--the life of thought, and that of
+reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of
+the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter
+might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of
+shelter.
+
+"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
+cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."
+
+"But Fifine wants it, Madame."
+
+"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."
+
+And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me--as she
+had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his
+shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition--as,
+too, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity,
+whether _I_ lacked them or not--she, without more ado, made me
+relinquish thimble and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was
+conducted down-stairs. When we reached the carre, a large square hall
+between the dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, dropped my
+hand, faced, and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from
+head to foot: tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact,
+the difficulties before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some
+of them were real enough; and not the least substantial lay in my want
+of mastery over the medium through which I should be obliged to teach.
+I had, indeed, studied French closely since my arrival in Villette;
+learning its practice by day, and its theory in every leisure moment
+at night, to as late an hour as the rule of the house would allow
+candle-light; but I was far from yet being able to trust my powers of
+correct oral expression.
+
+"Dites donc," said Madame sternly, "vous sentez vous reellement trop
+faible?"
+
+I might have said "Yes," and gone back to nursery obscurity, and
+there, perhaps, mouldered for the rest of my life; but looking up at
+Madame, I saw in her countenance a something that made me think twice
+ere I decided. At that instant she did not wear a woman's aspect, but
+rather a man's. Power of a particular kind strongly limned itself in
+all her traits, and that power was not my kind of power: neither
+sympathy, nor congeniality, nor submission, were the emotions it
+awakened. I stood--not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It seemed as
+if a challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I
+suddenly felt all the dishonour of my diffidence--all the
+pusillanimity of my slackness to aspire.
+
+"Will you," she said, "go backward or forward?" indicating with her
+hand, first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house,
+and then the great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms.
+
+"En avant," I said.
+
+"But," pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look,
+from very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, "can
+you face the classes, or are you over-excited?"
+
+She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much
+to Madame's taste.
+
+"I am no more excited than this stone," I said, tapping the flag with
+my toe: "or than you," I added, returning her look.
+
+"Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls
+you are going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes,
+franches, brusques, et tant soit peu rebelles."
+
+I said: "I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French
+hard since I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much
+hesitation--too little accuracy to be able to command their respect I
+shall make blunders that will lay me open to the scorn of the most
+ignorant. Still I mean to give the lesson."
+
+"They always throw over timid teachers," said she.
+
+"I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and
+persecuted Miss Turner"--a poor friendless English teacher, whom
+Madame had employed, and lightly discarded; and to whose piteous
+history I was no stranger.
+
+"C'est vrai," said she, coolly. "Miss Turner had no more command over
+them than a servant from the kitchen would have had. She was weak and
+wavering; she had neither tact nor intelligence, decision nor dignity.
+Miss Turner would not do for these girls at all."
+
+I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door.
+
+"You will not expect aid from me, or from any one," said Madame. "That
+would at once set you down as incompetent for your office."
+
+I opened the door, let her pass with courtesy, and followed her. There
+were three schoolrooms, all large. That dedicated to the second
+division, where I was to figure, was considerably the largest, and
+accommodated an assemblage more numerous, more turbulent, and
+infinitely more unmanageable than the other two. In after days, when I
+knew the ground better, I used to think sometimes (if such a
+comparison may be permitted), that the quiet, polished, tame first
+division was to the robust, riotous, demonstrative second division,
+what the English House of Lords is to the House of Commons.
+
+The first glance informed me that many of the pupils were more than
+girls--quite young women; I knew that some of them were of noble
+family (as nobility goes in Labassecour), and I was well convinced
+that not one amongst them was ignorant of my position in Madame's
+household. As I mounted the estrade (a low platform, raised a step
+above the flooring), where stood the teacher's chair and desk, I
+beheld opposite to me a row of eyes and brows that threatened stormy
+weather--eyes full of an insolent light, and brows hard and unblushing
+as marble. The continental "female" is quite a different being to the
+insular "female" of the same age and class: I never saw such eyes and
+brows in England. Madame Beck introduced me in one cool phrase, sailed
+from the room, and left me alone in my glory.
+
+I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the under-current of
+life and character it opened up to me. Then first did I begin rightly
+to see the wide difference that lies between the novelist's and poet's
+ideal "jeune fille" and the said "jeune fille" as she really is.
+
+It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down
+predetermined that a _bonne d'enfants_ should not give them
+lessons in English. They knew they had succeeded in expelling
+obnoxious teachers before now; they knew that Madame would at any time
+throw overboard a professeur or maitresse who became unpopular with
+the school--that she never assisted a weak official to retain his
+place--that if he had not strength to fight, or tact to win his way,
+down he went: looking at "Miss Snowe," they promised themselves an
+easy victory.
+
+Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angelique opened the campaign by
+a series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into
+murmurs and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and
+echoed more loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon
+became oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and
+exercised under such cruel constraint.
+
+Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have
+gained a hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a
+poor creature, and in many respects actually was so, yet nature had
+given me a voice that could make itself heard, if lifted in excitement
+or deepened by emotion. In the second place, while I had no flow, only
+a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary circumstances, yet--
+under stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous mass--I
+could, in English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their
+proceedings as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then
+with some sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the
+ringleaders, and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less
+knavish followers, it seemed to me that one might possibly get command
+over this wild herd, and bring them into training, at least. All I
+could now do was to walk up to Blanche--Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young
+baronne--the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious--stand
+before her desk, take from under her hand her exercise-book, remount
+the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I found very
+stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school,
+tear the blotted page in two.
+
+This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone,
+quite in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished
+energy. I looked at her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like
+night, broad strong eyebrows, decided features, and a dark, mutinous,
+sinister eye: I noted that she sat close by a little door, which door,
+I was well aware, opened into a small closet where books were kept.
+She was standing up for the purpose of conducting her clamour with
+freer energies. I measured her stature and calculated her strength She
+seemed both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and the
+attack unexpected, I thought I might manage her.
+
+Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly
+could, in short, _ayant l'air de rien_, I slightly pushed the
+door and found it was ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had
+turned on her. In another instant she occupied the closet, the door
+was shut, and the key in my pocket.
+
+It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name, and a Catalonian by
+race, was the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her
+associates; the act of summary justice above noted proved popular:
+there was not one present but, in her heart, liked to see it done.
+They were stilled for a moment; then a smile--not a laugh--passed from
+desk to desk: then--when I had gravely and tranquilly returned to the
+estrade, courteously requested silence, and commenced a dictation as
+if nothing at all had happened--the pens travelled peacefully over the
+pages, and the remainder of the lesson passed in order and industry.
+
+"C'est bien," said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a
+little exhausted. "Ca ira."
+
+She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time.
+
+From that day I ceased to be nursery governess, and became English
+teacher. Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of
+me she had extracted from Mr. Wilson, at half the expense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ISIDORE.
+
+
+My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching
+others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It
+was pleasant. I felt I was getting, on; not lying the stagnant prey of
+mould and rust, but polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen
+edge with constant use. Experience of a certain kind lay before me, on
+no narrow scale. Villette is a cosmopolitan city, and in this school
+were girls of almost every European nation, and likewise of very
+varied rank in life. Equality is much practised in Labassecour; though
+not republican in form, it is nearly so in substance, and at the desks
+of Madame Beck's establishment the young countess and the young
+bourgeoise sat side by side. Nor could you always by outward
+indications decide which was noble and which plebeian; except that,
+indeed, the latter had often franker and more courteous manners, while
+the former bore away the bell for a delicately-balanced combination of
+insolence and deceit. In the former there was often quick French blood
+mixed with the marsh-phlegm: I regret to say that the effect of this
+vivacious fluid chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with which
+flattery and fiction ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and
+livelier, but quite heartless and insincere.
+
+To do all parties justice, the honest aboriginal Labassecouriennes had
+an hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as
+could deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions,
+they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether
+untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck's
+house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above
+being ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it: to invent might
+not be precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of faults. "J'ai
+menti plusieurs fois," formed an item of every girl's and woman's
+monthly confession: the priest heard unshocked, and absolved
+unreluctant. If they had missed going to mass, or read a chapter of a
+novel, that was another thing: these were crimes whereof rebuke and
+penance were the unfailing weed.
+
+While yet but half-conscious of this state of things, and unlearned in
+its results, I got on in my new sphere very well. After the first few
+difficult lessons, given amidst peril and on the edge of a moral
+volcano that rumbled under my feet and sent sparks and hot fumes into
+my eyes, the eruptive spirit seemed to subside, as far as I was
+concerned. My mind was a good deal bent on success: I could not bear
+the thought of being baffled by mere undisciplined disaffection and
+wanton indocility, in this first attempt to get on in life. Many hours
+of the night I used to lie awake, thinking what plan I had best adopt
+to get a reliable hold on these mutineers, to bring this stiff-necked
+tribe under permanent influence. In, the first place, I saw plainly
+that aid in no shape was to be expected from Madame: her righteous
+plan was to maintain an unbroken popularity with the pupils, at any
+and every cost of justice or comfort to the teachers. For a teacher to
+seek her alliance in any crisis of insubordination was equivalent to
+securing her own expulsion. In intercourse with her pupils, Madame
+only took to herself what was pleasant, amiable, and recommendatory;
+rigidly requiring of her lieutenants sufficiency for every annoying
+crisis, where to act with adequate promptitude was to be unpopular.
+Thus, I must look only to myself.
+
+Imprimis--it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not
+to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very
+patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very
+rare flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental
+application they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the
+memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an
+English girl of not more than average capacity and docility would
+quietly take a theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and
+mastery, a Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it
+back to you with the phrase,--"Dieu, que c'est difficile! Je n'en veux
+pas. Cela m'ennuie trop."
+
+A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once,
+without hesitation, contest, or expostulation--proceed with even
+exaggerated care to smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the
+level of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and
+lay on the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the
+sting, perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice
+against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not _sour_,
+but _hearty_, and that it held well up to them, in a clear,
+light, and bold type, so that she who ran might read, their
+incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They would riot for three additional
+lines to a lesson; but I never knew them rebel against a wound given
+to their self-respect: the little they had of that quality was trained
+to be crushed, and it rather liked the pressure of a firm heel than
+otherwise.
+
+By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and
+could make such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their
+case, the elder and more intelligent girls began rather to like me in
+their way: I noticed that whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in
+her soul the stirring of worthy emulation, or the quickening of honest
+shame, from that date she was won. If I could but once make their
+(usually large) ears burn under their thick glossy hair, all was
+comparatively well. By-and-by bouquets began to be laid on my desk in
+the morning; by way of acknowledgment for this little foreign
+attention, I used sometimes to walk with a select few during
+recreation. In the course of conversation it befel once or twice that
+I made an unpremeditated attempt to rectify some of their singularly
+distorted notions of principle; especially I expressed my ideas of the
+evil and baseness of a lie. In an unguarded moment, I chanced to say
+that, of the two errors; I considered falsehood worse than an
+occasional lapse in church-attendance. The poor girls were tutored to
+report in Catholic ears whatever the Protestant teacher said. An
+edifying consequence ensued. Something--an unseen, an indefinite, a
+nameless--something stole between myself and these my best pupils: the
+bouquets continued to be offered, but conversation thenceforth became
+impracticable. As I paced the alleys or sat in the berceau, a girl
+never came to my right hand but a teacher, as if by magic, appeared at
+my left. Also, wonderful to relate, Madame's shoes of silence brought
+her continually to my back, as quick, as noiseless and unexpected, as
+some wandering zephyr.
+
+The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual
+prospects was somewhat naively expressed to me on one occasion. A
+pensionnaire, to whom I had rendered some little service, exclaimed
+one day as she sat beside me: "Mademoiselle, what a pity you are a
+Protestant!"
+
+"Why, Isabelle?"
+
+"Parceque, quand vous serez morte--vous brulerez tout de suite dans
+l'Enfer."
+
+"Croyez-vous?"
+
+"Certainement que j'y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d'ailleurs le
+pretre me l'a dit."
+
+Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, _sotto
+voce_: "Pour assurer votre salut la-haut, on ferait bien de vous
+bruler toute vive ici-bas."
+
+I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Has the reader forgotten Miss Ginevra Fanshawe? If so, I must be
+allowed to re-introduce that young lady as a thriving pupil of Madame
+Beck's; for such she was. On her arrival in the Rue Fossette, two or
+three days after my sudden settlement there, she encountered me with
+very little surprise. She must have had good blood in her veins, for
+never was any duchess more perfectly, radically, unaffectedly
+_nonchalante_ than she: a weak, transient amaze was all she knew
+of the sensation of wonder. Most of her other faculties seemed to be
+in the same flimsy condition: her liking and disliking, her love and
+hate, were mere cobweb and gossamer; but she had one thing about her
+that seemed strong and durable enough, and that was--her selfishness.
+
+She was not proud; and--_bonne d'enfants_ as I was--she would
+forthwith have made of me a sort of friend and confidant. She teased
+me with a thousand vapid complaints about school-quarrels and
+household economy: the cookery was not to her taste; the people about
+her, teachers and pupils, she held to be despicable, because they were
+foreigners. I bore with her abuse of the Friday's salt fish and hard
+eggs--with her invective against the soup, the bread, the coffee--with
+some patience for a time; but at last, wearied by iteration, I turned
+crusty, and put her to rights: a thing I ought to have done in the
+very beginning, for a salutary setting down always agreed with her.
+
+Much longer had I to endure her demands on me in the way of work. Her
+wardrobe, so far as concerned articles of external wear, was well and
+elegantly supplied; but there were other habiliments not so carefully
+provided: what she had, needed frequent repair. She hated needle-
+drudgery herself, and she would bring her hose, &c. to me in heaps, to
+be mended. A compliance of some weeks threatening to result in the
+establishment of an intolerable bore--I at last distinctly told her
+she must make up her mind to mend her own garments. She cried on
+receiving this information, and accused me of having ceased to be her
+friend; but I held by my decision, and let the hysterics pass as they
+could.
+
+Notwithstanding these foibles, and various others needless to mention
+--but by no means of a refined or elevating character--how pretty she
+was! How charming she looked, when she came down on a sunny Sunday
+morning, well-dressed and well-humoured, robed in pale lilac silk, and
+with her fair long curls reposing on her white shoulders. Sunday was a
+holiday which she always passed with friends resident in town; and
+amongst these friends she speedily gave me to understand was one who
+would fain become something more. By glimpses and hints it was shown
+me, and by the general buoyancy of her look and manner it was ere long
+proved, that ardent admiration--perhaps genuine love--was at her
+command. She called her suitor "Isidore:" this, however, she intimated
+was not his real name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize him
+--his own, she hinted, not being "very pretty." Once, when she had been
+bragging about the vehemence of "Isidore's" attachment, I asked if she
+loved him in return.
+
+"Comme cela," said she: "he is handsome, and he loves me to
+distraction, so that I am well amused. Ca suffit."
+
+Finding that she carried the thing on longer than, from her very
+fickle tastes, I had anticipated, I one day took it upon me to make
+serious inquiries as to whether the gentleman was such as her parents,
+and especially her uncle--on whom, it appeared, she was dependent--
+would be likely to approve. She allowed that this was very doubtful,
+as she did not believe "Isidore" had much money.
+
+"Do you encourage him?" I asked.
+
+"Furieusement sometimes," said she.
+
+"Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?"
+
+"Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don't want to be married. I am too
+young."
+
+"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing
+in the end, he will be made miserable."
+
+"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and,
+disappointed if he didn't."
+
+"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?" said I.
+
+"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, a ce qu'on dit. Mrs.
+Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push
+his way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh
+in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger."
+
+Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore;
+whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to
+favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she
+had neither words nor the power of putting them together so as to make
+graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him:
+nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched
+her heart or dwelt in her memory--that he was "beau, mais plutot bel
+homme que joli garcon," was all she could assert. My patience would
+often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but
+for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave,
+went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage
+was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very
+plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with
+equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She
+laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had
+paid her a compliment.
+
+Miss Ginevra's school-studies were little better than nominal; there
+were but three things she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing,
+and dancing; also embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs which
+she could not afford to buy ready worked: such mere trifles as lessons
+in history, geography, grammar, and arithmetic, she left undone, or
+got others to do for her. Very much of her time was spent in visiting.
+Madame, aware that her stay at school was now limited to a certain
+period, which would not be extended whether she made progress or not,
+allowed her great licence in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley--her
+_chaperon_--a gay, fashionable lady, invited her whenever she had
+company at her own house, and sometimes took her to evening-parties at
+the houses of her acquaintance. Ginevra perfectly approved this mode
+of procedure: it had but one inconvenience; she was obliged to be well
+dressed, and she had not money to buy variety of dresses. All her
+thoughts turned on this difficulty; her whole soul was occupied with
+expedients for effecting its solution. It was wonderful to witness the
+activity of her otherwise indolent mind on this point, and to see the
+much-daring intrepidity to which she was spurred by a sense of
+necessity, and the wish to shine.
+
+She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley--boldly, I say: not with an air
+of reluctant shame, but in this strain:--
+
+"My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your
+party next week; you _must_ give me a book-muslin dress, and then
+a _ceinture bleu celeste_: _do_--there's an angel! will you?"
+
+The "darling Mrs. C." yielded at first; but finding that applications
+increased as they were complied with, she was soon obliged, like all
+Miss Fanshawe's friends, to oppose resistance to encroachment. After a
+while I heard no more of Mrs. Cholmondeley's presents; but still,
+visiting went on, and the absolutely necessary dresses continued
+to be supplied: also many little expensive _etcetera_--gloves,
+bouquets, even trinkets. These things, contrary to her custom, and
+even nature--for she was not secretive--were most sedulously kept out
+of sight for a time; but one evening, when she was going to a large
+party for which particular care and elegance of costume were demanded,
+she could not resist coming to my chamber to show herself in all her
+splendour.
+
+Beautiful she looked: so young, so fresh, and with a delicacy of skin
+and flexibility of shape altogether English, and not found in the list
+of continental female charms. Her dress was new, costly, and perfect.
+I saw at a glance that it lacked none of those finishing details which
+cost so much, and give to the general effect such an air of tasteful
+completeness.
+
+I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might
+survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best
+humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going
+to bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her
+delights but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what we are
+about, and find out the meaning of our magnificence"--and so put her
+off at arm's length, to undergo cooler inspection.
+
+"Shall I do?" was her question.
+
+"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I
+don't understand yours."
+
+"But how do I look?"
+
+"You look well dressed."
+
+She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct
+attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at
+this _parure_," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the
+bracelets: no one in the school has such a set--not Madame herself"
+
+"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those
+jewels?"
+
+"My uncle knows nothing about them."
+
+"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
+
+"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she
+never gives me anything now."
+
+I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly
+away.
+
+"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me
+when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
+
+"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your
+_parure_."
+
+For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
+
+"What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it--that is,
+not for the jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is
+certainly not paid for, but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the
+bill: he never notices items, but just looks at the total; and he is
+so rich, one need not care about a few guineas more or less."
+
+"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you
+you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in _my_ eyes, you
+will never look so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain
+straw bonnet you wore when I first saw you."
+
+"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply.
+"And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
+
+"Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to
+come flourishing and fluttering into my chamber--a mere jay in
+borrowed plumes. I have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss
+Fanshawe; and especially the peacock's eyes you call a _parure_:
+very pretty things, if you had bought them with money which was your
+own, and which you could well spare, but not at all pretty under
+present circumstances."
+
+"On est la pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!" was announced by the portress,
+and away she tripped.
+
+This semi-mystery of the _parure_ was not solved till two or
+three days afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession.
+
+"You need not be sulky with me," she began, "in the idea that I am
+running somebody, papa or M. de Bassompierre, deeply into debt. I
+assure you nothing remains unpaid for, but the few dresses I have
+lately had: all the rest is settled."
+
+"There," I thought, "lies the mystery; considering that they were not
+given you by Mrs. Cholmondeley, and that your own means are limited to
+a few shillings, of which I know you to be excessively careful."
+
+"Ecoutez!" she went on, drawing near and speaking in her most
+confidential and coaxing tone; for my "sulkiness" was inconvenient to
+her: she liked me to be in a talking and listening mood, even if I
+only talked to chide and listened to rail. "Ecoutez, chere grogneuse!
+I will tell you all how and about it; and you will then see, not only
+how right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. In the first
+place, I _must_ go out. Papa himself said that he wished me to
+see something of the world; he particularly remarked to Mrs.
+Cholmondeley, that, though I was a sweet creature enough, I had rather
+a bread-and-butter-eating, school-girl air; of which it was his
+special desire that I should get rid, by an introduction to society
+here, before I make my regular debut in England. Well, then, if I go
+out, I _must_ dress. Mrs. Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will
+give nothing more; it would be too hard upon uncle to make him pay for
+_all_ the things I need: _that_ you can't deny--_that_ agrees
+with your own preachments. Well, but SOMEBODY who heard me
+(quite by chance, I assure you) complaining to Mrs. Cholmondeley of my
+distressed circumstances, and what straits I was put to for an
+ornament or two--_somebody_, far from grudging one a present, was
+quite delighted at the idea of being permitted to offer some trifle.
+You should have seen what a _blanc-bec_ he looked when he first
+spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and positively trembled
+from fear of a repulse."
+
+"That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M.
+Isidore is the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that
+costly _parure_; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?"
+
+"You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows
+how to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow
+Isidore the pleasure and honour of expressing his homage by the offer
+of a trifle."
+
+"It comes to the same thing.... Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain
+truth, I don't very well understand these matters; but I believe you
+are doing very wrong--seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel
+certain that you will be able to marry M. Isidore; your parents and
+uncle have given their consent, and, for your part, you love him
+entirely?"
+
+"Mais pas du tout!" (she always had recourse to French when about to
+say something specially heartless and perverse). "Je suis sa reine,
+mais il n'est pas mon roi."
+
+"Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and
+coquetry. There is nothing great about you, yet you are above
+profiting by the good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel
+absolute indifference. You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or
+will avow."
+
+"No. I danced with a young officer the other night, whom I love a
+thousand times more than he. I often wonder why I feel so very cold to
+Isidore, for everybody says he is handsome, and other ladies admire
+him; but, somehow, he bores me: let me see now how it is...."
+
+And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her.
+
+"Yes!" I said, "try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To
+me it seems in a great mess--chaotic as a rag-bag."
+
+"It is something in this fashion," she cried out ere long: "the man is
+too romantic and devoted, and he expects something more of me than I
+find it convenient to be. He thinks I am perfect: furnished with all
+sorts of sterling qualities and solid virtues, such as I never had,
+nor intend to have. Now, one can't help, in his presence, rather
+trying to justify his good opinion; and it does so tire one to be
+goody, and to talk sense,--for he really thinks I am sensible. I am
+far more at my ease with you, old lady--you, you dear crosspatch--who
+take me at my lowest, and know me to be coquettish, and ignorant, and
+flirting, and fickle, and silly, and selfish, and all the other sweet
+things you and I have agreed to be a part of my character."
+
+"This is all very well," I said, making a strenuous effort to preserve
+that gravity and severity which ran risk of being shaken by this
+whimsical candour, "but it does not alter that wretched business of
+the presents. Pack them up, Ginevra, like a good, honest girl, and
+send them back."
+
+"Indeed, I won't," said she, stoutly.
+
+"Then you are deceiving M. Isidore. It stands to reason that by
+accepting his presents you give him to understand he will one day
+receive an equivalent, in your regard..."
+
+"But he won't," she interrupted: "he has his equivalent now, in the
+pleasure of seeing me wear them--quite enough for him: he is only
+bourgeois."
+
+This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the
+temporary weakness which had made me relax my tone and aspect. She
+rattled on:
+
+"My present business is to enjoy youth, and not to think of fettering
+myself, by promise or vow, to this man or that. When first I saw
+Isidore, I believed he would help me to enjoy it I believed he would
+be content with my being a pretty girl; and that we should meet and
+part and flutter about like two butterflies, and be happy. Lo, and
+behold! I find him at times as grave as a judge, and deep-feeling and
+thoughtful. Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et passionnes ne
+sont pas a mon gout. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better.
+Va pour les beaux fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les
+plaisirs! A bas les grandes passions et les severes vertus!"
+
+She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
+
+"J'aime mon beau Colonel," she went on: "je n'aimerai jamais son
+rival. Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
+
+I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should
+be relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DR JOHN.
+
+
+Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the
+world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no
+deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous
+about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-
+being; but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little
+children upon her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to
+gather them in a genial embrace, to shower on them softly the
+benignant caress, the loving word.
+
+I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little
+bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their
+_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often
+pondered anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest,
+a puny and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke
+from its nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and
+laughing and panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put
+out one hand, so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the
+child's sudden onset: "Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say
+unmoved, patiently permit it to stand near her a few moments, and
+then, without smile or kiss, or endearing syllable, rise and lead it
+back to Trinette.
+
+Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
+way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel
+poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her,
+alike in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she
+boasted an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes
+driving her _bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal
+to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their
+best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity
+to get at the buffet of the salle-a-manger, where she would smash
+articles of porcelain or glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom,
+where she would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break
+jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on
+the cook and the kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which
+when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless
+serenity, was:
+
+"Desiree a besoin d'une surveillance toute particuliere." Accordingly
+she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never
+once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain
+the evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
+Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Desiree
+was kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and
+pillaged her mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame's work-table
+or toilet she could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw
+all this, but she still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of
+soul to confront the child with her vices. When an article disappeared
+whose value rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think
+that Desiree had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it.
+Desiree was not to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood
+to the aid of theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring,
+or scissors. Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly
+assume an air of belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the
+child till she tracked her: to her hiding-places--some hole in the
+garden-wall--some chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done,
+Madame would send Desiree out for a walk with her _bonne_, and
+profit by her absence to rob the robber. Desiree proved herself the
+true daughter of her astute parent, by never suffering either her
+countenance or manner to betray the least sign of mortification on
+discovering the loss.
+
+The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.
+Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue
+eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was
+an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling
+creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into
+perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top
+to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing
+the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the salle-a-
+manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
+casse."
+
+At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too
+true: one little plump arm hung powerless.
+
+"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
+de suite chercher un fiacre."
+
+In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and self-
+possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.
+
+It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that
+mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to
+her mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the
+child's sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.
+
+We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the
+portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the
+small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new
+doctor when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with
+endeavouring to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs)
+were appalling to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the
+stranger approached her bed; when he took her up, "Let alone!" she
+cried passionately, in her broken English (for she spoke English as
+did the other children). "I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!"
+
+"And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend," was the answer, in perfect
+English; "but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come
+in his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence
+business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and
+in right order."
+
+Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucree_, fed her with some
+teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande;
+anybody could win her heart through her palate), promised her more
+when the operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some
+assistance being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-
+armed woman; but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I
+did not like to touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there
+was no alternative, my hand was already extended to do what was
+requisite. I was anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand:
+hers was steady while mine trembled.
+
+"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.
+
+He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
+forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.
+
+"Merci, Madame; tres bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
+finished. "Voila un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille elans
+de sensibilite deplacee."
+
+He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was
+likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and
+manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked
+well at him, and when a lamp was brought in--for it was evening and
+now waxing dusk--you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than
+woman, it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he
+_was_ young) had no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly
+tall in that little chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made
+women; his profile was clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye
+glanced from face to face rather too vividly, too quickly, and too
+often; but it had a most pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his
+chin was full, cleft, Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could
+not in a hurry make up one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it
+merited; there was something in it that pleased, but something too
+that brought surging up into the mind all one's foibles and weak
+points: all that could lay one open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this
+doubtful smile, and thought the owner genial: much as he had hurt her,
+she held out her hand to bid him a friendly good-night. He patted the
+little hand kindly, and then he and Madame went down-stairs together;
+she talking in her highest tide of spirits and volubility, he
+listening with an air of good-natured amenity, dashed with that
+unconscious roguish archness I find it difficult to describe.
+
+I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better;
+he had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As
+he passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one
+moment--not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing,
+that I almost necessarily looked up at him--a recollection which had
+been struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard
+his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I
+had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the
+trunk; who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as
+he passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised
+his very tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed
+under the dripping trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was, to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician's first
+visit to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr.
+Pillule being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why
+his temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had
+written their decree to the contrary.
+
+Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the
+antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing
+change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the
+timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for
+the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.
+
+I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little
+invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the
+nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his
+care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny
+and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should
+make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase
+and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.
+
+No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Desiree declared
+herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and
+captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came
+to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her
+tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother
+still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck
+as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of
+gravity and good faith.
+
+What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had
+taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of
+addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and
+he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)--that Dr. John consented
+tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics, and to fall in with her manoeuvres.
+He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid
+glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of self-
+consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to play
+his part in the farce. Desiree eat like a raven, gambolled day and
+night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged
+like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with
+throwing her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters--over-
+flowed, in short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only
+languishing when her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit.
+Madame Beck, I knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in
+bed out of the way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not
+tire of the business.
+
+Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual
+attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the
+same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of
+concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the
+patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame
+caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much
+good sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not
+despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design
+to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the
+pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was
+independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he
+was often thoughtful and preoccupied.
+
+It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,
+or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly
+help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my
+presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a
+person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what
+is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary
+joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while
+waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man
+who thinks himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his
+countenance and movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of
+that peculiar interest and attachment--all mixed up with doubt and
+strangeness, and inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell--which
+wedded him to this demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a
+capital. He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head,
+much less a brain behind them.
+
+Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat
+in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,
+whiskers, and complexion--the whole being of such a tone as a strong
+light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I
+was driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the
+"golden image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new,
+sudden, and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering
+strength and power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked
+at him: the force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget
+myself; and I only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his
+notice was arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear
+little oval mirror fixed in the side of the window recess--by the aid
+of which reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the
+garden below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not
+without a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease
+under a direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and
+said, in a tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in
+it as to mark a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was
+said the character of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am
+not vain enough to fancy that it is my merits which attract her
+attention; it must then be some defect. Dare I ask--what?"
+
+I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an
+irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion
+of incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable
+inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have
+cleared myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not
+in the habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he
+chose and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had
+dropped, and kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his
+stay. There is a perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed
+than irritated by misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never
+be rightly known, we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately
+ignored. What honest man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker,
+does not feel rather tickled than vexed at the mistake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.
+
+
+It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
+children, took a fever. Desiree, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
+together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by
+way of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really
+needed, and Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who
+had been at home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his
+visits. One or two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in
+other respects seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment.
+"Now, at last," I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent
+directress will never venture to permit the attendance of so young a
+man on the pupils."
+
+The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
+venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
+the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
+handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angelique, her
+friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
+mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
+the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
+this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was
+not to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
+school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
+parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
+been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
+were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
+ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
+yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
+as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
+her firmness on this occasion.
+
+She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for
+nobody matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
+assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which
+on various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and
+complete success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would
+probably have failed.
+
+"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing
+joyously her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur
+creature du monde!" and go on to explain how she happened to be
+employing him for her own children, who were so fond of him they would
+scream themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how,
+where she had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose
+trust for others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary
+expedient in the world; Blanche and Angelique had the migraine; Dr.
+John had written a prescription; voila tout!
+
+The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angelique saved her all
+remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician's praise;
+the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they
+were ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed,
+and the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large
+organ of philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is
+carried by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being
+the children's will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this
+occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying
+colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.
+
+To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest
+for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the
+whole house--pupils, teachers, servants included--affirmed that she
+was going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age
+seemed to make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.
+
+It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance
+this idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so
+oblivious of her former protege, Pillule. She made, too, such a point
+of personally receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful,
+blithe, and benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about
+this time, marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the
+nightcap and shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits always
+found her with auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly
+fitted on, neat laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the
+whole toilette complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely
+think, however, that her intention in this went further than just to
+show a very handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and
+plain she was not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she
+pleased. Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never
+tired of seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or
+colourless, or flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue
+light, her cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things
+pleased in moderation, but with constancy.
+
+Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
+taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
+which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
+comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
+visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
+half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
+vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
+was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
+encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
+intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
+wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
+fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow
+old, never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
+terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever
+_do_ love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited
+the end.
+
+For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but
+the peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed,
+eager look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been
+quite within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged
+farther and farther beyond it.
+
+One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
+more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
+particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
+it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
+in order to consult him.
+
+The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
+his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
+to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
+and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes elapsed--
+ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be doing?
+Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still piped
+her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term, "Minnie,
+Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to ascertain
+why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he vanished?
+Was he with Madame in the _salle-a-manger?_ Impossible: I had
+left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
+listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
+proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser drawing-
+rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the portress's
+cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended originally for a
+boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the oratory, a whole
+class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson, and just then
+joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it), whereof I yet
+remember these words "fraiche," "brise," and "Venise." Under these
+circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only
+been to the purpose.
+
+Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
+cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed;
+a man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
+whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
+second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
+with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
+baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.
+
+The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
+believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
+some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
+impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
+sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
+hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
+seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
+him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
+room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
+and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
+grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
+surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed
+to have passed?
+
+But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
+out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar:
+I glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a
+smart dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living
+thing save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a
+glass globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.
+
+Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.
+
+Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside; Madame stood before
+him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay
+composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the
+physician's own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in
+his looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and
+change of air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing
+indifference, telling her that she was "trop bonne," and that he felt
+perfectly well. Madame appealed to me--Dr. John following her movement
+with a slow glance which seemed to express languid surprise at
+reference being made to a quarter so insignificant.
+
+"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
+thinner?"
+
+It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr.
+John's presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever
+to remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I
+took licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made
+quite significant.
+
+"He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some
+temporary cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed." I cannot
+tell how he took this speech, as I never sought his face for
+information. Georgette here began to ask me in her broken English if
+she might have a glass of _eau sucree_. I answered her in
+English. For the first time, I fancy, he noticed that I spoke his
+language; hitherto he had always taken me for a foreigner, addressing
+me as "Mademoiselle," and giving in French the requisite directions
+about the children's treatment. He seemed on the point of making a
+remark; but thinking better of it, held his tongue.
+
+Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and
+bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air
+of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and
+spoiling.
+
+When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she
+rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable
+vanished from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified
+and morose. She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang
+for morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a
+glass upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white
+hair streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a
+shudder. In the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had
+the colour, could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth;
+and then, where were youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were,
+even _you_ knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but
+my heart softened towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass.
+A calamity had come upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her
+with a grisly "All-hail," and her soul rejected the intimacy.
+
+But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced
+five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to
+contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their
+influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very
+good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any
+philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young
+man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that
+the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a
+mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I
+broke it, and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering
+in good time its exquisite folly. "Somebody," I argued, "might as well
+sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that
+do?"
+
+I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or
+make herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither
+strong feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be
+miserably pained. It is true likewise that she had an important
+avocation, a real business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and
+divide her interest. It is especially true that she possessed a
+genuine good sense which is not given to all women nor to all men; and
+by dint of these combined advantages she behaved wisely--she behaved
+well. Brava! once more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an
+Apollyon of a predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CASKET.
+
+
+Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,
+considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection
+at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to
+certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone
+around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how
+lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!
+
+There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been a
+convent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but I
+think some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter,
+and when it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy
+seclusion as ought to embosom a religious house-that something had
+happened on this site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had
+left to the place the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went
+of a black and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the
+year, seen in some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been
+built out some ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but
+certain convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet
+consecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of a pear-
+tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewed their
+perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants in autumn--you
+saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between the half-bared roots, a
+glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The legend went, unconfirmed
+and unaccredited, but still propagated, that this was the portal of a
+vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground, on whose surface grass
+grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl whom a monkish conclave
+of the drear middle ages had here buried alive for some sin against
+her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers had feared, through long
+generations after her poor frame was dust; her black robe and white
+veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade had mocked, as they
+fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.
+
+Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its
+charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;
+on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising
+moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than
+feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the
+gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful
+about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large
+berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a
+smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all
+along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of
+beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
+spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.
+
+Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
+Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
+pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
+college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
+limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down
+place enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the
+externes were gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies;
+pleasant was it then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the
+bells of St. Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted
+sound.
+
+I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
+the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
+mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
+could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
+the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
+evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
+Protestant, exempted myself.
+
+"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay
+with us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
+presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
+enjoy these precious minutes."
+
+The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
+the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
+premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
+rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain
+attic loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the women-
+servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
+chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
+ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
+forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allee
+defendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
+liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
+establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
+but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
+thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
+leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
+was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully
+shunned.
+
+From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of
+avoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For
+a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by
+degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such
+shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades,
+certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent
+enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted
+with than my identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this
+strait and narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless
+flowers that grew between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away
+the relics of past autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end.
+Borrowing of Goton, the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing-
+brush, I made this seat clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled
+approbation: whether sincerely or not I don't know; but she
+_seemed_ sincere.
+
+"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
+Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is
+quiet and shady."
+
+"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; and she kindly
+recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying,
+that as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble
+myself to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to
+come there, to talk English with me.
+
+On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed
+from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of
+the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the
+city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park,
+scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide
+streets brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were
+rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which
+tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and
+dropped the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us
+the summons to festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not,
+however: gay instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never
+seen; and though often I had heard them described, and even wished to
+see them, it was not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure
+if she could only reach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright
+distant sphere, could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning
+to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new
+thing.
+
+A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw
+her through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible
+beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood
+knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its
+curve leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old
+field, in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back
+beside a stately spire in this continental capital.
+
+Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I
+spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_
+feel. About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the
+future--such a future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead
+trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature.
+
+At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidents
+of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they
+woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
+could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of
+hurricane shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed
+to their saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny:
+I was roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself,
+and creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge,
+with my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it
+was wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round
+the night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too
+resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and
+full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered
+to man--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and
+pierced by white and blinding bolts.
+
+I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,
+for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me
+upwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was
+necessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after the
+manner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. Unlike
+Sisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and at
+intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did
+the temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.
+
+To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet
+in the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,
+something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on the
+soothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of
+which the sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding
+a reflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed
+sleeper, over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying
+without. Jael, the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her
+captive; but more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber
+coming home. By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy
+sweetness of the night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any
+definite point, but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.
+
+Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been
+the harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude
+Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too
+often is.
+
+Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,
+the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows
+here are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look
+up and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree
+overhead shook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone
+at my feet.
+
+Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it
+was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of
+that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline
+clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even
+in my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to
+read print of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile
+was a box, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid
+opened in my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely
+folded bit of pink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise."
+I wore indeed a dress of French grey.
+
+Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had
+not had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of
+commodity I held between my finger and thumb at this moment?
+
+Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very
+thoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;
+one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future
+husband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospective
+bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
+had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
+which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
+had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
+town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
+were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet
+with some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze
+assured them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that
+my experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church
+and I took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me.
+There was not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and
+did not testify to having received an admiring beam from our young
+doctor's blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however
+humbling it may sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned,
+those blue eyes were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint
+theirs seemed akin. So it came to pass that I heard the others talk,
+wondered often at their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but
+did not trouble myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed
+so certain of treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in
+settled conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it
+ran--I translate:--
+
+"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
+scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
+to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
+with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
+secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
+teacher--une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--
+espece de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de
+grenadiers, et reveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse
+my modesty in allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to
+retain the slight veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went
+on this precious effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his
+illness, has been removed to a master's chamber--that favoured
+chamber, whose lattice overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the
+best uncle in the world, am admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I
+approached the window and glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me,
+though a desert for you!--how I feared to behold vacancy, or the
+dragon aforesaid! How my heart palpitated with delight when, through
+apertures in the envious boughs, I at once caught the gleam of your
+graceful straw-hat, and the waving of your grey dress--dress that I
+should recognise amongst a thousand. But why, my angel, will you not
+look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of those adorable eyes!--how a
+single glance would have revived me! I write this in fiery haste;
+while the physician examines Gustave, I snatch an opportunity to
+enclose it in a small casket, together with a bouquet of flowers,
+the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee, my Peri--my
+all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"
+
+"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even
+closer reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than
+to the writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiance of one of
+the engaged pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
+intended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the
+majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.
+But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--a
+very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,
+common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more
+definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress
+just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had
+grey dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a
+sort of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
+
+Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the
+dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to
+bed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lights
+extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated
+house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet
+close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved
+drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the
+vista.
+
+All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautious
+tinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her
+cabinet and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two
+minutes in parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the
+garden door, lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp,
+looking round vaguely.
+
+"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a
+ete."
+
+"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
+familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
+it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and
+walks. It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at
+that hour; but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to
+the friendly night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side
+and on that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
+branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
+There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
+
+"Dr. John! it is found."
+
+He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I
+held it in my hand.
+
+"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
+dragon.
+
+"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
+know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
+reveals."
+
+"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
+believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
+fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his
+calling me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and
+coloured as he read.
+
+"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were
+the words that fell from him.
+
+I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
+matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
+be more to blame.
+
+"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell
+Madame Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"
+
+I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
+there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent
+to make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
+establishment.
+
+He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
+honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
+commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
+grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
+door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
+see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
+connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
+case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
+whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure
+me that none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business,
+I shall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the
+casket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the
+whole affair."
+
+"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
+offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
+
+I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly
+descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two
+minutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a
+cat, however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing
+could be lighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she
+turned a corner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She
+reappeared, and he was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing
+the door between him and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away,
+but I preferred to meet Madame openly.
+
+Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in
+the garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was
+I that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now
+to pounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No.
+Madame was all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she
+testified no shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in
+which I believe she was never surpassed by living thing, she even
+professed merely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."
+
+"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon was
+now gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait
+bon? que l'air est frais!"
+
+And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns
+with her down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she
+leaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the front-
+door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and "Bon
+soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for the night.
+
+I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my couch--
+smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour offered,
+for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind was
+busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,
+through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a
+glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night's
+transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of
+surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown
+into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,
+without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,
+or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few
+words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I
+thought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she should
+have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her
+premises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that
+time be able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay
+tempting her to disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and
+round in cobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved,
+like the foolish fly she was?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.
+
+
+I had occasion to smile--nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the
+space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in
+the last chapter.
+
+Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of
+any English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset,
+and all the next day was one of dry storm--dark, beclouded, yet
+rainless,--the streets were dim with sand and dust, whirled from the
+boulevards. I know not that even lovely weather would have tempted me
+to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it
+yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the
+garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their
+seclusion was now become precarious; their calm--insecure. That
+casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it
+overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision,
+and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants
+there were, indeed, trodden down by Dr. John in his search, and his
+hasty and heedless progress, which I wished to prop up, water, and
+revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the beds: but these, in
+spite of the strong wind, I found a moment's leisure to efface very
+early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a
+pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while
+the pupils settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers
+took up their needlework.
+
+The scene of the "etude du soir" was always the refectory, a much
+smaller apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for
+here none, save the boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered
+only a score. Two lamps hung from the ceiling over the two tables;
+these were lit at dusk, and their kindling was the signal for school-
+books being set aside, a grave demeanour assumed, general silence
+enforced, and then commenced "la lecture pieuse." This said "lecture
+pieuse" was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome
+mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason;
+and such a dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure,
+and thrive on as she best could.
+
+The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
+recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
+Hotel de Ville.
+
+I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
+into my bands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the
+title, and perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as
+an unworthy heretic, it was only permitted me to drink in with my
+bewildered ears. This book contained legends of the saints. Good God!
+(I speak the words reverently) what legends they were. What
+gasconading rascals those saints must have been, if they first boasted
+these exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, however,
+were no more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed
+inwardly; there were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft
+of the book was far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each
+side of my head as I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom
+inflicted by Rome; the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly
+abused their office, trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies,
+making of countesses and princesses the most tormented slaves under
+the sun. Stories like that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary,
+recurred again and again, with all its dreadful viciousness, sickening
+tyranny and black impiety: tales that were nightmares of oppression,
+privation, and agony.
+
+I sat out this "lecture pieuse" for some nights as well as I could,
+and as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors
+by involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board
+of the table before me. But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and
+my temples, and my heart, and my wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep
+afterwards was so broken with excitement, that I could sit no longer.
+Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance of my person from
+the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. No Mause
+Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
+Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
+popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and
+rein in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps,
+I shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
+vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
+vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.
+
+When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
+carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
+unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought
+the long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate
+if the moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to
+their dim gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In
+summer it was never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own
+quarter of the long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber
+was lit by five casements large as great doors), and leaning out,
+looked forth upon the city beyond the garden, and listened to band-
+music from the park or the palace-square, thinking meantime my own
+thoughts, living my own life, in my own still, shadow-world.
+
+This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
+mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly
+opened the door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which,
+like every other door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled
+hinges. Before I _saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room,
+usually void: not that there was either stir or breath, or rustle of
+sound, but Vacuum lacked, Solitude was not at home. All the white
+beds--the "lits d'ange," as they were poetically termed--lay visible
+at a glance; all were empty: no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of
+a drawer cautiously slid out struck my ear; stepping a little to one
+side, my vision took a free range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I
+now commanded my own bed and my own toilet, with a locked work-box
+upon it, and locked drawers underneath.
+
+Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
+cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
+apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
+stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
+impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in turn: not an article
+of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper but was
+glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the
+adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished.
+Madame wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I
+will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been
+a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she
+was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements
+provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers--satisfied by their
+trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary
+to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The
+searcher might have turned and caught me; there would have been
+nothing for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had to come
+all at once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each
+other: down would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises,
+and _I_ should have looked into her eyes, and she into mine--we
+should have known that we could work together no more, and parted in
+this life for ever.
+
+Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and
+had no wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another
+employer whose yoke would be so light and so, easy of carriage; and
+truly I liked Madame for her capital sense, whatever I might think of
+her principles: as to her system, it did me no harm; she might work me
+with it to her heart's content: nothing would come of the operation.
+Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my
+heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.
+I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift
+and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran
+down the bannister.
+
+How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had
+certainly seen Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were.
+The spectacle of a suspicious nature so far misled by its own
+inventions, tickled me much. Yet as the laugh died, a kind of wrath
+smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was the rock struck, and
+Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and
+contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening:
+soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between
+them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me--I did not
+care twopence for her mistrust--but for other reasons. Complicated,
+disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However,
+that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.
+
+On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the
+closest subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent
+disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded
+as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had
+once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me,
+for we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for
+its sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there
+unstirred; my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars, were
+unrumpled. Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have
+felt much greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all
+straight and orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed:
+why should I bear malice?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key
+to that riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to
+useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he
+had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden,
+should have known that it _was_ dropped, and appeared so promptly
+on the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point
+that I began to entertain this daring suggestion: "Why may I not, in
+case I should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to
+explain this coincidence?"
+
+And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
+test him with such a question.
+
+Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly
+made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them
+altogether, had not Madame insisted on his giving an occasional call
+till the child should be quite well.
+
+She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to
+Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking
+the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de
+fievre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance
+than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue
+dernierement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house.
+"Well," she continued, "I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en
+fiacre. I shall call on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will
+that he sees her this evening; her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is
+quick; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from
+home."
+
+Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it
+was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme
+unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made
+"courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the
+first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit
+from Dr. John. The whole arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw,
+but without the least anxiety. "Ha! ha! Madame," laughed Light-heart
+the Beggar, "your crafty wits are on the wrong tack."
+
+She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
+_chapeau vert tendre_--hazardous, as to its tint, for any
+complexion less fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I
+wondered what she intended: whether she really would send Dr. John or
+not; or whether indeed he would come: he might be engaged.
+
+Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came;
+I had therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and
+palavering the little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette;
+she was a sensitive and a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or
+carry her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me
+lay my head on the pillow of her crib; she even put her little arms
+round my neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with which she
+pressed her cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain.
+Feeling of no kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from
+a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued
+the heart, and sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour
+passed; Georgette murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing
+sleepy. "And you _shall_ sleep," thought I, "malgre maman and
+medecin, if they are not here in ten minutes."
+
+Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the
+staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine
+introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether
+peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette
+generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame's presence
+would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the
+cabinet--for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared
+not a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of
+her gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness
+than if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
+
+"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
+a jerk of her chin.
+
+"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
+his pencil some harmless prescription.
+
+"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
+his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
+coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."
+
+"I found it: yes."
+
+"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
+very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
+courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a
+point which, for others, seems unattainable!
+
+"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no, sort
+of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
+character.
+
+"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
+thrown, since be came to seek it--how did he know?"
+
+"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
+saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."
+
+How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
+as then examining "Gustave."
+
+"Ah ca!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien la-dessous: pas de
+mystere, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"
+
+"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.
+
+"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--a qui tout cela
+commencait a donner des idees."
+
+"Vraiment! vous en etes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
+rejoinder.
+
+She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
+she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured
+and genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
+
+"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
+month?" he asked.
+
+"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite
+readily.
+
+"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
+give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
+danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
+minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
+
+The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
+not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace
+in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering
+like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
+
+I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the
+ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor
+yet on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr.
+John's heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as
+Georgette's little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was
+the culprit? What was the ground--what the origin--what the perfect
+explanation of the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but
+how many yet remained obscure as night!
+
+"However," I said to myself, "it is no affair of yours;" and turning
+from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a
+questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the
+garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bed-side, was slowly
+drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes
+closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he
+should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate "good-
+night.". Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall houses
+bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated,
+cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white
+handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered
+from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after
+there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and light
+--billet the second, of course.
+
+"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.
+
+"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
+"What, is it?"
+
+"They have gone and done it again," was my reply. "A handkerchief
+waved and something fell:" and I pointed to the lattice, now closed
+and looking hypocritically blank.
+
+"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
+adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."
+
+Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper,
+lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct
+to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.
+
+He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it.
+"It is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said,
+looking at me.
+
+"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"
+
+"You don't yet know, then?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Have you no guess?"
+
+"None."
+
+"If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and
+thus secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but
+somewhat inexperienced being."
+
+"As a duenna?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added,
+musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face,
+anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would
+warrant him in recommending to my care and indulgence some
+ethereal creature, against whom powers of darkness were plotting.
+I felt no particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of
+ethereal creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed
+to me that I owed _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ help him then I
+would, and it lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance
+as might be, I intimated that "I was willing to do what I could
+towards taking care of any person in whom he might be interested.".
+
+"I am no farther interested than as a spectator," said he, with a
+modesty, admirable, as I thought, to witness. "I happen to be
+acquainted with the rather worthless character of the person, who,
+from the house opposite, has now twice invaded the, sanctity of this
+place; I have also met in society the object at whom these vulgar
+attempts are aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate refinement
+ought, one would think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It
+is not so, however; and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would
+guard her from evil if I could. In person, however, I can do nothing I
+cannot come near her"--he paused.
+
+"Well, I am willing to help you," said I, "only tell me how." And
+busily, in my own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking
+this paragon, this pearl of great price, this gem without flaw. "It
+must be Madame," I concluded. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has
+the art even to _seem_ superior: but as to being unsuspicious,
+inexperienced, &c., Dr. John need not distract himself about that.
+However, this is just his whim, and I will not contradict him; he
+shall be humoured: his angel shall be an angel.
+
+"Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed," I
+continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of
+being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John
+had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no
+more coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was
+a little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a
+smile he turned and took his hat--he was going. My heart smote me.
+
+"I will--I will help you," said I eagerly. "I will do what you wish. I
+will watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who
+she is."
+
+"But you _must_ know," said he then with earnestness, yet
+speaking very low. "So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful!
+impossible that one house should contain two like her. I allude, of
+course--"
+
+Here the latch of Madame Beck's chamber-door (opening into the
+nursery) gave a sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been
+slightly convulsed; there was the suppressed explosion of an
+irrepressible sneeze. These little accidents will happen to the best
+of us. Madame--excellent woman! was then on duty. She had come home
+quietly, stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If she
+had not sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that
+unlucky sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came
+forward alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no
+novice to her habits but would have thought she had just come in, and
+scouted the idea of her ear having been glued to the key-hole for at
+least ten minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared she was
+"enrhumee," and then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en
+fiacre." The prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FETE.
+
+
+As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country.
+I was sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than
+before. But I must not complain. I lived in a house full of robust
+life; I might have had companions, and I chose solitude. Each of the
+teachers in turn made me overtures of special intimacy; I tried them
+all. One I found to be an honest woman, but a narrow thinker, a coarse
+feeler, and an egotist. The second was a Parisienne, externally
+refined--at heart, corrupt--without a creed, without a principle,
+without an affection: having penetrated the outward crust of decorum
+in this character, you found a slough beneath. She had a wonderful
+passion for presents; and, in this point, the third teacher--a person
+otherwise characterless and insignificant--closely resembled her. This
+last-named had also one other distinctive property--that of avarice.
+In her reigned the love of money for its own sake. The sight of a
+piece of gold would bring into her eyes a green glisten, singular to
+witness. She once, as a mark of high favour, took me up-stairs, and,
+opening a secret door, showed me a hoard--a mass of coarse, large
+coin--about fifteen guineas, in five-franc pieces. She loved this
+hoard as a bird loves its eggs. These were her savings. She would come
+and talk to me about them with an infatuated and persevering dotage,
+strange to behold in a person not yet twenty-five.
+
+The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and profligate (in
+disposition, that is: as to action, I do not know). That latter
+quality showed its snake-head to me but once, peeping out very
+cautiously. A curious kind of reptile it seemed, judging from the
+glimpse I got; its novelty whetted my curiosity: if it would have come
+out boldly, perhaps I might philosophically have stood my ground, and
+coolly surveyed the long thing from forked tongue to scaly tail-tip;
+but it merely rustled in the leaves of a bad novel; and, on
+encountering a hasty and ill-advised demonstration of wrath, recoiled
+and vanished, hissing. She hated me from that day.
+
+This Parisienne was always in debt; her salary being anticipated, not
+only in dress, but in perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, and
+condiments. What a cold, callous epicure she was in all things! I see
+her now. Thin in face and figure, sallow in complexion, regular in
+features, with perfect teeth, lips like a thread, a large, prominent
+chin, a well-opened, but frozen eye, of light at once craving and
+ingrate. She mortally hated work, and loved what she called pleasure;
+being an insipid, heartless, brainless dissipation of time.
+
+Madame Beck knew this woman's character perfectly well. She once
+talked to me about her, with an odd mixture of discrimination,
+indifference, and antipathy. I asked why she kept her in the
+establishment. She answered plainly, "because it suited her interest
+to do so;" and pointed out a fact I had already noticed, namely, that
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre possessed, in an almost unique degree, the
+power of keeping order amongst her undisciplined ranks of scholars. A
+certain petrifying influence accompanied and surrounded her: without
+passion, noise, or violence, she held them in check as a breezeless
+frost-air might still a brawling stream. She was of little use as far
+as communication of knowledge went, but for strict surveillance and
+maintenance of rules she was invaluable. "Je sais bien qu'elle n'a pas
+de principes, ni, peut-etre, de moeurs," admitted Madame frankly; but
+added with philosophy, "son maintien en classe est toujours convenable
+et rempli meme d'une certaine dignite: c'est tout ce qu'il faut. Ni
+les eleves ni les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par consequent,
+moi non plus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains
+were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism
+pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was
+permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each
+mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from
+dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was
+seized and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to
+bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy,
+hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. "Eat, drink, and
+live!" she says. "Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I
+hold their cure--guide their course: I guarantee their final fate." A
+bargain, in which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer
+just offers the same terms: "All this power will I give thee, and the
+glory of it; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I
+give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine!"
+
+About this time--in the ripest glow of summer--Madame Beck's house
+became as merry a place as a school could well be. All day long the
+broad folding-doors and the two-leaved casements stood wide open:
+settled sunshine seemed naturalized in the atmosphere; clouds were far
+off, sailing away beyond sea, resting, no doubt, round islands such as
+England--that dear land of mists--but withdrawn wholly from the drier
+continent. We lived far more in the garden than under a roof: classes
+were held, and meals partaken of, in the "grand berceau." Moreover,
+there was a note of holiday preparation, which almost turned freedom
+into licence. The autumnal long vacation was but two months distant;
+but before that, a great day--an important ceremony--none other than
+the fete of Madame--awaited celebration.
+
+The conduct of this fete devolved chiefly on Mademoiselle St. Pierre:
+Madame herself being supposed to stand aloof, disinterestedly
+unconscious of what might be going forward in her honour. Especially,
+she never knew, never in the least suspected, that a subscription was
+annually levied on the whole school for the purchase of a handsome
+present. The polite tact of the reader will please to leave out of the
+account a brief, secret consultation on this point in Madame's own
+chamber.
+
+"What will you have this year?" was asked by her Parisian lieutenant.
+
+"Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their
+francs," And Madame looked benign and modest.
+
+The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart;
+she always called her airs of "bonte"--"des grimaces." She never even
+professed to respect them one instant.
+
+"Vite!" she would say coldly. "Name the article. Shall it be jewellery
+or porcelain, haberdashery or silver?"
+
+"Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent."
+
+And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of
+plate.
+
+The programme of the fete-day's proceedings comprised: Presentation of
+plate, collation in the garden, dramatic performance (with pupils and
+teachers for actors), a dance and supper. Very gorgeous seemed the
+effect of the whole to me, as I well remember. Zelie St. Pierre
+understood these things and managed them ably.
+
+The play was the main point; a month's previous drilling being there
+required. The choice, too, of the actors required knowledge and care;
+then came lessons in elocution, in attitude, and then the fatigue of
+countless rehearsals. For all this, as may well be supposed, St.
+Pierre did not suffice: other management, other accomplishments than
+hers were requisite here. They were supplied in the person of a
+master--M. Paul Emanuel, professor of literature. It was never my
+lot to be present at the histrionic lessons of M. Paul, but I often
+saw him as he crossed the _carre_ (a square hall between the
+dwelling-house and school-house). I heard him, too, in the warm
+evenings, lecturing with open doors, and his name, with anecdotes of
+him, resounded in ones ears from all sides. Especially our former
+acquaintance, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe,--who had been selected to take a
+prominent part in the play--used, in bestowing upon me a large portion
+of her leisure, to lard her discourse with frequent allusions to his
+sayings and doings. She esteemed him hideously plain, and used to
+profess herself frightened almost into hysterics at the sound of his
+step or voice. A dark little man he certainly was; pungent and
+austere. Even to me he seemed a harsh apparition, with his close-
+shorn, black head, his broad, sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide
+and quivering nostril, his thorough glance, and hurried bearing.
+Irritable he was; one heard that, as he apostrophized with vehemence
+the awkward squad under his orders. Sometimes he would break out on
+these raw amateur actresses with a passion of impatience at their
+falseness of conception, their coldness of emotion, their feebleness
+of delivery. "Ecoutez!" he would cry; and then his voice rang through
+the premises like a trumpet; and when, mimicking it, came the small
+pipe of a Ginevra, a Mathilde, or a Blanche, one understood why a
+hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce hiss of rage, rewarded the tame
+echo.
+
+"Vous n'etes donc que des poupees," I heard him thunder. "Vous n'avez
+pas de passions--vous autres. Vous ne sentez donc rien? Votre chair
+est de neige, votre sang de glace! Moi, je veux que tout cela
+s'allume, qu'il ait une vie, une ame!"
+
+Vain resolve! And when he at last found it _was_ vain, he
+suddenly broke the whole business down. Hitherto he had been teaching
+them a grand tragedy; he tore the tragedy in morsels, and came next
+day with a compact little comic trifle. To this they took more kindly;
+he presently knocked it all into their smooth round pates.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre always presided at M. Emanuel's lessons, and I
+was told that the polish of her manner, her seeming attention, her
+tact and grace, impressed that gentleman very favourably. She had,
+indeed, the art of pleasing, for a given time, whom she would; but the
+feeling would not last: in an hour it was dried like dew, vanished
+like gossamer.
+
+The day preceding Madame's fete was as much a holiday as the fete
+itself. It was devoted to clearing out, cleaning, arranging and
+decorating the three schoolrooms. All within-doors was the gayest
+bustle; neither up-stairs nor down could a quiet, isolated person find
+rest for the sole of her foot; accordingly, for my part, I took refuge
+in the garden. The whole day did I wander or sit there alone, finding
+warmth in the sun, shelter among the trees, and a sort of
+companionship in my own thoughts. I well remember that I exchanged but
+two sentences that day with any living being: not that I felt
+solitary; I was glad to be quiet. For a looker-on, it sufficed to pass
+through the rooms once or twice, observe what changes were being
+wrought, how a green-room and a dressing-room were being contrived, a
+little stage with scenery erected, how M. Paul Emanuel, in conjunction
+with Mademoiselle St. Pierre, was directing all, and how an eager band
+of pupils, amongst them Ginevra Fanshawe, were working gaily under his
+control.
+
+The great day arrived. The sun rose hot and unclouded, and hot and
+unclouded it burned on till evening. All the doors and all the windows
+were set open, which gave a pleasant sense of summer freedom--and
+freedom the most complete seemed indeed the order of the day. Teachers
+and pupils descended to breakfast in dressing-gowns and curl-papers:
+anticipating "avec delices" the toilette of the evening, they seemed
+to take a pleasure in indulging that forenoon in a luxury of
+slovenliness; like aldermen fasting in preparation for a feast. About
+nine o'clock A.M., an important functionary, the "coiffeur," arrived.
+Sacrilegious to state, he fixed his head-quarters in the oratory, and
+there, in presence of _benitier_, candle, and crucifix, solemnised
+the mysteries of his art. Each girl was summoned in turn to pass
+through his hands; emerging from them with head as smooth as a
+shell, intersected by faultless white lines, and wreathed about with
+Grecian plaits that shone as if lacquered. I took my turn with the
+rest, and could hardly believe what the glass said when I applied to
+it for information afterwards; the lavished garlandry of woven brown
+hair amazed me--I feared it was not all my own, and it required
+several convincing pulls to give assurance to the contrary. I then
+acknowledged in the coiffeur a first-rate artist--one who certainly
+made the most of indifferent materials.
+
+The oratory closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions,
+arrayings and bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever
+must be an enigma, how they contrived to spend so much time in doing
+so little. The operation seemed close, intricate, prolonged: the
+result simple. A clear white muslin dress, a blue sash (the Virgin's
+colours), a pair of white, or straw-colour kid gloves--such was the
+gala uniform, to the assumption whereof that houseful of teachers and
+pupils devoted three mortal hours. But though simple, it must be
+allowed the array was perfect--perfect in fashion, fit, and freshness;
+every head being also dressed with exquisite nicety, and a certain
+compact taste--suiting the full, firm comeliness of Labassecourien
+contours, though too stiff for any more flowing and flexible style of
+beauty--the general effect was, on the whole, commendable.
+
+In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling
+myself to be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was
+not in me to put on a transparent white dress: something thin I must
+wear--the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics
+sufferance, so I had sought through a dozen shops till I lit upon a
+crape-like material of purple-gray--the colour, in short, of dun mist,
+lying on a moor in bloom. My _tailleuse_ had kindly made it as
+well as she could: because, as she judiciously observed, it was "si
+triste--si pen voyant," care in the fashion was the more imperative:
+it was well she took this view of the matter, for I, had no flower, no
+jewel to relieve it: and, what was more, I had no natural rose of
+complexion.
+
+We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of
+daily drudgery, but they _will_ force upon us their unwelcome
+blank on those bright occasions when beauty should shine.
+
+However, in this same gown of shadow, I felt at home and at ease; an
+advantage I should not have enjoyed in anything more brilliant or
+striking. Madame Beck, too, kept me in countenance; her dress was
+almost as quiet as mine, except that she wore a bracelet, and a large
+brooch bright with gold and fine stones. We chanced to meet on the
+stairs, and she gave me a nod and smile of approbation. Not that she
+thought I was looking well--a point unlikely to engage her interest--
+but she considered me dressed "convenablement," "decemment," and la
+Convenance et la Decence were the two calm deities of Madame's
+worship. She even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding
+an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a
+sarcasm on the other teachers (whom she had just been complimenting to
+their faces). "Nothing so absurd," she said, "as for des femmes mures
+'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'--quant a la. St. Pierre,
+elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingenue."
+
+Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a
+pleasure in betaking myself--not to the garden, where servants were
+busy propping up long tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in
+readiness for the collation but to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet,
+cool, and clean; their walls fresh stained, their planked floors fresh
+scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh gathered adorning the recesses
+in pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying the great windows.
+
+Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the
+others, and taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key,
+a volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read. The
+glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large
+berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to
+meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush
+bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the stilly
+hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were
+beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to
+lure me along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of
+dreamland--just then, the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to
+which that much-tried instrument had ever thrilled, snatched me back
+to consciousness.
+
+Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or
+servants, or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, went and came on
+their several errands. Moreover, there was good reason to expect it
+would ring all the afternoon, since about one hundred externes were
+yet to arrive in carriages or fiacres: nor could it be expected to
+rest during the evening, when parents and friends would gather
+thronging to the play. Under these circumstances, a ring--even a sharp
+ring--was a matter of course: yet this particular peal had an accent
+of its own, which chased my dream, and startled my book from my knee.
+
+I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
+on through vestibule--along corridor, across carre, through first
+division, second division, grand salle--strode a step, quick, regular,
+intent. The closed door of the first classe--my sanctuary--offered no
+obstacle; it burst open, and a paletot and a bonnet grec filled the
+void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
+into me.
+
+"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant
+pis. Toute Anglaise, et, par consequent, toute begueule qu'elle soit--
+elle fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."
+
+Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not
+caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon
+the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess----, play you must: I
+am planted there."
+
+"What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?" I inquired: for M. Paul
+Emanuel it was, and in a state of no little excitement.
+
+"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the
+prude. I read your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play
+you can; play you must."
+
+"But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?"
+
+"There is no time to be lost," he went on, now speaking in French;
+"and let us thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all
+minauderies. You must take a part."
+
+"In the vaudeville?"
+
+"In the vaudeville. You have said it."
+
+I gasped, horror-struck. _What_ did the little man mean?
+
+"Listen!" he said. "The case shall be stated, and you shall then
+answer me Yes, or No; and according to your answer shall I ever after
+estimate you."
+
+The scarce-suppressed impetus of a most irritable nature glowed in his
+cheek, fed with sharp shafts his glances, a nature--the injudicious,
+the mawkish, the hesitating, the sullen, the affected, above all, the
+unyielding, might quickly render violent and implacable. Silence and
+attention was the best balm to apply: I listened.
+
+"The whole matter is going to fail," he began. "Louise Vanderkelkov
+has fallen ill--at least so her ridiculous mother asserts; for my part, I
+feel sure she might play if she would: it is only good-will that lacks.
+She was charged with a _role_, as you know, or do _not_ know--it is
+equal: without that _role_ the play is stopped. There are now but a
+few hours in which to learn it: not a girl in this school would hear
+reason, and accept the task. Forsooth, it is not an interesting, not an
+amiable, part; their vile _amour-propre_--that base quality of which
+women have so much--would revolt from it. Englishwomen are either
+the best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait que je les deteste comme
+la peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to
+an Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer--Yes, or No?"
+
+A thousand objections rushed into my mind. The foreign language, the
+limited time, the public display... Inclination recoiled, Ability
+faltered, Self-respect (that "vile quality") trembled. "Non, non,
+non!" said all these; but looking up at M. Paul, and seeing in his
+vexed, fiery, and searching eye, a sort of appeal behind all its
+menace, my lips dropped the word "oui". For a moment his rigid
+countenance relaxed with a quiver of content: quickly bent up again,
+however, he went on,--
+
+"Vite a l'ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your _role_: read."
+And I read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and
+stamped. He gave me a lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a
+disagreeable part--a man's--an empty-headed fop's. One could put into
+it neither heart nor soul: I hated it. The play--a mere trifle--ran
+chiefly on the efforts of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair
+coquette. One lover was called the "Ours," a good and gallant but
+unpolished man, a sort of diamond in the rough; the other was a
+butterfly, a talker, and a traitor: and I was to be the butterfly,
+talker, and traitor.
+
+I did my best--which was bad, I know: it provoked M. Paul; he fumed.
+Putting both--hands to the work, I endeavoured to do better than my
+best; I presume he gave me credit for good intentions; he professed to
+be partially content. "Ca ira!" he cried; and as voices began sounding
+from the garden, and white dresses fluttering among the trees, he
+added: "You must withdraw: you must be alone to learn this. Come with
+me."
+
+Without being allowed time or power to deliberate, I found myself in
+the same breath convoyed along as in a species of whirlwind, up-
+stairs, up two pair of stairs, nay, actually up three (for this fiery
+little man seemed as by instinct to know his way everywhere); to the
+solitary and lofty attic was I borne, put in and locked in, the key
+being, in the door, and that key he took with him and vanished.
+
+The attic was no pleasant place: I believe he did not know how
+unpleasant it was, or he never would have locked me in with so little
+ceremony. In this summer weather, it was hot as Africa; as in winter,
+it was always cold as Greenland. Boxes and lumber filled it; old
+dresses draped its unstained wall--cobwebs its unswept ceiling. Well
+was it known to be tenanted by rats, by black beetles, and by
+cockroaches--nay, rumour affirmed that the ghostly Nun of the garden
+had once been seen here. A partial darkness obscured one end, across
+which, as for deeper mystery, an old russet curtain was drawn, by way
+of screen to a sombre band of winter cloaks, pendent each from its
+pin, like a malefactor from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and
+behind that curtain, the Nun was said to issue. I did not believe
+this, nor was I troubled by apprehension thereof; but I saw a very
+dark and large rat, with a long tail, come gliding out from that
+squalid alcove; and, moreover, my eye fell on many a black-beetle,
+dotting the floor. These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, than it
+would be wise to say, as also did the dust, lumber, and stifling heat
+of the place. The last inconvenience would soon have become
+intolerable, had I not found means to open and prop up the skylight,
+thus admitting some freshness. Underneath this aperture I pushed a
+large empty chest, and having mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped
+from both the dust, I gathered my dress (my best, the reader must
+remember, and therefore a legitimate object of care) fastidiously
+around me, ascended this species of extempore throne, and being
+seated, commenced the acquisition of my task; while I learned, not
+forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the black-beetles and
+cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of the rats, I sat
+in mortal dread.
+
+My impression at first was that I had undertaken what it really was
+impossible to perform, and I simply resolved to do my best and be
+resigned to fail. I soon found, however, that one part in so short a
+piece was not more than memory could master at a few hours' notice. I
+learned and learned on, first in a whisper, and then aloud. Perfectly
+secure from human audience, I acted my part before the garret-vermin.
+Entering into its emptiness, frivolity, and falsehood, with a spirit
+inspired by scorn and impatience, I took my revenge on this "fat," by
+making him as fatuitous as I possibly could.
+
+In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into
+evening; and I, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew
+excessively hungry. Now I thought of the collation, which doubtless
+they were just then devouring in the garden far below. (I had seen in
+the vestibule a basketful of small _pates a la creme_, than which
+nothing in the whole range of cookery seemed to me better). A
+_pate_, or a square of cake, it seemed to me would come very
+_apropos;_ and as my relish for those dainties increased, it
+began to appear somewhat hard that I should pass my holiday, fasting
+and in prison. Remote as was the attic from the street-door and
+vestibule, yet the ever-tinkling bell was faintly audible here; and
+also the ceaseless roll of wheels, on the tormented pavement. I knew
+that the house and garden were thronged, and that all was gay and glad
+below; here it began to grow dusk: the beetles were fading from my
+sight; I trembled lest they should steal on me a march, mount my
+throne unseen, and, unsuspected, invade my skirts. Impatient and
+apprehensive, I recommenced the rehearsal of my part merely to kill
+time. Just as I was concluding, the long-delayed rattle of the key in
+the lock came to my ear--no unwelcome sound. M. Paul (I could just see
+through the dusk that it _was_ M. Paul, for light enough still
+lingered to show the velvet blackness of his close-shorn head, and the
+sallow ivory of his brow) looked in.
+
+"Brava!" cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the
+threshold. "J'ai tout entendu. C'est assez bien. Encore!"
+
+A moment I hesitated.
+
+"Encore!" said he sternly. "Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidite!"
+
+Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it
+alone.
+
+"Enfin, elle sait," said he, half dissatisfied, "and one cannot be
+fastidious or exacting under the circumstances." Then he added, "You
+may yet have twenty minutes for preparation: au revoir!" And he was
+going.
+
+"Monsieur," I called out, taking courage.
+
+"Eh bien! Qu'est-ce que c'est, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"J'ai bien faim."
+
+"Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?"
+
+"I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here."
+
+"Ah! C'est vrai," cried he.
+
+In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse
+repetition of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic,
+instantly took me down--down--down to the very kitchen. I thought I
+should have gone to the cellar. The cook was imperatively ordered to
+produce food, and I, as imperatively, was commanded to eat. To my
+great joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I had feared wine
+and sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should like a
+_petit pate a la creme_ I cannot tell; but he went out and
+procured me one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate
+and drank, keeping the _petit pate_ till the last, as a _bonne
+bouche_. M. Paul superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me
+more than I could swallow.
+
+"A la bonne heure," he cried, when I signified that I really could
+take no more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the
+additional roll on which he had just spread butter. "You will set me
+down as a species of tyrant and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret;
+whereas, after all, I am no such thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel
+courage and strength to appear?"
+
+I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused,
+and could hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order
+of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant
+force sufficient to crush him at once.
+
+"Come then," said he, offering his hand.
+
+I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to
+run at his side in order to keep pace. In the carre he stopped a
+moment: it was lit with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes
+were open, and so were the equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in
+tubs, and tall flowers in pots, ornamented these portals on each side;
+groups of ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress stood and walked
+amongst the flowers. Within, the long vista of the school-rooms
+presented a thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, streaming
+multitude, all rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were
+lustres burning overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green
+curtain, a row of footlights.
+
+"Nest-ce pas que c'est beau?" demanded my companion.
+
+I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul
+discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my
+pains.
+
+"I will do my best, but I wish it was over," said I; then I asked:
+"Are we to walk through that crowd?"
+
+"By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the garden--
+here."
+
+In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me
+somewhat. It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing
+windows lit the court brightly, and even the alleys--dimly. Heaven was
+cloudless, and grand with the quiver of its living fires. How soft are
+the nights of the Continent! How bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no
+chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh as morning.
+
+Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the
+first classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we
+passed, and then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the
+first classe from the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so
+full of light: it deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it
+stifled me, it was so hot, choking, thronged.
+
+"De l'ordre! Du silence!" cried M. Paul. "Is this chaos?", he
+demanded; and there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many
+gestures, he turned out half the persons present, and obliged the
+remnant to fall into rank. Those left were all in costume: they were
+the performers, and this was the green-room. M. Paul introduced me.
+All stared and some tittered. It was a surprise: they had not expected
+the Englishwoman would play in a _vaudeville_. Ginevra Fanshawe,
+beautifully dressed for her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty,
+turned on me a pair of eyes as round as beads. In the highest spirit,
+unperturbed by fear or bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of
+shining off before hundreds--my entrance seemed to transfix her with
+amazement in the midst of her joy. She would have exclaimed, but M.
+Paul held her and all the rest in check.
+
+Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.
+
+"You, too, must be dressed for your part."
+
+"Dressed--dressed like a man!" exclaimed Zelie St. Pierre, darting
+forwards; adding with officiousness, "I will dress her myself."
+
+To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had
+consented to take a man's name and part; as to his dress--_halte
+la!_ No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might
+storm, might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice
+as resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in
+utterance.
+
+He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he
+stood silent. But Zelie again interposed.
+
+"She will make a capital _petit-maitre_. Here are the garments,
+all--all complete: somewhat too large, but--I will arrange all that.
+Come, chere amie--belle Anglaise!"
+
+And she sneered, for I was not "belle." She seized my hand, she was
+drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable--neutral.
+
+"You must not resist," pursued St. Pierre--for resist I did. "You will
+spoil all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the
+company, sacrifice everything to your _amour-propre_. This would
+be too bad--monsieur will never permit this?"
+
+She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her
+one, and then he gave me one. "Stop!" he said slowly, arresting St.
+Pierre, who continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody
+awaited the decision. He was not angry, not irritated; I perceived
+that, and took heart.
+
+"You do not like these clothes?" he asked, pointing to the masculine
+vestments.
+
+"I don't object to some of them, but I won't have them all."
+
+"How must it be, then? How accept a man's part, and go on the stage
+dressed as a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true--a
+_vaudeville de pensionnat;_ certain modifications I might
+sanction, yet something you must have to announce you as of the nobler
+sex."
+
+"And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody
+must meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress
+myself."
+
+Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave
+it to me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone,
+I grew calm, and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman's garb
+without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a
+little vest, a collar, and cravat, and a paletot of small dimensions;
+the whole being the costume of a brother of one of the pupils. Having
+loosened my hair out of its braids, made up the long back-hair close,
+and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my
+hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He
+looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then
+added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid--un peu
+d'aplomb, M. Lucien, et tout ira bien."
+
+St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.
+
+I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon
+her and saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I
+should feel disposed to call her out.
+
+"After the play, after the play," said M. Paul. "I will then divide my
+pair of pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according
+to form: it will only be the old quarrel of France and England."
+
+But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M.
+Paul, setting us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general
+addressing soldiers about to charge. I don't know what he said, except
+that he recommended each to penetrate herself with a sense of her
+personal insignificance. God knows I thought this advice superfluous
+for some of us. A bell tinkled. I and two more were ushered on to the
+stage. The bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very first words.
+
+"Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it," whispered M. Paul in my
+ear. "Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats."
+
+He vanished. The curtain drew up--shrivelled to the ceiling: the
+bright lights, the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought
+of the black-beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my
+say badly; but I said it. That first speech was the difficulty; it
+revealed to me this fact, that it was not the crowd I feared so much
+as my own voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd were nothing to
+me. Nor did I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and my
+voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of
+nothing but the personage I represented--and of M. Paul, who was
+listening, watching, prompting in the side-scenes.
+
+By-and-by, feeling the right power come--the spring demanded gush and
+rise inwardly--I became sufficiently composed to notice my fellow-
+actors. Some of them played very well; especially Ginevra Fanshawe,
+who had to coquette between two suitors, and managed admirably: in
+fact she was in her element. I observed that she once or twice threw a
+certain marked fondness and pointed partiality into her manner towards
+me--the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she favour me, such
+glances did she dart out into the listening and applauding crowd, that
+to me--who knew her--it presently became evident she was acting
+_at_ some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her gesture,
+and ere long discovered that she had at least singled out a handsome
+and distinguished aim for her shafts; full in the path of those
+arrows--taller than other spectators, and therefore more sure to
+receive them--stood, in attitude quiet but intent, a well-known form--
+that of Dr. John.
+
+The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr.
+John's look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew
+out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I per formed; I threw
+it into my wooing of Ginevra. In the "Ours," or sincere lover, I saw
+Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I hardened my heart, rivalled
+and out-rivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but where _he_ was
+outcast _I_ could please. Now I know acted as if wishful and
+resolute to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-
+changed the nature of the _role_, gilding it from top to toe.
+Between the acts M. Paul, told us he knew not what possessed us, and
+half expostulated. "C'est peut-etre plus beau que votre modele," said
+he, "mais ce n'est pas juste." I know not what possessed me either;
+but somehow, my longing was to eclipse the "Ours," _i.e._, Dr.
+John. Ginevra was tender; how could I be otherwise than chivalric?
+Retaining the letter, I recklessly altered the spirit of the
+_role_. Without heart, without interest, I could not play it at
+all. It must be played--in went the yearned-for seasoning--thus
+favoured, I played it with relish.
+
+What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and
+do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold,
+reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere
+long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please
+myself. Yet the next day, when I thought it over, I quite disapproved
+of these amateur performances; and though glad that I had obliged M.
+Paul, and tried my own strength for once, I took a firm resolution,
+never to be drawn into a similar affair. A keen relish for dramatic
+expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and
+exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight,
+but it would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and
+longing must be put by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with
+the lock of a resolution which neither Time nor Temptation has since
+picked.
+
+No sooner was the play over, and _well_ over, than the choleric
+and arbitrary M. Paul underwent a metamorphosis. His hour of
+managerial responsibility past, he at once laid aside his magisterial
+austerity; in a moment he stood amongst us, vivacious, kind, and
+social, shook hands with us all round, thanked us separately, and
+announced his determination that each of us should in turn be his
+partner in the coming ball. On his claiming my promise, I told him I
+did not dance. "For once I must," was the answer; and if I had not
+slipped aside and kept out of his way, he would have compelled me to
+this second performance. But I had acted enough for one evening; it
+was time I retired into myself and my ordinary life. My dun-coloured
+dress did well enough under a paletot on the stage, but would not suit
+a waltz or a quadrille. Withdrawing to a quiet nook, whence unobserved
+I could observe--the ball, its splendours and its pleasures, passed
+before me as a spectacle.
+
+Again Ginevra Fanshawe was the belle, the fairest and the gayest
+present; she was selected to open the ball: very lovely she looked,
+very gracefully she danced, very joyously she smiled. Such scenes were
+her triumphs--she was the child of pleasure. Work or suffering found
+her listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded
+her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made
+her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet
+and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like
+a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet
+cake her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room;
+elsewhere she drooped dispirited.
+
+Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere
+sake of M. Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces
+that night for the edification of her companions only, or for that of
+the parents and grand-parents, who filled the carre, and lined the
+ball-room; under circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so
+chilly and vapid, Ginevra would scarce have deigned to walk one
+quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness would have replaced animation
+and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the otherwise heavy
+festal mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment which gave
+it zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her choicest
+attractions.
+
+In the ball-room, indeed, not a single male spectator was to be seen
+who was not married and a father--M. Paul excepted--that gentleman,
+too, being the sole creature of his sex permitted to lead out a pupil
+to the dance; and this exceptional part was allowed him, partly as a
+matter of old-established custom (for he was a kinsman of Madame
+Beck's, and high in her confidence), partly because he would always
+have his own way and do as he pleased, and partly because--wilful,
+passionate, partial, as he might be--he was the soul of honour, and
+might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect
+security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of
+the girls--it may be noted in parenthesis--were not pure-minded at
+all, very much otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural
+coarseness in M. Paul's presence, than they dare tread purposely on
+his corns, laugh in his face during a stormy apostrophe, or speak
+above their breath while some crisis of irritability was covering his
+human visage with the mask of an intelligent tiger. M. Paul, then,
+might dance with whom he would--and woe be to the interference which
+put him out of step.
+
+Others there were admitted as spectators--with (seeming) reluctance,
+through prayers, by influence, under restriction, by special and
+difficult exercise of Madame Beck's gracious good-nature, and whom she
+all the evening--with her own personal surveillance--kept far aloof at
+the remotest, drearest, coldest, darkest side of the carre--a small,
+forlorn band of "jeunes gens;" these being all of the best families,
+grown-up sons of mothers present, and whose sisters were pupils in the
+school. That whole evening was Madame on duty beside these "jeunes
+gens"--attentive to them as a mother, but strict with them as a
+dragon. There was a sort of cordon stretched before them, which they
+wearied her with prayers to be permitted to pass, and just to revive
+themselves by one dance with that "belle blonde," or that "jolie
+brune," or "cette jeune fille magnifique aux cheveux noirs comme le
+jais."
+
+"Taisez-vous!" Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. "Vous ne
+passerez pas a moins que ce ne soit sur mon cadavre, et vous ne
+danserez qu'avec la nonnette du jardin" (alluding to the legend). And
+she majestically walked to and fro along their disconsolate and
+impatient line, like a little Bonaparte in a mouse-coloured silk gown.
+
+Madame knew something of the world; Madame knew much of human nature.
+I don't think that another directress in Villette would have dared to
+admit a "jeune homme" within her walls; but Madame knew that by
+granting such admission, on an occasion like the present, a bold
+stroke might be struck, and a great point gained.
+
+In the first place, the parents were made accomplices to the deed, for
+it was only through their mediation it was brought about. Secondly:
+the admission of these rattlesnakes, so fascinating and so dangerous,
+served to draw out Madame precisely in her strongest character--that
+of a first-rate _surveillante_. Thirdly: their presence furnished
+a most piquant ingredient to the entertainment: the pupils knew it,
+and saw it, and the view of such golden apples shining afar off,
+animated them with a spirit no other circumstance could have kindled.
+The children's pleasure spread to the parents; life and mirth
+circulated quickly round the ball-room; the "jeunes gens" themselves,
+though restrained, were amused: for Madame never permitted them to
+feel dull--and thus Madame Beck's fete annually ensured a success
+unknown to the fete of any other directress in the land.
+
+I observed that Dr. John was at first permitted to walk at large
+through the classes: there was about him a manly, responsible look,
+that redeemed his youth, and half-expiated his beauty; but as soon as
+the ball began, Madame ran up to him.
+
+"Come, Wolf; come," said she, laughing: "you wear sheep's clothing,
+but you must quit the fold notwithstanding. Come; I have a fine
+menagerie of twenty here in the carre: let me place you amongst my
+collection."
+
+"But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice."
+
+"Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety.
+Sortez, sortez, au plus vite."
+
+She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon.
+
+Ginevra being, I suppose, tired with dancing, sought me out in my
+retreat. She threw herself on the bench beside me, and (a
+demonstration I could very well have dispensed with) cast her arms
+round my neck.
+
+"Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!" she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half
+hysterical.
+
+"What in the world is the matter?" I drily said.
+
+"How do I look--how do I look to-night?" she demanded.
+
+"As usual," said I; "preposterously vain."
+
+"Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of
+you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel
+it, I see it--for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room,
+where I can view my shape from head to foot. Will you go with me now,
+and let us two stand before it?"
+
+"I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your
+bent."
+
+The dressing-room was very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm
+through mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance
+remonstrance, or remark, I stood and let her self-love have its feast
+and triumph: curious to see how much it could swallow--whether it was
+possible it could feed to satiety--whether any whisper of
+consideration for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate its
+vainglorious exultation.
+
+Not at all. She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all
+sides; she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she
+spread her dress, and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with
+mock respect, she said: "I would not be you for a kingdom."
+
+The remark was too _naive_ to rouse anger; I merely said: "Very
+good."
+
+"And what would _you_ give to be ME?" she inquired.
+
+"Not a bad sixpence--strange as it may sound," I replied. "You are but
+a poor creature."
+
+"You don't think so in your heart."
+
+"No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only
+occasionally turn you over in my brain."
+
+"Well, but," said she, in an expostulatory tone, "just listen to the
+difference of our positions, and then see how happy am I, and how
+miserable are you."
+
+"Go on; I listen."
+
+"In the first place: I am the daughter of a gentleman of family, and
+though my father is not rich, I have expectations from an uncle.
+Then, I am just eighteen, the finest age possible. I have had a
+continental education, and though I can't spell, I have abundant
+accomplishments. I _am_ pretty; _you_ can't deny that; I may have
+as many admirers as I choose. This very night I have been breaking the
+hearts of two gentlemen, and it is the dying look I had from one of them
+just now, which puts me in such spirits. I do so like to watch them turn
+red and pale, and scowl and dart fiery glances at each other, and
+languishing ones at me. There is _me_--happy ME; now for _you_,
+poor soul!
+
+"I suppose you are nobody's daughter, since you took care of little
+children when you first came to Villette: you have no relations; you
+can't call yourself young at twenty-three; you have no attractive
+accomplishments--no beauty. As to admirers, you hardly know what they
+are; you can't even talk on the subject: you sit dumb when the other
+teachers quote their conquests. I believe you never were in love, and
+never will be: you don't know the feeling, and so much the better, for
+though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will you
+ever break. Isn't it all true?"
+
+"A good deal of it is true as gospel, and shrewd besides. There must
+be good in you, Ginevra, to speak so honestly; that snake, Zelie St.
+Pierre, could not utter what you have uttered. Still, Miss Fanshawe,
+hapless as I am, according to your showing, sixpence I would not give
+to purchase you, body and soul."
+
+"Just because I am not clever, and that is all _you_ think of.
+Nobody in the world but you cares for cleverness."
+
+"On the contrary, I consider you _are_ clever, in your way--very
+smart indeed. But you were talking of breaking hearts--that edifying
+amusement into the merits of which I don't quite enter; pray on whom
+does your vanity lead you to think you have done execution to-night?"
+
+She approached her lips to my ear--"Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are
+both here?" she whispered.
+
+"Oh! they are? I should like to see them."
+
+"There's a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me,
+I will point them out."
+
+She proudly led the way--"But you cannot see them well from the
+classes," said she, turning, "Madame keeps them too far off. Let us
+cross the garden, enter by the corridor, and get close to them behind:
+we shall be scolded if we are seen, but never mind."
+
+For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went--penetrated into
+the corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the
+_carre_, yet keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view
+of the band of "jeunes gens."
+
+I believe I could have picked out the conquering de Hamal even
+undirected. He was a straight-nosed, very correct-featured little
+dandy. I say _little_ dandy, though he was not beneath the middle
+standard in stature; but his lineaments were small, and so were his
+hands and feet; and he was pretty and smooth, and as trim as a doll:
+so nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted and gloved and
+cravated--he was charming indeed. I said so. "What, a dear personage!"
+cried I, and commended Ginevra's taste warmly; and asked her what she
+thought de Hamal might have done with the precious fragments of that
+heart she had broken--whether he kept them in a scent-vial, and
+conserved them in otto of roses? I observed, too, with deep rapture of
+approbation, that the colonel's hands were scarce larger than Miss
+Fanshawe's own, and suggested that this circumstance might be
+convenient, as he could wear her gloves at a pinch. On his dear curls,
+I told her I doated: and as to his low, Grecian brow, and exquisite
+classic headpiece, I confessed I had no language to do such
+perfections justice.
+
+"And if he were your lover?" suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra.
+
+"Oh! heavens, what bliss!" said I; "but do not be inhuman, Miss
+Fanshawe: to put such thoughts into my head is like showing poor
+outcast Cain a far, glimpse of Paradise."
+
+"You like him, then?"
+
+"As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers."
+
+Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she
+could then readily credit that they were mine too.
+
+"Now for Isidore," I went on. I own I felt still more curious to see
+him than his rival; but Ginevra was absorbed in the latter.
+
+"Alfred was admitted here to-night," said she, "through the influence
+of his aunt, Madame la Baronne de Dorlodot; and now, having seen him,
+can you not understand why I have been in such spirits all the
+evening, and acted so well, and danced with such life, and why I am
+now happy as a queen? Dieu! Dieu! It was such good fun to glance first
+at him and then at the other, and madden them both."
+
+"But that other--where is he? Show me Isidore."
+
+"I don't like."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I am ashamed of him."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Because--because" (in a whisper) "he has such--such whiskers, orange
+--red--there now!"
+
+"The murder is out," I subjoined. "Never mind, show him all the same;
+I engage not to faint."
+
+She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me.
+
+"You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor."
+
+"There is no draught, Dr. John," said I, turning.
+
+"She takes cold so easily," he pursued, looking at Ginevra with
+extreme kindness. "She is delicate; she must be cared for: fetch her a
+shawl."
+
+"Permit me to judge for myself," said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. "I
+want no shawl."
+
+"Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated."
+
+"Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing."
+
+The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was
+hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he
+turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty
+of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.
+
+"She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her," said I, folding
+it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her
+arms. "Is that Isidore?" I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.
+
+She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have
+given her a dozen.
+
+"C'est lui-meme," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
+Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"
+
+Dr. John now passed on.
+
+"The Colonel-Count!" I echoed. "The doll--the puppet--the manikin--the
+poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his
+foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman--handsome as a
+vision--offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises
+to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and
+struggles of life--and you hang back--you scorn, you sting, you
+torture him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where
+is it? Does it lie all in your beauty--your pink and white complexion,
+and your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend
+his neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection,
+his tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble,
+cordial love--and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only
+dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him;
+but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?"
+
+"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."
+
+I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a
+seat and told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she
+meant in the end to accept--the man or the monkey.
+
+"Him you call the man," said she, "is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and
+answers to the name of John!--cela suffit: je n'en veux pas. Colonel
+de Hamal is a gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners,
+sweet appearance, with pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like
+an Italian. Then too he is the most delightful company possible--a man
+quite in my way; not sensible and serious like the other; but one with
+whom I can talk on equal terms--who does not plague and bore, and
+harass me with depths, and heights, and passions, and talents for
+which I have no taste. There now. Don't hold me so fast."
+
+I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue
+her.
+
+Somehow I could not avoid returning once more in the direction of the
+corridor to get another glimpse of Dr. John; but I met him on the
+garden-steps, standing where the light from a window fell broad. His
+well-proportioned figure was not to be mistaken, for I doubt whether
+there was another in that assemblage his equal. He carried his hat in
+his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine brow were most
+handsome and manly. _His_ features were not delicate, not slight
+like those of a woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble;
+though well cut, they were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to
+lose in expression or significance what they gained in unmeaning
+symmetry. Much feeling spoke in them at times, and more sat silent in
+his eye. Such at least were my thoughts of him: to me he seemed all
+this. An inexpressible sense of wonder occupied me, as I looked at
+this man, and reflected that _he_ could not be slighted.
+
+It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our
+terms of acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to
+view him in the crowd--myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I
+withdrew. But he was looking out for me, or rather for her who had
+been with me: therefore he descended the steps, and followed me down
+the alley.
+
+"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew
+her," said he.
+
+"Yes: I know her."
+
+"Intimately?"
+
+"Quite as intimately as I wish."
+
+"What have you done with her now?"
+
+"Am I her keeper?" I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, "I
+have shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she
+escaped out of my hands and ran away."
+
+"Would you favour me," he asked, "by watching over her this one
+evening, and observing that she does nothing imprudent--does not, for
+instance, run out into the night-air immediately after dancing?"
+
+"I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she
+likes her own way too well to submit readily to control."
+
+"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
+
+"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
+
+"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell
+_you_ how."
+
+"And why me?"
+
+"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
+
+"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend.
+That is precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she
+ever speak of me to you?"
+
+"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I
+must add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered
+that you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within
+that brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the
+person, under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that
+she is the magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her
+sake you venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by
+rivals."
+
+"You know all?"
+
+"I know so much."
+
+"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society.
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see
+her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore'
+she often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of
+confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her
+remarks? I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented
+with uncertainty as to how I stand with her."
+
+"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."
+
+"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"
+
+"I can," thought I, "but it would not do to communicate that general
+idea to you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would
+not believe me."
+
+"You are silent," he pursued. "I suppose you have no good news to
+impart. No matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion,
+it is a sign I do not deserve her."
+
+"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
+Colonel de Hamal?"
+
+"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being,
+and would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal,
+I fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me,
+all his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your
+beautiful young friend."
+
+"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel
+who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not
+serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."
+
+"Are you not a little severe?"
+
+"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You
+should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young
+friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of
+tender considerateness for her delicate nature."
+
+"She is so lovely, one cannot but be loving towards her. You--every
+woman older than herself, must feel for such a simple, innocent,
+girlish fairy a sort of motherly or elder-sisterly fondness. Graceful
+angel! Does not your heart yearn towards her when she pours into your
+ear her pure, childlike confidences? How you are privileged!" And he
+sighed.
+
+"I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then," said
+I. "But excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant?
+What a god-like person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face--
+perfect! Model one in putty or clay, you could not make a better or
+straighter, or neater; and then, such classic lips and chin--and his
+bearing--sublime."
+
+"De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered
+hero."
+
+"You, Dr. John, and every man of a less-refined mould than he, must
+feel for him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the
+coarser deities may be supposed to have borne the young, graceful
+Apollo."
+
+"An unprincipled, gambling little jackanapes!" said Dr. John curtly,
+"whom, with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and
+lay low in the kennel if I liked."
+
+"The sweet seraph!" said I. "What a cruel idea! Are you not a little
+severe, Dr. John?"
+
+And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond
+myself--venturing out of what I looked on as my natural habits--
+speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled me
+strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I
+anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay
+lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr.
+John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on his
+illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward
+to an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn.
+
+The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the
+reflex from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was
+melancholy. How I wished that he could feel heart's-ease! How I
+grieved that he brooded over pain, and pain from such a cause! He,
+with his great advantages, _he_ to love in vain! I did not then
+know that the pensiveness of reverse is the best phase for some minds;
+nor did I reflect that some herbs, "though scentless when entire,
+yield fragrance when they're bruised."
+
+"Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve," I broke out. "If there is in
+Ginevra one spark of worthiness of your affection, she will--she
+_must_ feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr.
+John. Who should hope, if not you?"
+
+In return for this speech I got--what, it must be supposed, I
+deserved--a look of surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation.
+We parted, and I went into the house very chill. The clocks struck and
+the bells tolled midnight; people were leaving fast: the fete was
+over; the lamps were fading. In another hour all the dwelling-house,
+and all the pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, but
+not asleep. To me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such
+excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Following Madame Beck's fete, with its three preceding weeks of
+relaxation, its brief twelve hours' burst of hilarity and dissipation,
+and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of
+reaction; two months of real application, of close, hard study. These
+two months, being the last of the "annee scolaire," were indeed the
+only genuine working months in the year. To them was procrastinated--
+into them concentrated, alike by professors, mistresses, and pupils--
+the main burden of preparation for the examinations preceding the
+distribution of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work in
+good earnest; masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the
+wheel, to urge on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more
+promising. A showy demonstration--a telling exhibition--must be got up
+for public view, and all means were fair to this end.
+
+I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own
+business to mind; and _my_ task was not the least onerous, being
+to imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they
+considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the
+English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was
+an almost impossible pronunciation--the lisping and hissing dentals of
+the Isles.
+
+The examination-day arrived. Awful day! Prepared for with anxious
+care, dressed for with silent despatch--nothing vaporous or fluttering
+now--no white gauze or azure streamers; the grave, close, compact was
+the order of the toilette. It seemed to me that I was this day,
+especially doomed--the main burden and trial falling on me alone of
+all the female teachers. The others were not expected to examine in
+the studies they taught; the professor of literature, M. Paul, taking
+upon himself this duty. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and
+sundry reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any
+colleague; he would not have help. Madame herself, who evidently
+rather wished to undertake the examination in geography--her favourite
+study, which she taught well--was forced to succumb, and be
+subordinate to her despotic kinsman's direction. The whole staff of
+instructors, male and female, he set aside, and stood on the
+examiner's estrade alone. It irked him that he was forced to make one
+exception to this rule. He could not manage English: he was obliged to
+leave that branch of education in the English teacher's hands; which
+he did, not without a flash of naive jealousy.
+
+A constant crusade against the "amour-propre" of every human being but
+himself, was the crotchet of this able, but fiery and grasping little
+man. He had a strong relish for public representation in his own
+person, but an extreme abhorrence of the like display in any other. He
+quelled, he kept down when he could; and when he could not, he fumed
+like a bottled storm.
+
+On the evening preceding the examination-day, I was walking in the
+garden, as were the other teachers and all the boarders. M. Emanuel
+joined me in the "allee defendue;" his cigar was at his lips; his
+paletot--a most characteristic garment of no particular shape--hung
+dark and menacing; the tassel of his bonnet grec sternly shadowed his
+left temple; his black whiskers curled like those of a wrathful cat;
+his blue eye had a cloud in its glitter.
+
+"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez
+troner comme une reine; demain--troner a mes cotes? Sans doute vous
+savourez d'avance les delices de l'autorite. Je crois voir en je ne
+sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!"
+
+Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken. I did not--
+could not--estimate the admiration or the good opinion of tomorrow's
+audience at the same rate he did. Had that audience numbered as many
+personal friends and acquaintance for me as for him, I know not how it
+might have been: I speak of the case as it stood. On me school-
+triumphs shed but a cold lustre. I had wondered--and I wondered now--
+how it was that for him they seemed to shine as with hearth-warmth
+and hearth-glow. _He_ cared for them perhaps too much; _I_,
+probably, too little. However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I
+liked, for instance, to see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature,
+and woke his spirit; it threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows
+over his dun face, and into his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that
+his black hair and blue eyes were "une de ses beautes"). There was a
+relish in his anger; it was artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but
+never hypocritical. I uttered no disclaimer then of the complacency he
+attributed to me; I merely asked where the English examination came
+in--whether at the commencement or close of the day?
+
+"I hesitate," said he, "whether at the very beginning, before many
+persons are come, and when your aspiring nature will not be gratified
+by a large audience, or quite at the close, when everybody is tired,
+and only a jaded and worn-out attention will be at your service."
+
+"Que vous etes dur, Monsieur!" I said, affecting dejection.
+
+"One ought to be 'dur' with you. You are one of those beings who must
+be _kept down_. I know you! I know you! Other people in this
+house see you pass, and think that a colourless shadow has gone by. As
+for me, I scrutinized your face once, and it sufficed."
+
+"You are satisfied that you understand me?"
+
+Without answering directly, he went on, "Were you not gratified when
+you succeeded in that vaudeville? I watched you and saw a passionate
+ardour for triumph in your physiognomy. What fire shot into the
+glance! Not mere light, but flame: je me tiens pour averti."
+
+"What feeling I had on that occasion, Monsieur--and pardon me, if I
+say, you immensely exaggerate both its quality and quantity--was quite
+abstract. I did not care for the vaudeville. I hated the part you
+assigned me. I had not the slightest sympathy with the audience below
+the stage. They are good people, doubtless, but do I know them? Are
+they anything to me? Can I care for being brought before their view
+again to-morrow? Will the examination be anything but a task to me--a
+task I wish well over?"
+
+"Shall I take it out of your hands?"
+
+"With all my heart; if you do not fear failure."
+
+"But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few
+words: par exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stares--est-ce bien dit? My
+opinion is that it would be better to give up the thing altogether: to
+have no English examination, eh?"
+
+"If Madame consents, I consent."
+
+"Heartily?"
+
+"Very heartily."
+
+He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly.
+
+"Donnez-moi la main," said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out
+of his face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead.
+
+"Come, we will not be rivals, we will be friends," he pursued. "The
+examination shall take place, and I will choose a good moment; and
+instead of vexing and hindering, as I felt half-inclined ten minutes
+ago--for I have my malevolent moods: I always had from childhood--I
+will aid you sincerely. After all, you are solitary and a stranger,
+and have your way to make and your bread to earn; it may be well that
+you should become known. We will be friends: do you agree?"
+
+"Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better
+than a triumph."
+
+"Pauvrette?" said he, and turned away and left the alley.
+
+The examination passed over well; M. Paul was as good as his word, and
+did his best to make my part easy. The next day came the distribution
+of prizes; that also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went
+home, and now began the long vacation.
+
+That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not. Madame Beck went,
+the first day of the holidays, to join her children at the sea-side;
+all the three teachers had parents or friends with whom they took
+refuge; every professor quitted the city; some went to Paris, some to
+Boue-Marine; M. Paul set forth on a pilgrimage to Rome; the house was
+left quite empty, but for me, a servant, and a poor deformed and
+imbecile pupil, a sort of cretin, whom her stepmother in a distant
+province would not allow to return home.
+
+My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its
+chords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!
+How vast and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the
+forsaken garden--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed.
+Looking forward at the commencement of those eight weeks, I hardly
+knew how I was to live to the end. My spirits had long been gradually
+sinking; now that the prop of employment was withdrawn, they went down
+fast. Even to look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no
+comfort, offered no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil
+in reliance on future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence
+often pressed on me--a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end
+of all things earthly. Alas! When I had full leisure to look on life
+as life must be looked on by such as me, I found it but a hopeless
+desert: tawny sands, with no green fields, no palm-tree, no well in
+view. The hopes which are dear to youth, which bear it up and lead it
+on, I knew not and dared not know. If they knocked at my heart
+sometimes, an inhospitable bar to admission must be inwardly drawn.
+When they turned away thus rejected, tears sad enough sometimes
+flowed: but it could not be helped: I dared not give such guests
+lodging. So mortally did I fear the sin and weakness of presumption.
+
+Religious reader, you will preach to me a long sermon about what I
+have just written, and so will you, moralist: and you, stern sage:
+you, stoic, will frown; you, cynic, sneer; you, epicure, laugh. Well,
+each and all, take it your own way. I accept the sermon, frown, sneer,
+and laugh; perhaps you are all right: and perhaps, circumstanced like
+me, you would have been, like me, wrong. The first month was, indeed,
+a long, black, heavy month to me.
+
+The cretin did not seem unhappy. I did my best to feed her well and
+keep her warm, and she only asked food and sunshine, or when that
+lacked, fire. Her weak faculties approved of inertion: her brain, her
+eyes, her ears, her heart slept content; they could not wake to work,
+so lethargy was their Paradise.
+
+Three weeks of that vacation were hot, fair, and dry, but the fourth
+and fifth were tempestuous and wet. I do not know why that change in
+the atmosphere made a cruel impression on me, why the raging storm and
+beating rain crushed me with a deadlier paralysis than I had
+experienced while the air had remained serene; but so it was; and my
+nervous system could hardly support what it had for many days and
+nights to undergo in that huge empty house. How I used to pray to
+Heaven for consolation and support! With what dread force the
+conviction would grasp me that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be
+conciliated. I did not, in my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of
+God for this; I concluded it to be a part of his great plan that some
+must deeply suffer while they live, and I thrilled in the certainty
+that of this number, I was one.
+
+It was some relief when an aunt of the cretin, a kind old woman, came
+one day, and took away my strange, deformed companion. The hapless
+creature had been at times a heavy charge; I could not take her out
+beyond the garden, and I could not leave her a minute alone: for her
+poor mind, like her body, was warped: its propensity was to evil. A
+vague bent to mischief, an aimless malevolence, made constant
+vigilance indispensable. As she very rarely spoke, and would sit for
+hours together moping and mowing, and distorting her features with
+indescribable grimaces, it was more like being prisoned with some
+strange tameless animal, than associating with a human being. Then
+there were personal attentions to be rendered which required the nerve
+of a hospital nurse; my resolution was so tried, it sometimes fell
+dead-sick. These duties should not have fallen on me; a servant, now
+absent, had rendered them hitherto, and in the hurry of holiday
+departure, no substitute to fill this office had been provided. This
+tax and trial were by no means the least I have known in life. Still,
+menial and distasteful as they were, my mental pain was far more
+wasting and wearing. Attendance on the cretin deprived me often of the
+power and inclination to swallow a meal, and sent me faint to the
+fresh air, and the well or fountain in the court; but this duty never
+wrung my heart, or brimmed my eyes, or scalded my cheek with tears hot
+as molten metal.
+
+The cretin being gone, I was free to walk out. At first I lacked
+courage to venture very far from the Rue Fossette, but by degrees I
+sought the city gates, and passed them, and then went wandering away
+far along chaussees, through fields, beyond cemeteries, Catholic and
+Protestant, beyond farmsteads, to lanes and little woods, and I know
+not where. A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me to rest; a want of
+companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly
+famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid
+afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise.
+
+While wandering in solitude, I would sometimes picture the present
+probable position of others, my acquaintance. There was Madame Beck at
+a cheerful watering-place with her children, her mother, and a whole
+troop of friends who had sought the same scene of relaxation. Zelie
+St. Pierre was at Paris, with her relatives; the other teachers were
+at their homes. There was Ginevra Fanshawe, whom certain of her
+connections had carried on a pleasant tour southward. Ginevra seemed
+to me the happiest. She was on the route of beautiful scenery; these
+September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest and
+vintage matured under their mellow beam. These gold and crystal moons
+rose on her vision over blue horizons waved in mounted lines.
+
+But all this was nothing; I too felt those autumn suns and saw those
+harvest moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and
+turf, deep out of their influence; for I could not live in their
+light, nor make them comrades, nor yield them affection. But Ginevra
+had a kind of spirit with her, empowered to give constant strength and
+comfort, to gladden daylight and embalm darkness; the best of the good
+genii that guard humanity curtained her with his wings, and canopied
+her head with his bending form. By True Love was Ginevra followed:
+never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It
+seemed to me impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined
+her grateful in secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day
+to show how much she loved: I pictured her faithful hero half
+conscious of her coy fondness, and comforted by that consciousness: I
+conceived an electric chord of sympathy between them, a fine chain of
+mutual understanding, sustaining union through a separation of a
+hundred leagues--carrying, across mound and hollow, communication by
+prayer and wish. Ginevra gradually became with me a sort of heroine.
+One day, perceiving this growing illusion, I said, "I really believe
+my nerves are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too
+much a malady is growing upon it--what shall I do? How shall I keep
+well?"
+
+Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last
+a day and night of peculiarly agonizing depression were succeeded by
+physical illness, I took perforce to my bed. About this time the
+Indian summer closed and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine
+dark and wet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf,
+dishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--I lay in a strange
+fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise
+in the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A
+rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied---Sleep never
+came!
+
+I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she
+brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste,
+that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but
+sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a
+nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very
+tone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night
+a cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no
+well, but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea.
+Suffering, brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for
+mortal lips, tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank and
+woke, I thought all was over: the end come and past by. Trembling
+fearfully--as consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some fellow-
+creature to help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was near
+enough to catch the wild summons--Goton in her far distant attic could
+not hear--I rose on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over me:
+indescribably was I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the
+horrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-
+loved dead, who had loved _me_ well in life, met me elsewhere,
+alienated: galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of
+despair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to
+recover or wish to live; and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless
+and haughty voice in which Death challenged me to engage his unknown
+terrors. When I tried to pray I could only utter these words: "From my
+youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind."
+
+Most true was it.
+
+On bringing me my tea next morning Goton urged me to call in a doctor.
+I would not: I thought no doctor could cure me.
+
+One evening--and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got up
+--I dressed myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness of
+the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white
+beds were turning into spectres--the coronal of each became a death's-
+head, huge and sun-bleached--dead dreams of an elder world and
+mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes. That evening
+more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate
+was of stone, and Hope a false idol--blind, bloodless, and of granite
+core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its
+climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling
+as they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I
+thought, than it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling,
+and I deemed its influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming
+night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping. It seemed to me that
+at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all
+pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became
+alleviated--that insufferable thought of being no more loved--no more
+owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary--I was sure this hope
+would shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was
+crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain
+quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I
+could not be delirious, for I had sense and recollection to put on
+warm clothing), forth I set. The bells of a church arrested me in
+passing; they seemed to call me in to the _salut_, and I went in.
+Any solemn rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, any opening for
+appeal to God was as welcome to me then as bread to one in extremity
+of want. I knelt down with others on the stone pavement. It was an old
+solemn church, its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light
+shed through stained glass.
+
+Few worshippers were assembled, and, the _salut_ over, half of
+them departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess.
+I did not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy
+quiet sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space,
+breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the
+confessional. I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was
+whispered back; she returned consoled. Another went, and another. A
+pale lady, kneeling near me, said in a low, kind voice:--"Go you now,
+I am not quite prepared."
+
+Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my
+mind had run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step
+could not make me more wretched than I was; it might soothe me.
+
+The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me;
+he only quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man,
+but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it
+with the phlegm of custom. I hesitated; of the formula of confession I
+was ignorant: instead of commencing, then, with the prelude usual, I
+said:--"Mon pere, je suis Protestante."
+
+He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the
+cast of physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his
+profile and brow he was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in
+years, he did not, I think, lack feeling or intelligence. He inquired,
+not unkindly, why, being a Protestant, I came to him?
+
+I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I
+had been living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a
+pressure of affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer
+endure the weight.
+
+"Was it a sin, a crime?" he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured
+him on this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere
+outline of my experience.
+
+He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. "You take me unawares," said
+he. "I have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know
+our routine, and are prepared; but this makes a great break in the
+common course of confession. I am hardly furnished with counsel
+fitting the circumstances."
+
+Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of
+communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet consecrated
+--the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up
+pain into a vessel whence it could not be again diffused--had done me
+good. I was already solaced.
+
+"Must I go, father?" I asked of him as he sat silent.
+
+"My daughter," he said kindly--and I am sure he was a kind man: he had
+a compassionate eye--"for the present you had better go: but I assure
+you your words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt
+to become formal and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your
+heart out; a thing seldom done. I would fain think your case over, and
+take it with me to my oratory. Were you of our faith I should know
+what to say--a mind so tossed can find repose but in the bosom of
+retreat, and the punctual practice of piety. The world, it is well
+known, has no satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy men have
+bidden penitents like you to hasten their path upward by penance,
+self-denial, and difficult good works. Tears are given them here for
+meat and drink--bread of affliction and waters of affliction--their
+recompence comes hereafter. It is my own conviction that these
+impressions under which you are smarting are messengers from God to
+bring you back to the true Church. You were made for our faith: depend
+upon it our faith alone could heal and help you--Protestantism is
+altogether too dry, cold, prosaic for you. The further I look into
+this matter, the more plainly I see it is entirely out of the common
+order of things. On no account would I lose sight of you. Go, my
+daughter, for the present; but return to me again."
+
+I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return.
+
+"You must not come to this church," said he: "I see you are ill, and
+this church is too cold; you must come to my house: I live----" (and
+he gave me his address). "Be there to-morrow morning at ten."
+
+In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil,
+and gathering round me my cloak, I glided away.
+
+Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that
+worthy priest's reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a
+Babylonish furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he
+was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
+softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting some
+sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre of root
+in reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to withstand. Had I
+gone to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, and
+comforting, and gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he
+would have tried to kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good
+works. I know not how it would all have ended. We all think ourselves
+strong in some points; we all know ourselves weak in many; the
+probabilities are that had I visited Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the
+hour and day appointed, I might just now, instead of writing this
+heretic narrative, be counting my beads in the cell of a certain
+Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of Crecy, in Villette. There was
+something of Fenelon about that benign old priest; and whatever most
+of his brethren may be, and whatever I may think of his Church and
+creed (and I like neither), of himself I must ever retain a grateful
+recollection. He was kind when I needed kindness; he did me good. May
+Heaven bless him!
+
+Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets
+ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become
+possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the
+little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative
+impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope:
+she put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But
+I had become involved in a part of the city with which I was not
+familiar; it was the old part, and full of narrow streets of
+picturesque, ancient, and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be
+very collected, and I was still too careless of my own welfare and
+safety to be cautious; I grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network
+of turns unknown. I was lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of
+any passenger.
+
+If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost
+time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from
+north-west to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a
+sharp hail, like shot: it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I
+bent my head to meet it, but it beat me back. My heart did not fail at
+all in this conflict; I only wished that I had wings and could ascend
+the gale, spread and repose my pinions on its strength, career in its
+course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I suddenly felt
+colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I was
+weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the
+mass of frontage and the giant spire turned black and vanished from my
+eyes. Instead of sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch
+headlong down an abyss. I remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AULD LANG SYNE.
+
+
+Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw,
+or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept
+her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling
+imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and
+come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and
+deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved.
+While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's
+threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more,
+all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of
+whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
+
+I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a
+moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were
+hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a
+racking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me,
+red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, like
+thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled, wondering
+into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I
+knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall--a lamp not a lamp. I
+should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the
+commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye
+rested on struck it as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each
+in his place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and
+regular working.
+
+Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed
+from the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and
+tempest were excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house
+I had been carried--but what house?
+
+I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Still half-
+dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me;
+whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was
+puzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw
+accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white
+beds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. "Surely,"
+thought I, "it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carried
+me!" And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask.
+Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last
+I took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on
+a clear-shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue
+relieved a ground of shaded fawn; pale walls over which a slight but
+endless garland of azure forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered
+amongst myriad gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the
+space between two windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this
+mirror I saw myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked
+spectral; my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was
+natural, by contrast with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not
+only from the furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and
+fireplace, that this was an unknown room in an unknown house.
+
+Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I
+gazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a
+certain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a
+blue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all,
+two little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed
+chair, of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of
+brilliant flowers on a dark ground.
+
+Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old
+acquaintance were all about me, and "auld lang syne" smiled out of
+every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of
+which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered "heads;"
+the velvets circling the white throats; the swell of the full muslin
+kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon the mantel-
+shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive tea-
+service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a white
+centre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass.
+Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the
+flaws or cracks, like any _clairvoyante_. Above all, there was a
+pair of handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line
+engravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding again, recalling
+hours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, a
+tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers,
+now so skeleton-like.
+
+Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of
+our Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant
+country. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year
+they and I had never met. I gasped audibly, "Where am I?"
+
+A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape
+inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the
+riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a
+common-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French nor
+English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding
+her phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead with
+some cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion on
+which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her
+post at the foot of the sofa.
+
+She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on
+her without interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or
+what she could have to do among the scenes, or with the days of my
+girlhood. Still more I marvelled what those scenes and days could now
+have to do with me.
+
+Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by
+saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there
+could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was
+sane. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not
+so clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens,
+the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damask
+furniture, were, in fact, precisely the same, in every minutest
+detail, with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been so
+thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother's house at
+Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different
+proportions and dimensions.
+
+I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to
+the gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the
+storm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from the
+church-steps, and "rising high into the air," as the eastern tale
+said, had he borne me over land and ocean, and laid me quietly down
+beside a hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth
+burned before its Lares no more--it went out long ago, and the
+household gods had been carried elsewhere.
+
+The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open,
+and, I suppose, deeming their expression perturbed and excited, she
+put down her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little
+stand; she poured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in
+hand, she approached me. What dark-tinged draught might she now be
+offering? what Genii-elixir or Magi-distillation?
+
+It was too late to inquire--I had swallowed it passively, and at once.
+A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain; softer and
+softer rose the flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. The
+pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to
+move; but, losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That
+kind bonne placed a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to
+do this, but do not remember seeing her resume her place: in the
+interval between the two acts, I "fell on sleep."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded
+me; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and
+blustering autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat--sure
+by the beating rain on the casement; sure by the "wuther" of wind
+amongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, the
+whiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I say _whiteness_--
+for the dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.
+
+I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of
+a long, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on
+encountering the limited area of a small cabinet--a cabinet with
+seagreen walls; also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there
+was one high lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two
+dozen little stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer,
+there was a toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white
+robe over a pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a
+pretty pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette,
+together with a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a
+washstand topped with a marble slab, and supplied with utensils of
+pale greenware, sufficiently furnished the tiny chamber.
+
+Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this
+simple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid?
+Merely this--These articles of furniture could not be real, solid arm-
+chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands--they must be the ghosts of
+such articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis--and,
+confounded as I was, I _did_ deny it--there remained but to
+conclude that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in
+short, that I was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the
+strangest figment with which delirium had ever harassed a victim.
+
+I knew--I was obliged to know--the green chintz of that little chair;
+the little snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated
+frame of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on
+the stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered
+at one corner;--all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as
+last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the
+drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.
+
+Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror.
+And why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they
+came at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my
+distempered vision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the
+locality were gone? As to that pincushion made of crimson satin,
+ornamented with gold beads and frilled with thread-lace, I had the
+same right to know it as to know the screens--I had made it myself.
+Rising with a start from the bed, I took the cushion in my hand and
+examined it. There was the cipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beds, and
+surrounded with an oval wreath embroidered in white silk. These were
+the initials of my godmother's name--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.
+
+"Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?" I muttered; and hastily pulling up
+the blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and
+discover _where_ I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old,
+handsome buildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to
+see at the end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully
+expectant of a town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street
+in a pleasant and ancient English city.
+
+I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering
+round the high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level,
+a lawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond--high
+forest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were now
+groaning under the gale of October, and between their trunks I traced
+the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, or
+were whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. Whatever landscape
+might lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches shut it
+out. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I did not
+know it at all.
+
+Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning my
+face to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became
+excluded. Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope,
+behold, on the green space between the divided and looped-up curtains,
+hung a broad, gilded picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was drawn
+--well drawn, though but a sketch--in water-colours; a head, a boy's
+head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youth of
+sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hair
+long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an arch
+mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at,
+especially for, those claiming a right to that youth's affections--
+parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little school-girl
+might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked as if when
+somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response to love: I cannot
+tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine of faith. For
+whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips menaced,
+beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.
+
+Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered
+to myself--
+
+"Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the
+mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I
+used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding
+it in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose
+glance under their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and
+well I liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of
+the mouth." I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that
+mouth, or of the chin; even _my_ ignorance knew that both were
+beautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: "How it was that
+what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?" Once, by
+way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms,
+told her to look at the picture.
+
+"Do you like it, Polly?" I asked. She never answered, but gazed long,
+and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as
+she said, "Put me down." So I put her down, saying to myself: "The
+child feels it too."
+
+All these things do I now think over, adding, "He had his faults, yet
+scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible." My
+reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, "Graham!"
+
+"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. "Do you want Graham?"
+
+I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If
+it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall,
+still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered
+living form opposite--a woman, a lady, most real and substantial,
+tall, well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best
+became her matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good
+face; too marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or
+character. She was little changed; something sterner, something more
+robust--but she was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs.
+Bretton.
+
+I kept quiet, yet internally _I_ was much agitated: my pulse
+fluttered, and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
+
+"Madam, where am I?" I inquired.
+
+"In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind
+quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning."
+
+"I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my
+senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular:
+but you speak English, do you not, madam?"
+
+"I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long
+discourse in French."
+
+"You do not come from England?"
+
+"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You
+seem to know my son?"
+
+"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son--the picture there?"
+
+"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced
+his name."
+
+"Graham Bretton?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ----shire?"
+
+"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign
+school here: my son recognised you as such."
+
+"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"
+
+"My son shall tell you that by-and-by," said she; "but at present you
+are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast,
+and then sleep."
+
+Notwithstanding all I had undergone--the bodily fatigue, the
+perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather--it seemed that I was
+better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was
+abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid
+food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast
+being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward
+faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered,
+and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It
+was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some
+two or three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup
+of broth and a biscuit.
+
+As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild
+and cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary--very
+weary of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it
+confining: I longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering
+gloom, too, depressed me; I wanted to see--to feel firelight. Besides,
+I kept thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him?
+Certainly not till I left my room.
+
+At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to
+wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but,
+declining these attentions, I proceeded to dress myself:
+
+The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath,
+when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.
+
+"Dressed!" she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew--a
+pleasant smile, though not soft. "You are quite better then? Quite
+strong--eh?"
+
+She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost
+fancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of
+patronage in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had always
+experienced from her--a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it was
+not founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (in
+the last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree
+was mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the
+shelter the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further
+ceremony.
+
+"Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here."
+
+"I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the
+change," was her reply. "Come then; here is an arm." And she offered
+me hers: I took it, and we descended one flight of carpeted steps to a
+landing where a tall door, standing open, gave admission into the
+blue-damask room. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic
+comfort! How warm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To
+render the picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table--an English
+tea, whereof the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from
+the solid silver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the
+same metal, to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding.
+I knew the very seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould,
+which always had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it,
+and there it was as of yore--set before Graham's plate with the silver
+knife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham was
+now, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," said my conductress, as my step faltered a
+little in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon
+passed behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found
+another seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to
+make a fuss about any person or anything; without remonstrance she
+suffered me to have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the
+newspaper. I liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her
+movements were so young: she must have been now above fifty, yet
+neither her sinews nor her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of
+age. Though portly, she was alert, and though serene, she was at times
+impetuous--good health and an excellent temperament kept her green as
+in her spring.
+
+While she read, I perceived she listened--listened for her son. She
+was not the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no
+lull in the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind--
+roaring still unsatisfied--I well knew his mother's heart would be out
+with him.
+
+"Ten minutes behind his time," said she, looking at her watch; then,
+in another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight
+inclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some
+sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less
+practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel,
+lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from
+the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue
+chair--her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with
+impunity usurp it. And when that _one_ came up the stairs--which
+he soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as
+the wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in--
+
+"Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking
+curtly.
+
+"Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessing
+himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.
+
+"Don't you deserve cold tea, for being late?"
+
+"I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily."
+
+"Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but
+mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always
+leave that chair for the Old Lady."
+
+"So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me.
+How is your patient, mamma?"
+
+"Will she come forward and speak for herself?" said Mrs. Bretton,
+turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham
+courteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure
+justifying his mother's unconcealed pride.
+
+"So you are come down," said he; "you must be better then--much
+better. I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was
+alarmed last night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a
+dying patient, I certainly would not have left you; but my mother
+herself is something of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I
+saw the case was a fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What
+brought it on, I have yet to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I
+trust you really do feel better?"
+
+"Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."
+
+For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host of mine
+--this Graham Bretton, _was_ Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what
+is more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is
+more, when I heard Graham's step on the stairs, I knew what manner of
+figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The
+discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated my perceptions
+long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten
+years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they
+mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference
+as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr.
+John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of
+sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the
+excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I
+first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back,
+when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification
+of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every
+point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the
+habits of his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep
+tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to
+him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye
+and lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under
+his well-charactered brow.
+
+To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ at my discovery,
+had not suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of
+feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to
+myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not
+seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special
+illumination which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his
+feet, and cast light no farther.
+
+Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to
+come forward and announce, "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in my
+teacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He
+heard me called "Miss," and "Miss Lucy;" he never heard the surname,
+"Snowe." As to spontaneous recognition--though I, perhaps, was still
+less changed than he--the idea never approached his mind, and why
+should I suggest it?
+
+During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal
+over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the
+cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst
+them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten
+minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me.
+Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, presently, "I have seldom seen a stronger
+likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
+
+"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One
+would think you had an attack of second sight."
+
+"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing
+to me.
+
+"Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is
+your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not
+know your ways."
+
+"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she
+like, Graham?"
+
+"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to
+solve it!"
+
+"And you have known her some time, you say--ever since you first began
+to attend the school in the Rue Fossette:--yet you never mentioned to
+me that singular resemblance!"
+
+"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
+not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"
+
+"Stupid boy! look at her."
+
+Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must
+end, so I thought it best to anticipate.
+
+"Dr. John," I said, "has had so much to do and think of, since he and
+I shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while I
+readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never
+occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at
+once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,
+perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without being
+particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make a
+bustle, and she preferred all sentimental demonstrations in bas-
+relief. So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single
+salute; yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we
+renewed old acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed
+of his paroxysm of astonishment.
+
+"Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so," at length he said;
+"for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected
+this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I
+recollect her perfectly, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,"
+he added, "you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all
+this time, and never mentioned it."
+
+"That I have," was my answer.
+
+Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as
+eccentric, but he was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay,
+too, he would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very
+closely, to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and,
+though he might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was
+by no means such as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.
+
+For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the
+circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight
+annoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my
+mind.
+
+"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."
+
+"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.
+
+"Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I
+wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to
+your usually averted eyes."
+
+"You see how it was now?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past
+times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to
+explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed
+conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John
+listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had
+known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had
+retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, with
+such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with
+the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of
+those on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity
+might set against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat
+her down with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not
+rash, yet valiant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to
+win from her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.
+
+In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided.
+Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small chateau,
+they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crecy); this
+country site being chosen for the sake of his mother's health, with
+which town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton,
+and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residue
+furniture of the former St. Ann's Street mansion as she had thought
+fit to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs,
+and the wraiths of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups.
+
+As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.
+
+"Miss Snowe must retire now," he said; "she is beginning to look very
+pale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the
+cause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last
+July, when I saw her enact with no little spirit the part of a very
+killing fine gentleman. As to last night's catastrophe, I am sure
+thereby hangs a tale, but we will inquire no further this evening.
+Good-night, Miss Lucy."
+
+And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted
+me up the one flight of stairs.
+
+When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I
+felt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehement
+attachment, not offering the tender solace of well-matched and
+congenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand of
+affection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; but
+towards whom my heart softened instinctively, and yearned with an
+importunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to check.
+
+"Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly," I
+implored: "let me be content with a temperate draught of this living
+stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome
+waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth's
+fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enough
+sustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, brief,
+unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!"
+
+Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_
+repeating it, I steeped that pillow with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+LA TERRASSE.
+
+
+These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of
+the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
+They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that
+turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often
+opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenour of a
+life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on
+the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
+As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as
+you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to
+your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how
+you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and
+pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous
+weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour,
+though perhaps not _your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in
+_some_ shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which
+your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will
+descend, the cripple and the blind, and the dumb, and the possessed
+will be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly! Thousands lie round the
+pool, weeping and despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant.
+Long are the "times" of Heaven: the orbits of angel messengers seem
+wide to mortal vision; they may enring ages: the cycle of one
+departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations; and dust,
+kindling to brief suffering life, and through pain, passing back to
+dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. To how
+many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel
+visitant, him easterns call Azrael!
+
+I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
+intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand,
+with design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
+difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Here is an absurdity!" was her morning accost. "Not so," she added,
+and dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion--
+that fashion which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son,
+and by him vigorously resisted--in two minutes she consigned me
+captive to the French bed.
+
+"There you lie till afternoon," said she. "My boy left orders before
+he went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son
+is master and must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast."
+
+Presently she brought that meal--brought it with her own active hands
+--not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while I
+ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and
+esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to
+watch us, to wait on us, to approach us with the proximity of a nurse
+to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick
+room, whose presence is there a solace: but all this was Mrs. Bretton
+to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so
+well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion
+when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our
+natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are
+people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid,
+though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others
+with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live
+content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively
+black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her self-
+reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all beneficial to me as the
+atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her "the
+old lady;" it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the alacrity
+and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and around her.
+
+"I would bring my work here," she said, as she took from me the
+emptied teacup, "and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing
+John Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. 'Now, mamma,'
+he said, when he went out, 'take notice, you are not to knock up your
+god-daughter with gossip,' and he particularly desired me to keep
+close to my own quarters, and spare you my fine company. He says,
+Lucy, he thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look,
+--is that so?"
+
+I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that
+I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on
+this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the
+details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence
+in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a
+new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature!
+The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the
+stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of
+crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the
+life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an
+old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in
+rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death
+divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa
+Bretton" never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a
+scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat
+man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.
+
+She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
+remember me before he went out.
+
+My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and
+cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after
+the morning hours were gone by,--those hours which always bring, even
+to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of
+tasks waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be
+employed--when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of
+afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I
+then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.
+
+My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was
+no colour about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of
+foam and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-
+shaped ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the
+ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin
+pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might
+have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale,
+subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell
+upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a
+tide retiring from a shore of the upper world--a world so high above
+that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers,
+could sound down in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a
+lullaby.
+
+Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light;
+with her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the
+morning, I made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.
+
+Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls
+earlier than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as
+I entered the parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the
+door, reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as
+closing day yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the
+table unlit, and tea was not yet brought up.
+
+As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother--who, I afterwards found, had
+been out in the open air all day--lay half-reclined in her deep-
+cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came
+forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he
+also spoke low: his mellow voice never had any sharpness in it;
+modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than
+startle slumber.
+
+"This is a quiet little chateau," he observed, after inviting me to
+sit near the casement. "I don't know whether you may have noticed it
+in your walks: though, indeed, from the chaussee it is not visible;
+just a mile beyond the Porte de Crecy, you turn down a lane which soon
+becomes an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to
+the very door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built
+somewhat in the old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir
+than a chateau; they call it 'La Terrasse,' because its front rises
+from a broad turfed walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the
+avenue. See yonder! The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-
+boles."
+
+Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene,
+confined or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery,
+she mounted now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her
+flushed ascent, she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated
+up stainless into a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr.
+Bretton? Did it touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no
+sighing mood, he sighed in watching it: sighed to himself quietly. No
+need to ponder the cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was
+wakened by beauty; I knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea
+pressed upon me that it was in some sort my duty to speak the name he
+meditated. Of course he was ready for the subject: I saw in his
+countenance a teeming plenitude of comment, question and interest; a
+pressure of language and sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense
+of embarrassment how to begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my
+best, indeed my sole use. I had but to utter the idol's name, and
+love's tender litany would flow out. I had just found a fitting
+phrase, "You know that Miss Fanshawe is gone on a tour with the
+Cholmondeleys," and was opening my lips to speak to it, when he
+scattered my plans by introducing another theme.
+
+"The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his
+pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue
+Fossette, and told the cuisiniere that you were safe and in good
+hands. Do you know that I actually found that she had not yet
+discovered your absence from the house: she thought you safe in the
+great dormitory. With what care you must have been waited on!"
+
+"Oh! all that is very conceivable," said I. "Goton could do nothing
+for me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had
+rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got
+tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
+school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
+believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
+been delighted to cook me cotelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
+them."
+
+"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"
+
+"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."
+
+"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"
+
+"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
+low-spirited."
+
+"Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
+give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
+Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
+neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
+be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise."
+
+Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
+right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the well-
+worn stamp of use.
+
+"Miss Snowe," recommenced Dr. John--my health, nervous system
+included, being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--
+"is it permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"
+
+I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
+idea?"
+
+"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me
+doubt."
+
+"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
+learn how I fell into your hands."
+
+"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance
+all day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
+character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
+similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
+interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
+symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
+set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
+the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
+past an old church belonging to a community of Beguines, I saw by a
+lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
+lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
+the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
+have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
+latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
+class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better
+informed, as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on
+me to stop: what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I
+alighted.
+
+"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
+is not dead.'
+
+"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
+at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
+bloodless, and nearly cold.
+
+"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.
+
+"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
+evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
+coupled with some things you had said--"
+
+"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"
+
+"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
+the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
+Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father;
+it seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should he out on
+such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
+you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
+of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
+might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little
+of the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn
+the locality of your home--did you impart that in your confession?"
+
+"I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
+indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will
+think me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I
+suppose it was all the fault of what you call my 'nervous system.' I
+cannot put the case into words, but my days and nights were grown
+intolerable: a cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling
+that would make its way, rush out, or kill me--like (and this you will
+understand, Dr. John) the current which passes through the heart, and
+which, if aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural
+channels, seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted
+friendship, I wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or
+chamber, so I went and sought them in church and confessional. As to
+what I said, it was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing
+wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of
+romance or reality: all I poured out was a dreary, desperate
+complaint."
+
+"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
+is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
+widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"
+
+"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
+fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."
+
+"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"
+
+"Me--Dr. John--me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I
+like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me
+and Fate."
+
+"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
+suppose, at my bad grammar.
+
+"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
+the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
+yet, Pere Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
+wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
+Fossette, your fevered wanderings--there must have been high fever--"
+
+"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
+that I was delirious, for I know differently."
+
+"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
+wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
+Beguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
+of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
+succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
+procured a fiacre and brought you here. Pere Silas, old as he is,
+would carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
+certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
+restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
+arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left--the last duties
+were called for--the physician's last visit and the priest's last
+rite; extreme unction could not be deferred. Pere Silas and myself
+departed together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave
+you in charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she
+followed successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Pere Silas know where
+I live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
+thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
+for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
+for tea."
+
+Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up--astonished and indignant at
+herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
+prepared to deny that she had slept at all--her son came gaily to the
+attack.
+
+"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in
+your slumbers."
+
+"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I
+never _do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."
+
+"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
+circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."
+
+"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."
+
+"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a
+most sprightly woman of her size and age."
+
+"Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
+size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
+rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
+eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater
+tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you."
+
+"As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
+indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away
+in green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity
+to scold. It keeps her lively--it maintains the wholesome ferment of
+her spirits."
+
+The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
+fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
+atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
+Bretton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom; her dearest
+pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
+his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
+the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin's portion.
+Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own
+young idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could
+not tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe's
+conduct towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing,
+and repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with
+which she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his
+fine spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him,
+his subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation--_then_
+Mrs. Bretton would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or
+both. Well--I thought so too.
+
+That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_
+sweetly indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old
+troubles were not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I
+felt happier, easier, more at home. That night--instead of crying
+myself asleep--I went down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with
+pleasant thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WE QUARREL.
+
+
+During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
+seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
+quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
+but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
+lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
+theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
+sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
+outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
+and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
+delicately; anonymously as it were.
+
+"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"
+
+"Friend, forsooth!" thought I to myself: but it would not do to
+contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
+friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
+whom he meant?
+
+He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
+thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
+
+"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
+through the south of France?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"Do you and she correspond?"
+
+"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
+application for that privilege."
+
+"You have seen letters of her writing?"
+
+"Yes; several to her uncle."
+
+"They will not be deficient in wit and _naivete_; there is so
+much sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"
+
+"She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
+Bassompierre: he who runs may read." (In fact, Ginevra's epistles to
+her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
+applications for cash.)
+
+"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
+think?"
+
+It was, and I said so.
+
+"I verily believe that all she does is well done," said Dr. John; and
+as I seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added "You,
+who know her, could you name a point in which she is deficient?"
+
+"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
+subjoined I, in thought.)
+
+"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.
+
+"Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in
+ascribing to me a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the
+felicity to enjoy. I have never been the depositary of her plans and
+secrets. You will find her particular friends in another sphere than
+mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for instance."
+
+He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
+his own!
+
+"Excuse her," he said; "judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion
+misleads her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow,
+and will return to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust.
+I know something of the Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish
+people; depend on it, at heart Ginevra values you beyond a score of
+such."
+
+"You are very kind," I said briefly.
+
+A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but
+I extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the
+humiliated, cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished
+Miss Fanshawe: but, reader, it was a hard submission.
+
+"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, I
+cannot take the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do
+me justice. De Hamal is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her:
+wretched delusion!"
+
+My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I
+suppose illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.
+
+"Dr. Bretton," I broke out, "there is no delusion like your own. On
+all points but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking,
+clear-sighted: on this exceptional point you are but a slave. I
+declare, where Miss Fanshawe is concerned, you merit no respect; nor
+have you mine."
+
+I got up, and left the room very much excited.
+
+This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again
+in the evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of
+common clay, not put together out of vulgar materials; while the
+outlines of his nature had been shaped with breadth and vigour, the
+details embraced workmanship of almost feminine delicacy: finer, much
+finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; than you could believe
+inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. Indeed, till some
+over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its effects, their
+acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; and
+the more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent
+in him: to feel, and to seize quickly another's feelings, are separate
+properties; a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John
+had the one in exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that
+he was not endowed with the other in equal degree, the reader will
+considerately refrain from passing to an extreme, and pronouncing him
+_un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the contrary, he was a kind,
+generous man. Make your need known, his hand was open. Put your grief
+into words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of perception,
+miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when
+Dr. John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at
+one glance his whole mechanism.
+
+To one who had named him "slave," and, on any point, banned him from
+respect, he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well
+applied, and the ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it
+was so: his mind even candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He
+sought in this accusation the cause of that ill-success which had got
+so galling a hold on his mental peace: Amid the worry of a self-
+condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both
+to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no
+rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best
+beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table,
+which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed
+him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank you,
+Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear
+welcomed.
+
+For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my
+culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do
+at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage
+war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and
+stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr.
+John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any
+other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest place,
+among the highest stars, where her lover's highest flight of fancy
+chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to
+dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and
+again that eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew,
+and I was baffled. After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I
+wished I could have dared to go and sit near him, but it seemed that
+if I ventured to take that step, he would infallibly evince hostility
+and indignation. I longed to speak out, and I dared not whisper. His
+mother left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just
+murmured the words "Dr. Bretton."
+
+He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his
+mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might
+have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour
+in one thunder-clap.
+
+"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."
+
+He smiled that moment I spoke. "Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you
+don't respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I
+fear, I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where
+I wish to please, it seems I don't please."
+
+"Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the
+fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me
+unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply
+respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of
+others, what is that but an excellence?"
+
+"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"
+
+"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree
+to differ. Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."
+
+"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"
+
+"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
+that, to ease me of the heart-ache."
+
+"Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me
+a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I
+feel grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher."
+
+"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."
+
+Thus our quarrel ended.
+
+Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr.
+John undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give
+the feeling as at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character
+as it appeared when discovered.
+
+He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that
+misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my
+theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed,
+somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated.
+An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but
+very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two
+lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those
+few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail
+frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I
+think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in
+discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that
+if he would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was
+most interested, my expectation would always be answered, my wish
+always satisfied. It follows, as a matter of course, that I continued
+to hear much of "Ginevra."
+
+"Ginevra!" He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of
+her charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain
+prose knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to
+settle on her idea, even for me. Still, reader, I am free to confess,
+that he often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient
+with him. I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the
+pain of crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and
+new sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the
+delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still
+seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded
+about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. The
+fancy became rooted in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she
+was only coquetting to goad him, and that, at heart, she coveted
+everyone of his words and looks. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of
+my resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable
+gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the
+flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again. I
+chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience,
+that in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe _must_ intend
+eventually to accept him.
+
+"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
+assurance?"
+
+"The best grounds."
+
+"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"
+
+"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really
+amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her
+fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult."
+
+"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a
+little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an
+explanation--a full explanation: I must have it."
+
+"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
+you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Pere
+Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for
+his poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of
+your favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr.
+John--"
+
+"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."
+
+"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her
+hands filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have
+sought for her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in
+devising gifts the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as
+only a woman could have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns
+a set of ornaments, to purchase which your generosity must have verged
+on extravagance."
+
+The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
+flushed all over the face of her admirer.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my
+scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour
+in accepting them."
+
+"She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour
+that she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in
+affection, she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the
+shape of some rouleaux of gold pieces."
+
+"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care
+for my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."
+
+I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and
+well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money's worth, and
+endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the
+most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years.
+
+He pursued. "You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap
+some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even
+pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me,
+she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to
+bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her
+ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully
+chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
+valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would
+hardly cast one look on my gift"
+
+"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
+you?"
+
+"No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to
+seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like
+quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build
+on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part,
+were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her
+incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture
+to believe the transaction advanced me one step."
+
+"Dr. John," I began, "Love is blind;" but just then a blue subtle ray
+sped sideways from Dr. John's eye: it reminded me of old days, it
+reminded me of his picture: it half led me to think that part, at
+least, of his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's _naivete_
+was assumed; it led me dubiously to conjecture that perhaps, in spite
+of his passion for her beauty, his appreciation of her foibles might
+possibly be less mistaken, more clear-sighted, than from his general
+language was presumable. After all it might be only a chance look, or
+at best the token of a merely momentary impression. Chance or
+intentional real or imaginary, it closed the conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of
+the vacation. Mrs. Bretton's kind management procured me this respite.
+Her son having one day delivered the dictum that "Lucy was not yet
+strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionnat," she at once
+drove over to the Rue Fossette, had an interview with the directress,
+and procured the indulgence, on the plea of prolonged rest and change
+being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, however, followed an
+attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz--a polite call
+from Madame Beck.
+
+That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
+chateau. I suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner
+of place Dr. John inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat
+interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw,
+pronounced the blue salon "une piece magnifique," profusely
+congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes,
+aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my
+favour, and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost
+buoyancy, opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all
+sparkling with felicitations and protestations about his "chateau,"--
+"madame sa mere, la digne chatelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed,
+were very flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by
+the good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to
+Madame's fluent and florid French. In short, Madame shone in her very
+best phase that day, and came in and went out quite a living
+catherine-wheel of compliments, delight, and affability. Half
+purposely, and half to ask some question about school-business, I
+followed her to the carriage, and looked in after she was seated and
+the door closed. In that brief fraction of time what a change had been
+wrought! An instant ago, all sparkles and jests, she now sat sterner
+than a judge and graver than a sage. Strange little woman!
+
+I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame's devotion to him. How he
+laughed! What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine
+speeches, and repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an
+acute sense of humour, and was the finest company in the world--when
+he could forget Miss Fanshawe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To "sit in sunshine calm and sweet" is said to be excellent for weak
+people; it gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was
+recovering from her illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk
+with her in the garden by the hour together, beneath a certain wall
+hung with grapes, which the Southern sun was ripening: that sun
+cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as it mellowed
+and swelled the clustering fruit.
+
+There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose
+influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for
+the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of
+these choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton's and his
+mother's. They liked to communicate happiness, as some like to
+occasion misery: they did it instinctively; without fuss, and
+apparently with little consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose
+spontaneously in their minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some
+little plan was proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully
+occupied as was Dr. John's time, he still made it in his way to
+accompany us in each brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed
+his engagements; they were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed
+them in an order which left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw
+him hard-worked, yet seldom over-driven, and never irritated,
+confused, or oppressed. What he did was accomplished with the ease and
+grace of all-sufficing strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of
+high and unbroken energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one
+happy fortnight, more of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants,
+than I had seen in the whole eight months of my previous residence. He
+took me to places of interest in the town, of whose names I had not
+before so much as heard; with willingness and spirit he communicates.
+much noteworthy information. He never seemed to think it a trouble to
+talk to me, and, I am sure, it was never a task to me to listen. It
+was not his way to treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he rarely
+generalized, never prosed. He seemed to like nice details almost as
+much as I liked them myself: he seemed observant of character: and
+not superficially observant, either. These points gave the quality of
+interest to his discourse; and the fact of his speaking direct from
+his own resources, and not borrowing or stealing from books--here a
+dry fact, and there a trite phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion
+--ensured a freshness, as welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too,
+his disposition seemed to unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh
+day: to rise in new and nobler dawn.
+
+His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a
+better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville--
+the poor and crowded quarter of the city--that his errands there were
+as much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood
+presently that cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded
+unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds--he was
+achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good.
+The lower orders liked him well; his poor, patients in the hospitals
+welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.
+
+But stop--I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the
+partial eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not
+perfect, anymore than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him
+throughout: there was no hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I
+spent with him that in act or speech, or look, he did not betray
+something that was not of a god. A god could not have the cruel vanity
+of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity., No immortal could have
+resembled him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the
+present--in his passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely,
+by devoting it to material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting
+from it whatever it could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-
+love: his delight was to feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought
+of the price of provender, or care for the cost of keeping it sleek
+and high-pampered.
+
+The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two
+views which have been given of Graham Bretton--the public and private
+--the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public, he is
+shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his energies, as
+earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside picture, there
+is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he is; pleasure in
+homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in receiving the
+same. Both portraits are correct.
+
+It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When
+you thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use
+had been achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it
+when placed ready for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed
+you by a smilingly-uttered observation or two, proving that his eye
+had been on the work from commencement to close: that he had noted the
+design, traced its progress, and marked its completion. It pleased him
+to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in his eye and play
+about his mouth.
+
+This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly
+and unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he
+called debts. When his mother worked for him, he paid her by
+showering about her his bright animal spirits, with even more
+affluence than his gay, taunting, teasing, loving wont. If Lucy Snowe
+were discovered to have put her hand to such work, he planned, in
+recompence, some pleasant recreation.
+
+I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge
+not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its
+galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object
+worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or
+science, he seemed to possess the "Open! Sesame." I never had a head
+for science, but an ignorant, blind, fond instinct inclined me to art.
+I liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I dearly liked to be left
+there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see
+much or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was
+necessary to maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half
+an hour would knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical
+lassitude and entire mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-
+reared child, much less the educated adult, who could not put me to
+shame, by the sustained intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal
+of a conversable, sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights
+or buildings, or any lions of public interest. Dr. Bretton was a
+cicerone after my own heart; he would take me betimes, ere the
+galleries were filled, leave me there for two or three hours, and call
+for me when his own engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was
+happy; happy, not always in admiring, but in examining, questioning,
+and forming conclusions. In the commencement of these visits, there
+was some misunderstanding and consequent struggle between Will and
+Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was
+considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter
+inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up,
+goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was
+chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually
+that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious
+efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that
+great labour, and concluded eventually that I might, and so sank
+supine into a luxury of calm before ninety-nine out of a hundred of
+the exhibited frames.
+
+It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce
+as an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
+myself, standing before certain _chef-d'oeuvres_ bearing great
+names, "These are not a whit like nature. Nature's daylight never had
+that colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it
+is laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not
+ether; and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees." Several
+very well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no
+means the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores
+of marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of
+sketches, excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in
+the handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry
+whimsically applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and
+there which satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered
+the vision. Nature's power here broke through in a mountain snow-
+storm; and there her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in
+this portrait proved clear insight into character; a face in that
+historical painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly
+reminded you that genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they
+grew dear as friends.
+
+One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
+certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size,
+set up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched
+before it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the
+accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed
+themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business
+sitting: this picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of
+the collection.
+
+It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
+I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
+for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
+fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
+much butcher's meat--to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids
+--must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that wealth
+of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a couch:
+why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round her;
+she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
+plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
+standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
+lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
+garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
+abundance of material--seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
+drapery--she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the
+wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots
+and pans--perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets--were rolled here
+and there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed
+amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery
+smothered the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the
+catalogue, I found that this notable production bore the name
+"Cleopatra."
+
+Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
+I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking
+that while some of the details--as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were
+very prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of
+claptrap; the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill.
+Scarcely noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to
+me) I retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to
+studying this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I
+soon tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of
+some exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-
+fruit, mossy woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen
+through clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse
+and preposterous canvas.
+
+Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
+face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.
+
+"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."
+
+"Vous vous amusez! et a quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-
+moi le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre
+cote."
+
+I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned
+from Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant
+of insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled
+his temples.
+
+"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
+room.
+
+"I have no party."
+
+"You are not alone?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Did you come here unaccompanied?"
+
+"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."
+
+"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"
+
+"No; only Dr. Bretton."
+
+"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"By no means; I found it out for myself."
+
+M. Paul's hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
+bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
+certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.
+
+"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulieres
+femmes que ces Anglaises!"
+
+"What is the matter, Monsieur?"
+
+"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the self-
+possession of a garcon, and look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
+look at it"
+
+"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."
+
+'If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And
+then, what does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody
+meddles with me."
+
+"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous la--la!"--setting down a chair with
+emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
+specially dreary "cadres."
+
+"Mais, Monsieur?"
+
+"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez pas--entendez-vous?--
+jusqu'a ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je vous donne la
+permission."
+
+"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"
+
+And "laids," indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in
+the catalogue "La vie d'une femme." They were painted rather in a
+remarkable style--flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented
+a "Jeune Fille," coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand,
+her dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up--the
+image of a most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second,
+a "Mariee," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her
+chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and
+showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The
+third, a "Jeune Mere," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy
+baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve,"
+being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the
+twain studiously surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a
+corner of some Pere la Chaise. All these four "Anges" were grim and
+grey as burglars, and cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live
+with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As
+bad in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in
+hers.
+
+It was impossible to keep one's attention long confined to these
+master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
+gallery.
+
+A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
+Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
+crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were "des
+dames," and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
+"demoiselle" ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
+agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
+with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also,
+in the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A
+more despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor's
+chair. I noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself
+quite at his ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however,
+neglect to glance from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to
+make sure that I was obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-
+by, he again accosted me.
+
+"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
+
+"Yes, but I was now quite well."
+
+"Where had I spent the vacation?"
+
+"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
+
+"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
+
+"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the cretin) "was with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
+rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
+never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
+advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
+between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
+repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
+temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
+apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
+the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
+forbearance and compassion--such a claim as it was not in his nature
+to deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience
+and disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other;
+in which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
+feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
+character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
+aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
+both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their
+vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
+excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to
+fear him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
+apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
+confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
+however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
+nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
+
+"How did you get on with Marie Broc?" he asked, after some minutes'
+silence.
+
+"Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!"
+
+"You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps,
+charity. Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister
+of Mercy."
+
+[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and self-
+sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of his
+soul.]
+
+"I don't know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
+her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief."
+
+"Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
+of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?"
+
+"Could Monsieur do it himself?"
+
+"Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our
+coarse, fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such
+duties."
+
+"I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
+she made mouths at me instead of speaking."
+
+"You think you did great things?"
+
+"No; but as great as I _could_ do."
+
+"Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell
+sick."
+
+"Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill."
+
+"Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic
+mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it
+merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of
+Cleopatra."
+
+It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of
+the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had
+no present disposition to begin.
+
+"Cleopatra!" I repeated, quietly. "Monsieur, too, has been looking at
+Cleopatra; what does he think of her?"
+
+"Cela ne vaut rien," he responded. "Une femme superbe--une taille
+d'imperatrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne
+voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour soeur. Aussi vous ne
+jeterez plus un seul coup d'oeil de sa cote."
+
+"But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been
+talking: I can see her quite well from this corner."
+
+"Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life."
+
+"Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them,
+allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation."
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended
+for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You
+nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen
+walk calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe,
+if some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you
+would issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire."
+
+"Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?"
+
+"How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an
+acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?"
+
+"I think so--Yes, I see there a person I know."
+
+In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any
+other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished,
+highly polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty!
+What womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of
+his optics! with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and
+then, how engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow!
+Oh, the man of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of superior taste and
+tact! I observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was
+exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much
+was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character
+by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the
+interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his
+scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present
+abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I
+again looked round, he was gone.
+
+My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and
+dissimilar figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well
+as the port lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in
+visage, in shape, in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic
+little professor, as the fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the
+sloe in the wild thicket; as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian
+is unlike the rude and stubborn "sheltie." He was looking for me, but
+had not yet explored the corner where the schoolmaster had just put
+me. I remained quiet; yet another minute I would watch.
+
+He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a
+pleasure in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the
+Cleopatra. I doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the
+little Count; his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without
+demonstration he stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I
+saw now that he was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.
+
+We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant
+to take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say
+about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a
+connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be
+fresh: very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to
+tell him some things he did not know--he listened so kindly, so
+teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright
+handsome head, to gather a woman's rather obscure and stammering
+explanation, should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he
+communicated information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence
+that left all his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of
+his giving, no fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.
+
+As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra
+(after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent
+me to the right about, and taking him to see the sweet series of
+pictures recommended to my attention.)
+
+"Pooh!" said he. "My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some
+French fops, yonder, designating her as 'le type du voluptueux;' if
+so, I can only say, 'le voluptueux' is little to my liking. Compare
+that mulatto with Ginevra!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE CONCERT.
+
+
+One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me
+to open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a
+word.
+
+"That will do," said she, when she had turned them over. "You must
+have a new one."
+
+She went out. She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me
+measured. "I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my
+own way in this little matter."
+
+Two days after came home--a pink dress!
+
+"That is not for me," I said, hurriedly, feeling that I would almost
+as soon clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.
+
+"We shall see whether it is for you or not," rejoined my godmother,
+adding with her resistless decision: "Mark my words. You will wear it
+this very evening."
+
+I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put
+me into it. A pink dress! I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not
+proved it.
+
+My godmother went on to decree that I was to go with her and Graham to
+a concert that same night: which concert, she explained, was a grand
+affair to be held in the large salle, or hall, of the principal
+musical society. The most advanced of the pupils of the Conservatoire
+were to perform: it was to be followed by a lottery "au benefice des
+pauvres;" and to crown all, the King, Queen, and Prince of Labassecour
+were to be present. Graham, in sending tickets, had enjoined attention
+to costume as a compliment due to royalty: he also recommended
+punctual readiness by seven o'clock.
+
+About six, I was ushered upstairs. Without any force at all, I found
+myself led and influenced by another's will, unconsulted, unpersuaded,
+quietly overruled. In short, the pink dress went on, softened by some
+drapery of black lace. I was pronounced to be en grande tenue, and
+requested to look in the glass. I did so with some fear and trembling;
+with more fear and trembling, I turned away. Seven o'clock struck; Dr.
+Bretton was come; my godmother and I went down. _She_ was clad in
+brown velvet; as I walked in her shadow, how I envied her those folds
+of grave, dark majesty! Graham stood in the drawing-room doorway.
+
+"I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to
+draw attention," was my uneasy aspiration.
+
+"Here, Lucy, are some flowers," said he, giving me a bouquet. He took
+no further notice of my dress than was conveyed in a kind smile and
+satisfied nod, which calmed at once my sense of shame and fear of
+ridicule. For the rest; the dress was made with extreme simplicity,
+guiltless of flounce or furbelow; it was but the light fabric and
+bright tint which scared me, and since Graham found in it nothing
+absurd, my own eye consented soon to become reconciled.
+
+I suppose people who go every night to places of public amusement, can
+hardly enter into the fresh gala feeling with which an opera or a
+concert is enjoyed by those for whom it is a rarity: I am not sure
+that I expected great pleasure from the concert, having but a very
+vague notion of its nature, but I liked the drive there well. The snug
+comfort of the close carriage on a cold though fine night, the
+pleasure of setting out with companions so cheerful and friendly, the
+sight of the stars glinting fitfully through the trees as we rolled
+along the avenue; then the freer burst of the night-sky when we issued
+forth to the open chaussee, the passage through the city gates, the
+lights there burning, the guards there posted, the pretence of
+inspection, to which we there submitted, and which amused us so much--
+all these small matters had for me, in their novelty, a peculiarly
+exhilarating charm. How much of it lay in the atmosphere of friendship
+diffused about me, I know not: Dr. John and his mother were both in
+their finest mood, contending animatedly with each other the whole
+way, and as frankly kind to me as if I had been of their kin.
+
+Our way lay through some of the best streets of Villette, streets
+brightly lit, and far more lively now than at high noon. How brilliant
+seemed the shops! How glad, gay, and abundant flowed the tide of life
+along the broad pavement! While I looked, the thought of the Rue
+Fossette came across me--of the walled-in garden and school-house, and
+of the dark, vast "classes," where, as at this very hour, it was my
+wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through the high,
+blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader in
+the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the "lecture pieuse." Thus
+must I soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future
+stole with timely sobriety across the radiant present.
+
+By this time we had got into a current of carriages all tending in one
+direction, and soon the front of a great illuminated building blazed
+before us. Of what I should see within this building, I had, as before
+intimated, but an imperfect idea; for no place of public entertainment
+had it ever been my lot to enter yet.
+
+We alighted under a portico where there was a great bustle and a great
+crowd, but I do not distinctly remember further details, until I found
+myself mounting a majestic staircase wide and easy of ascent, deeply
+and softly carpeted with crimson, leading up to great doors closed
+solemnly, and whose panels were also crimson-clothed.
+
+I hardly noticed by what magic these doors were made to roll back--Dr.
+John managed these points; roll back they did, however, and within was
+disclosed a hall--grand, wide, and high, whose sweeping circular
+walls, and domed hollow ceiling, seemed to me all dead gold (thus with
+nice art was it stained), relieved by cornicing, fluting, and
+garlandry, either bright, like gold burnished, or snow-white, like
+alabaster, or white and gold mingled in wreaths of gilded leaves and
+spotless lilies: wherever drapery hung, wherever carpets were spread,
+or cushions placed, the sole colour employed was deep crimson. Pendent
+from the dome, flamed a mass that dazzled me--a mass, I thought, of
+rock-crystal, sparkling with facets, streaming with drops, ablaze with
+stars, and gorgeously tinged with dews of gems dissolved, or fragments
+of rainbows shivered. It was only the chandelier, reader, but for me
+it seemed the work of eastern genii: I almost looked to see if a huge,
+dark, cloudy hand--that of the Slave of the Lamp--were not hovering in
+the lustrous and perfumed atmosphere of the cupola, guarding its
+wondrous treasure.
+
+We moved on--I was not at all conscious whither--but at some turn we
+suddenly encountered another party approaching from the opposite
+direction. I just now see that group, as it flashed--upon me for one
+moment. A handsome middle-aged lady in dark velvet; a gentleman who
+might be her son--the best face, the finest figure, I thought, I had
+ever seen; a third person in a pink dress and black lace mantle.
+
+I noted them all--the third person as well as the other two--and for
+the fraction of a moment believed them all strangers, thus receiving
+an impartial impression of their appearance. But the impression was
+hardly felt and not fixed, before the consciousness that I faced a
+great mirror, filling a compartment between two pillars, dispelled it:
+the party was our own party. Thus for the first, and perhaps only time
+in my life, I enjoyed the "giftie" of seeing myself as others see me.
+No need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of
+regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful;
+it might have been worse.
+
+At last, we were seated in places commanding a good general view of
+that vast and dazzling, but warm and cheerful hall. Already it was
+filled, and filled with a splendid assemblage. I do not know that the
+women were very beautiful, but their dresses were so perfect; and
+foreigners, even such as are ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to
+posses the art of appearing graceful in public: however blunt and
+boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with peignoir
+and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and
+arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala
+use--always brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with
+the "parure."
+
+Some fine forms there were here and there, models of a peculiar style
+of beauty; a style, I think, never seen in England; a solid, firm-set,
+sculptural style. These shapes have no angles: a caryatid in marble is
+almost as flexible; a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain
+still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters
+give to their madonnas: low-country classic features, regular but
+round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless
+calm, of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone offer a
+type. Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any;
+the smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to
+the smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the
+rounded arm and perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain.
+
+With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be
+perfectly acquainted: the inert force of the deep, settled love she
+bore herself, was wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud
+impotency to care for any other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins
+conducted no flow; placid lymph filled and almost obstructed her
+arteries.
+
+Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view--a sort of mark
+for all eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the
+magnetic influence of gaze or glance: cold, rounded, blonde, and
+beauteous as the white column, capitalled with gilding, which rose at
+her side.
+
+Observing that Dr. John's attention was much drawn towards her, I
+entreated him in a low voice "for the love of heaven to shield well
+his heart. You need not fall in love with _that_ lady," I said,
+"because, I tell you beforehand, you might die at her feet, and she
+would not love you again."
+
+"Very well," said he, "and how do you know that the spectacle of her
+grand insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to
+homage? The sting of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to
+my emotions: but" (shrugging his shoulders) "you know nothing about
+these things; I'll address myself to my mother. Mamma, I'm in a
+dangerous way."
+
+"As if that interested me!" said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Alas! the cruelty of my lot!" responded her son. "Never man had a
+more unsentimental mother than mine: she never seems to think that
+such a calamity can befall her as a daughter-in-law."
+
+"If I don't, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over
+my head: you have threatened me with it for the last ten years.
+'Mamma, I am going to be married soon!' was the cry before you were
+well out of jackets."
+
+"But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden,
+when you think you are most secure, I shall go forth like Jacob or
+Esau, or any other patriarch, and take me a wife: perhaps of these
+which are of the daughters of the land."
+
+"At your peril, John Graham! that is all."
+
+"This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous
+old lady it is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the
+pale blue satin dress, and hair of paler brown, with 'reflets satines'
+as those of her robe. Would you not feel proud, mamma, if I were to
+bring that goddess home some day, and introduce her to you as Mrs.
+Bretton, junior?"
+
+"You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse: that little chateau will
+not contain two mistresses; especially if the second be of the height,
+bulk, and circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid
+and satin."
+
+"Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!"
+
+"Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it
+be for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your
+eyes."
+
+During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full
+at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the
+semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping
+from floor to ceiling. The stage, too, or rather the wide temporary
+platform, larger than any stage, desert half an hour since, was now
+overflowing with life; round two grand pianos, placed about the
+centre, a white flock of young girls, the pupils of the Conservatoire,
+had noiselessly poured. I had noticed their gathering, while Graham
+and his mother were engaged in discussing the belle in blue satin, and
+had watched with interest the process of arraying and marshalling
+them. Two gentlemen, in each of whom I recognised an acquaintance,
+officered this virgin troop. One, an artistic-looking man, bearded,
+and with long hair, was a noted pianiste, and also the first music-
+teacher in Villette; he attended twice a week at Madame Beck's
+pensionnat, to give lessons to the few pupils whose parents were rich
+enough to allow their daughters the privilege of his instructions;
+his name was M. Josef Emanuel, and he was half-brother to M. Paul:
+which potent personage was now visible in the person of the second
+gentleman.
+
+M. Paul amused me; I smiled to myself as I watched him, he seemed so
+thoroughly in his element--standing conspicuous in presence of a wide
+and grand assemblage, arranging, restraining, over-aweing about one
+hundred young ladies. He was, too, so perfectly in earnest--so
+energetic, so intent, and, above all, so of the foreigners then
+resident in Villette. These took possession of the crimson benches;
+the ladies were seated; most of the men remained standing: their sable
+rank, lining the background, looked like a dark foil to the splendour
+displayed in front. Nor was this splendour without varying light and
+shade and gradation: the middle distance was filled with matrons in
+velvets and satins, in plumes and gems; the benches in the foreground,
+to the Queen's right hand, seemed devoted exclusively to young girls,
+the flower--perhaps, I should rather say, the bud--of Villette
+aristocracy. Here were no jewels, no head-dresses, no velvet pile or
+silken sheen purity, simplicity, and aerial grace reigned in that
+virgin band. Young heads simply braided, and fair forms (I was going
+to write _sylph_ forms, but that would have been quite untrue:
+several of these "jeunes filles," who had not numbered more than
+sixteen or seventeen years, boasted contours as robust and solid as
+those of a stout Englishwoman of five-and-twenty)--fair forms robed in
+white, or pale rose, or placid blue, suggested thoughts of heaven and
+angels. I knew a couple, at least, of these "rose et blanche"
+specimens of humanity. Here was a pair of Madame Beck's late pupils--
+Mesdemoiselles Mathilde and Angelique: pupils who, during their last
+year at school, ought to have been in the first class, but whose
+brains never got them beyond the second division. In English, they had
+been under my own charge, and hard work it was to get them to
+translate rationally a page of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Also
+during three months I had one of them for my vis-a-vis at table, and
+the quantity of household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would
+habitually consume at "second dejeuner" was a real world's wonder--to
+be exceeded only by the fact of her actually pocketing slices she
+could not eat. Here be truths--wholesome truths, too.
+
+I knew another of these seraphs--the prettiest, or, at any rate, the
+least demure and hypocritical looking of the lot: she was seated by
+the daughter of an English peer, also an honest, though haughty-
+looking girl: both had entered in the suite of the British embassy.
+She (_i.e._ my acquaintance) had a slight, pliant figure, not at
+all like the forms of the foreign damsels: her hair, too, was not
+close-braided, like a shell or a skull-cap of satin; it looked
+_like_ hair, and waved from her head, long, curled, and flowing.
+She chatted away volubly, and seemed full of a light-headed sort of
+satisfaction with herself and her position. I did not look at Dr.
+Bretton; but I knew that he, too, saw Ginevra Fanshawe: he had become
+so quiet, he answered so briefly his mother's remarks, he so often
+suppressed a sigh. Why should he sigh? He had confessed a taste for
+the pursuit of love under difficulties; here was full gratification
+for that taste. His lady-love beamed upon him from a sphere above his
+own: he could not come near her; he was not certain that he could win
+from her a look. I watched to see if she would so far favour him. Our
+seat was not far from the crimson benches; we must inevitably be seen
+thence, by eyes so quick and roving as Miss Fanshawe's, and very soon
+those optics of hers were upon us: at least, upon Dr. and Mrs.
+Bretton. I kept rather in the shade and out of sight, not wishing to
+be immediately recognised: she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and
+then she raised a glass to examine his mother; a minute or two
+afterwards she laughingly whispered her neighbour; upon the
+performance commencing, her rambling attention was attracted to the
+platform.
+
+On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my
+impressions thereanent: and, indeed, it would not be worth while to
+record them, as they were the impressions of an ignorance crasse. The
+young ladies of the Conservatoire, being very much frightened, made
+rather a tremulous exhibition on the two grand pianos. M. Josef
+Emanuel stood by them while they played; but he had not the tact or
+influence of his kinsman, who, under similar circumstances, would
+certainly have _compelled_ pupils of his to demean themselves
+with heroism and self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the
+hysteric debutantes between two fires--terror of the audience, and
+terror of himself--and would have inspired them with the courage of
+desperation, by making the latter terror incomparably the greater: M.
+Josef could not do this.
+
+Following the white muslin pianistes, came a fine, full-grown, sulky
+lady in white satin. She sang. Her singing just affected me like the
+tricks of a conjuror: I wondered how she did it--how she made her
+voice run up and down, and cut such marvellous capers; but a simple
+Scotch melody, played by a rude street minstrel, has often moved me
+more deeply.
+
+Afterwards stepped forth a gentleman, who, bending his body a good
+deal in the direction of the King and Queen, and frequently
+approaching his white-gloved hand to the region of his heart, vented a
+bitter outcry against a certain "fausse Isabelle." I thought he seemed
+especially to solicit the Queen's sympathy; but, unless I am
+egregiously mistaken, her Majesty lent her attention rather with the
+calm of courtesy than the earnestness of interest. This gentleman's
+state of mind was very harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up his
+musical exposition of the same.
+
+Some rousing choruses struck me as the best part of the evening's
+entertainment. There were present deputies from all the best
+provincial choral societies; genuine, barrel-shaped, native
+Labassecouriens. These worthies gave voice without mincing the matter
+their hearty exertions had at least this good result--the ear drank
+thence a satisfying sense of power.
+
+Through the whole performance--timid instrumental duets, conceited
+vocal solos, sonorous, brass-lunged choruses--my attention gave but
+one eye and one ear to the stage, the other being permanently retained
+in the service of Dr. Bretton: I could not forget him, nor cease to
+question how he was feeling, what he was thinking, whether he was
+amused or the contrary. At last he spoke.
+
+"And how do you like it all, Lucy? You are very quiet," he said, in
+his own cheerful tone.
+
+"I am quiet," I said, "because I am so very, _very_ much
+interested: not merely with the music, but with everything about me."
+
+He then proceeded to make some further remarks, with so much
+equanimity and composure that I began to think he had really not seen
+what I had seen, and I whispered--"Miss Fanshawe is here: have you
+noticed her?"
+
+"Oh, yes! and I observed that you noticed her too?"
+
+"Is she come with Mrs. Cholmondeley, do you think?"
+
+"Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes; Ginevra was
+in _her_ train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady ----'s train,
+who was in the Queen's train. If this were not one of the compact
+little minor European courts, whose very formalities are little more
+imposing than familiarities, and whose gala grandeur is but homeliness
+in Sunday array, it would sound all very fine."
+
+"Ginevra saw you, I think?"
+
+"So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you
+withdrew yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little
+spectacle which you were spared."
+
+I did not ask what; I waited voluntary information, which was
+presently given.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he said, "has a companion with her--a lady of rank. I
+happen to know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in
+professionally. She is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent,
+and I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation
+by making a butt of her neighbours."
+
+"What neighbours?"
+
+"Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural:
+nothing, I suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois
+doctor; but my mother! I never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know,
+the curling lip, and sarcastically levelled glass thus directed, gave
+me a most curious sensation?"
+
+"Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were
+in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no
+scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy
+King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly.
+To a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred."
+
+"But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe
+in the light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my
+divinity--the angel of my career?"
+
+"Hem! There was your mistake."
+
+"To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance,
+there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her
+divine. Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not
+quite open with you in discussing that subject: the warmth with which
+you took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your
+lights, I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was.
+It was that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal.
+Still her beauty retained its fascination: three days--three hours
+ago, I was very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant
+in beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I
+should yet be the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at
+_me_, and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me:
+through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a
+moment, she has done through my mother."
+
+He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so
+little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye as just now.
+
+"Lucy," he recommenced, "look well at my mother, and say, without fear
+or favour, in what light she now appears to you."
+
+"As she always does--an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well,
+though gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence,
+constitutionally composed and cheerful."
+
+"So she seems to me--bless her! The merry may laugh _with_ mamma,
+but the weak only will laugh _at_ her. She shall not be ridiculed,
+with my consent, at least; nor without my--my scorn--my antipathy--my--"
+
+He stopped: and it was time--for he was getting excited--more it
+seemed than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had
+witnessed double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The
+glow of his complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve
+which disdain gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and
+striking phase. Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and
+serene, is not a pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of
+vindictive thrill which passed through his strong young frame.
+
+"Do I frighten you, Lucy?" he asked.
+
+"I cannot tell why you are so very angry."
+
+"For this reason," he muttered in my ear. "Ginevra is neither a pure
+angel, nor a pure-minded woman."
+
+"Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her."
+
+"Too much for me. _I_ can see where _you_ are blind. Now
+dismiss the subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma: I will
+assert that she is flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself."
+
+"John, I will certainly rouse you if you are not better conducted.
+Will you and Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?"
+
+They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the
+previous dialogue had taken place.
+
+"_You_ hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs, which
+are genuine, against your paste brooch--"
+
+"My paste brooch, Graham? Profane boy! you know that it is a stone of
+value."
+
+"Oh! that is one of your superstitions: you were cheated in the
+business."
+
+"I am cheated in fewer things than you imagine. How do you happen to
+be acquainted with young ladies of the court, John? I have observed
+two of them pay you no small attention during the last half-hour."
+
+"I wish you would not observe them."
+
+"Why not? Because one of them satirically levels her eyeglass at me?
+She is a pretty, silly girl: but are you apprehensive that her titter
+will discomfit the old lady?"
+
+"The sensible, admirable old lady! Mother, you are better to me than
+ten wives yet."
+
+"Don't be demonstrative, John, or I shall faint, and you will have to
+carry me out; and if that burden were laid upon you, you would reverse
+your last speech, and exclaim, 'Mother, ten wives could hardly be
+worse to me than you are!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The concert over, the Lottery "au benefice des pauvres" came next: the
+interval between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest
+imaginable stir and commotion. The white flock was cleared from the
+platform; a busy throng of gentlemen crowded it instead, making
+arrangements for the drawing; and amongst these--the busiest of all--
+re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but active, alive
+with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did work!
+How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own shoulder
+to the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to remove the
+pianos, &c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his own. The
+redundancy of his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous: in my
+mind I both disapproved and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in the
+midst of prejudice and annoyance, I could not, while watching, avoid
+perceiving a certain not disagreeable naivete in all he did and said;
+nor could I be blind to certain vigorous characteristics of his
+physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast with a throng of
+tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power of his
+forehead, pale, broad, and full--the mobility of his most flexible
+mouth. He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he
+signally possessed.
+
+Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained
+standing, for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The
+crimson compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long
+cloud of gentlemen, breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow
+line of ladies; two or three officer-like men approached the King and
+conversed with him. The Queen, leaving her chair, glided along the
+rank of young ladies, who all stood up as she passed; and to each in
+turn I saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness--a gracious word, look
+or smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and Ginevra
+Fanshawe, she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and
+especially the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification.
+They were afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle
+of gentlemen gathered round them; amongst these--the nearest to
+Ginevra--stood the Count de Hamal.
+
+"This room is stiflingly hot," said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden
+impatience. "Lucy--mother--will you come a moment to the fresh air?"
+
+"Go with him, Lucy," said Mrs. Bretton. "I would rather keep my seat."
+
+Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham's desire must take
+precedence of my own; I accompanied him.
+
+We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to
+feel it; but it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread
+cloudless. I was wrapped in a fur shawl. We took some turns on the
+pavement; in passing under a lamp, Graham encountered my eye.
+
+"You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?"
+
+"I was only fearing that you were grieved."
+
+"Not at all: so be of good cheer--as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my
+persuasion is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung,
+I may seem to droop for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has
+yet gone through my whole system. You have always seen me cheerful at
+home?"
+
+"Generally."
+
+"I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for
+a dozen beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank
+you, Miss Fanshawe!" And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and
+made a mock reverence.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in
+ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled
+from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice."
+
+"You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel
+differently to-morrow."
+
+"_I_ heated and indignant! You don't know me. On the contrary,
+the heat is gone: I am as cool as the night--which, by the way, may be
+too cool for you. We will go back."
+
+"Dr. John, this is a sudden change."
+
+"Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it--two good reasons:
+I have told you one. But now let us re-enter."
+
+We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was
+excited confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we
+had to pass: it was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance
+round--indeed I half fancied I heard my name pronounced--I saw quite
+near, the ubiquitous, the inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me
+gravely and intently: at me, or rather at my pink dress--sardonic
+comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his habit to indulge
+in strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, at Madame
+Beck's--a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive
+impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it--my sombre daily
+attire not being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to
+permit any new encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I
+would ignore his presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to
+the sleeve of Dr. John's coat; finding in that same black sleeve a
+prospect more redolent of pleasure and comfort, more genial, more
+friendly, I thought, than was offered by the dark little Professor's
+unlovely visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to sanction the
+preference by looking down and saying in his kind voice, "Ay, keep
+close to my side, Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of
+persons."
+
+I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence,
+mesmeric or otherwise--an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but
+effective--I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there
+he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he
+had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking
+but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I
+bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and
+sternest of nods in return.
+
+"Whom have you made angry, Lucy?" whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. "Who
+is that savage-looking friend of yours?"
+
+"One of the professors at Madame Beck's: a very cross little man."
+
+"He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it
+all about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this."
+
+"No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I
+looked at your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him,
+he thinks I have failed in respect."
+
+"The little--" began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have
+added, for at that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of
+the crowd. M. Paul had rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way
+with such utter disregard to the convenience and security of all
+around, that a very uncomfortable pressure was the consequence.
+
+"I think he is what he himself would call 'mechant,'" said Dr.
+Bretton. I thought so, too.
+
+Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at
+last regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an
+hour; it was an animating and amusing scene; and as we each held
+tickets, we shared in the alternations of hope and fear raised by each
+turn of the wheel. Two little girls, of five and six years old, drew
+the numbers: and the prizes were duly proclaimed from the platform.
+These prizes were numerous, though of small value. It so fell out that
+Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a cigar-case, his a lady's
+head-dress--a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, with a
+streamer of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was
+excessively anxious to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to
+hear reason, and to this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I
+look at it, to remind me of old times, and one happy evening.
+
+Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm's length between his
+finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and
+embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over,
+he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground
+between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the
+treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not come
+to the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm
+like an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had
+issued.
+
+Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed
+natural and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily
+described; there was something in it peculiar, and, in its way,
+original. I read in it no common mastery of the passions, and a fund
+of deep and healthy strength which, without any exhausting effort,
+bore down Disappointment and extracted her fang. His manner, now,
+reminded me of qualities I had noticed in him when professionally
+engaged amongst the poor, the guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-
+Ville: he looked at once determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who
+could help liking him? _He_ betrayed no weakness which harassed
+all your feelings with considerations as to how its faltering must be
+propped; from _him_ broke no irritability which startled calm and
+quenched mirth; _his_ lips let fall no caustic that burned to the
+bone; _his_ eye shot no morose shafts that went cold, and rusty,
+and venomed through your heart: beside him was rest and refuge--around
+him, fostering sunshine.
+
+And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once
+angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated--once
+alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more
+than once; not stealthily or humbly, but with a movement of hardy,
+open observation. De Hamal was now a fixture beside her; Mrs.
+Cholmondeley sat near, and they and she were wholly absorbed in the
+discourse, mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats were as
+much astir as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some
+apparently animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand
+and arm; a handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its
+gleam flickered in Dr. John's eye--quickening therein a derisive,
+ireful sparkle; he laughed:----
+
+"I think," he said, "I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of
+offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no
+grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after
+all, I know she is a girl of family."
+
+"But you don't know her education, Dr. John," said I. "Tossed about
+all her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly
+proffer the plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults.
+And then, from what she says, I believe her father and mother were
+brought up much as she has been brought up."
+
+"I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in
+the thought," said he.
+
+"She tells me," I answered, "that they are poor at home; she always
+speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as
+these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they
+occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their
+opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and
+inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered
+reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of
+sustaining a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the
+only state of things, she has seen from childhood upwards."
+
+"I believe it--and I thought to mould her to something better: but,
+Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in
+looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the
+impertinence directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between
+them immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome
+light on my mind."
+
+"How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep
+up?"
+
+"Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the
+true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look
+marking mutual and secret understanding--it was neither girlish nor
+innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give
+or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I
+would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap--and be
+sure that she was honest."
+
+I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case:
+Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I
+told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to
+trust her with his honour.
+
+"The only thing," said I, "with which you may safely trust her. She
+would unscrupulously damage a husband's purse and property, recklessly
+try his patience and temper: I don't think she would breathe, or let
+another breathe, on his honour."
+
+"You are becoming her advocate," said he. "Do you wish me to resume my
+old chains?"
+
+"No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long
+remain. Yet be, at the same time, just."
+
+"I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly
+estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen
+are rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma,
+too, is excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we
+stay longer."
+
+"I tired, John?" cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and
+as wide-awake as her son. "I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave
+us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most
+jaded by sunrise."
+
+"I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you
+are the most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It
+must then be on the plea of your son's delicate nerves and fragile
+constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment."
+
+"Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose
+you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For
+shame, Lucy! At your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made
+me a shade paler. Come away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old
+lady as much as you please, but, for my part, I shall take charge of
+the bandbox and turban."
+
+Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken
+off with kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do
+to take care of myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of
+the gay "confusion worse confounded" succeeding to the King and
+Queen's departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded us, and promptly made us a
+lane through the crowd. Graham followed, apostrophizing his mother as
+the most flourishing grisette it had ever been his good fortune to see
+charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to mark her
+affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that
+she intended one day to wear it.
+
+The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we
+found the carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as
+at a fire-side; and the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than
+the drive to the concert. Pleasant it was, even though the coachman--
+having spent in the shop of a "marchand de vin" a portion of the time
+we passed at the concert--drove us along the dark and solitary
+chaussee far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; we, who were
+occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration till, at
+last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the
+chateau a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the
+world's end, as she declared seemed now to be the case, for she
+believed we had been an hour and a half en route, and had not yet
+taken the turn down the avenue.
+
+Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with
+unfamiliar rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else
+invisible sunk-fences, began to conjecture how matters were, and
+calling a halt and descending, he mounted the box and took the reins
+himself. Thanks to him, we arrived safe at home about an hour and a
+half beyond our time.
+
+Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat
+supper spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter
+dawn was actually breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off
+my pink dress and lace mantle with happier feelings than I had
+experienced in putting them on. Not all, perhaps, who had shone
+brightly arrayed at that concert could say the same; for not all had
+been satisfied with friendship--with its calm comfort and modest hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+REACTION.
+
+
+Yet three days, and then I must go back to the _pensionnat_. I
+almost numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I
+have retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them:
+they were already gone while I yet feared their departure.
+
+"Lucy will not leave us to-day," said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at
+breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite."
+
+"I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word," said I. "I
+long to get the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette
+again. I must go this morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed
+and corded."
+
+It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said
+he would accompany, me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all
+day, and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of
+words. Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I
+could have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to
+leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to
+descend: that is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they
+could not tell. On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their
+experience.
+
+It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck's
+door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had
+rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a
+night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at
+this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very
+shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye, while,
+with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at
+which I stood--a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had
+briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that
+rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination
+to do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best
+kept there.
+
+Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just
+that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their
+departure--consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
+
+"Don't come in," said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the well-
+lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that "the water stood
+in my eyes," for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly shown
+such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal--to relieve--when,
+physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in
+his power.
+
+"Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true
+friends. We will not forget you."
+
+"Nor will I forget you, Dr. John."
+
+My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go,
+but he was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content
+his generous impulses.
+
+"Lucy,"--stepping after me--"shall you feel very solitary here?"
+
+"At first I shall."
+
+"Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I'll tell
+you what I'll do. I'll write--just any cheerful nonsense that comes
+into my head--shall I?"
+
+"Good, gallant heart!" thought I to myself; but I shook my head,
+smiling, and said, "Never think of it: impose on yourself no such
+task. _You_ write to _me_!--you'll not have time."
+
+"Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!"
+
+He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen--the pang
+was experienced.
+
+Allowing myself no time to think or feel--swallowing tears as if they
+had been wine--I passed to Madame's sitting-room to pay the necessary
+visit of ceremony and respect. She received me with perfectly well-
+acted cordiality--was even demonstrative, though brief, in her
+welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. From the salle-a-manger I
+proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers were now
+assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I
+think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory.
+
+"And will Graham really write?" I questioned, as I sank tired on the
+edge of the bed.
+
+Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long,
+dim chamber, whispered sedately--"He may write once. So kind is his
+nature, it may stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it
+_cannot_ be continued--it _may_ not be repeated. Great were
+that folly which should build on such a promise--insane that credulity
+which should mistake the transitory rain-pool, holding in its hollow
+one draught, for the perennial spring yielding the supply of seasons."
+
+I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered
+me, laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my
+ear with the chill blue lips of eld.
+
+"If," muttered she, "if he _should_ write, what then? Do you
+meditate pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your
+answer. Hope no delight of heart--no indulgence of intellect: grant no
+expansion to feeling--give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no
+friendly exchange: foster no genial intercommunion...."
+
+"But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide," I pleaded.
+
+"No," said she, "I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You
+converse imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of
+inferiority--no encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury
+stamp your language...."
+
+"But," I again broke in, "where the bodily presence is weak and the
+speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
+language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
+achieve?"
+
+Reason only answered, "At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
+its influence to animate any writing of yours!"
+
+"But if I feel, may I _never_ express?"
+
+"_Never!_" declared Reason.
+
+I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never--never--oh, hard word!
+This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope:
+she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in,
+and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece
+of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life
+to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times
+to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
+Imagination--_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine
+Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the
+terrible revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a
+devil: for me she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have
+obeyed her it has chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of
+love. Long ago I should have died of her ill-usage her stint, her
+chill, her barren board, her icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but
+for that kinder Power who holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often
+has Reason turned me out by night, in mid-winter, on cold snow,
+flinging for sustenance the gnawed bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has
+she vowed her stores held nothing more for me--harshly denied my right
+to ask better things.... Then, looking up, have I seen in the sky a
+head amidst circling stars, of which the midmost and the brightest
+lent a ray sympathetic and attent. A spirit, softer and better than
+Human Reason, has descended with quiet flight to the waste--bringing
+all round her a sphere of air borrowed of eternal summer; bringing
+perfume of flowers which cannot fade--fragrance of trees whose fruit
+is life; bringing breezes pure from a world whose day needs no sun to
+lighten it. My hunger has this good angel appeased with food, sweet
+and strange, gathered amongst gleaning angels, garnering their dew-
+white harvest in the first fresh hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has
+she assuaged the insufferable fears which weep away life itself--
+kindly given rest to deadly weariness--generously lent hope and
+impulse to paralyzed despair. Divine, compassionate, succourable
+influence! When I bend the knee to other than God, it shall be at thy
+white and winged feet, beautiful on mountain or on plain. Temples have
+been reared to the Sun--altars dedicated to the Moon. Oh, greater
+glory! To thee neither hands build, nor lips consecrate: but hearts,
+through ages, are faithful to thy worship. A dwelling thou hast, too
+wide for walls, too high for dome--a temple whose floors are space--
+rites whose mysteries transpire in presence, to the kindling, the
+harmony of worlds!
+
+Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of
+martyrs; for achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity
+unquestioned, thine essence foils decay!
+
+This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and
+she came with comfort: "Sleep," she said. "Sleep, sweetly--I gild thy
+dreams!"
+
+She kept her word, and watched me through a night's rest; but at dawn
+Reason relieved the guard. I awoke with a sort of start; the rain was
+dashing against the panes, and the wind uttering a peevish cry at
+intervals; the night-lamp was dying on the black circular stand in the
+middle of the dormitory: day had already broken. How I pity those whom
+mental pain stuns instead of rousing! This morning the pang of waking
+snatched me out of bed like a hand with a giant's gripe. How quickly I
+dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice-
+cold water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like
+other dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin.
+
+Ere long the bell rang its _reveillee_ to the whole school. Being
+dressed, I descended alone to the refectory, where the stove was lit
+and the air was warm; through the rest of the house it was cold, with
+the nipping severity of a continental winter: though now but the
+beginning of November, a north wind had thus early brought a wintry
+blight over Europe: I remember the black stoves pleased me little when
+I first came; but now I began to associate with them a sense of
+comfort, and liked them, as in England we like a fireside.
+
+Sitting down before this dark comforter, I presently fell into a deep
+argument with myself on life and its chances, on destiny and her
+decrees. My mind, calmer and stronger now than last night, made for
+itself some imperious rules, prohibiting under deadly penalties all
+weak retrospect of happiness past; commanding a patient journeying
+through the wilderness of the present, enjoining a reliance on faith--
+a watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue while they guide, and
+awe while they illumine--hushing the impulse to fond idolatry,
+checking the longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose rivers
+are, perhaps, never to be, reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet
+pastures are to be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit
+of a Nebo.
+
+By degrees, a composite feeling of blended strength and pain wound
+itself wirily round my heart, sustained, or at least restrained, its
+throbbings, and made me fit for the day's work. I lifted my head.
+
+As I said before, I was sitting near the stove, let into the wall
+beneath the refectory and the carre, and thus sufficing to heat both
+apartments. Piercing the same wall, and close beside the stove, was a
+window, looking also into the carre; as I looked up a cap-tassel, a
+brow, two eyes, filled a pane of that window; the fixed gaze of those
+two eyes hit right against my own glance: they were watching me. I had
+not till that moment known that tears were on my cheek, but I felt
+them now.
+
+This was a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion,
+where not a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was
+at hand to note and to divine. And this new, this out-door, this male
+spy, what business had brought him to the premises at this unwonted
+hour? What possible right had he to intrude on me thus? No other
+professor would have dared to cross the carre before the class-bell
+rang. M. Emanuel took no account of hours nor of claims: there was
+some book of reference in the first-class library which he had
+occasion to consult; he had come to seek it: on his way he passed the
+refectory. It was very much his habit to wear eyes before, behind, and
+on each side of him: he had seen me through the little window--he now
+opened the refectory door, and there he stood.
+
+"Mademoiselle, vous etes triste."
+
+"Monsieur, j'en ai bien le droit."
+
+"Vous etes malade de coeur et d'humeur," he pursued. "You are at once
+mournful and mutinous. I see on your cheek two tears which I know are
+hot as two sparks, and salt as two crystals of the sea. While I speak
+you eye me strangely. Shall I tell you of what I am reminded while
+watching you?"
+
+"Monsieur, I shall be called away to prayers shortly; my time for
+conversation is very scant and brief at this hour--excuse----"
+
+"I excuse everything," he interrupted; "my mood is so meek, neither
+rebuff nor, perhaps, insult could ruffle it. You remind me, then, of a
+young she wild creature, new caught, untamed, viewing with a mixture
+of fire and fear the first entrance of the breaker-in."
+
+Unwarrantable accost!--rash and rude if addressed to a pupil; to a
+teacher inadmissible. He thought to provoke a warm reply; I had seen
+him vex the passionate to explosion before now. In me his malice
+should find no gratification; I sat silent.
+
+"You look," said he, "like one who would snatch at a draught of sweet
+poison, and spurn wholesome bitters with disgust.
+
+"Indeed, I never liked bitters; nor do I believe them wholesome. And
+to whatever is sweet, be it poison or food, you cannot, at least, deny
+its own delicious quality--sweetness. Better, perhaps, to die quickly
+a pleasant death, than drag on long a charmless life."
+
+"Yet," said he, "you should take your bitter dose duly and daily, if I
+had the power to administer it; and, as to the well-beloved poison, I
+would, perhaps, break the very cup which held it."
+
+I sharply turned my head away, partly because his presence utterly
+displeased me, and partly because I wished to shun questions: lest, in
+my present mood, the effort of answering should overmaster self-
+command.
+
+"Come," said he, more softly, "tell me the truth--you grieve at being
+parted from friends--is it not so?"
+
+The insinuating softness was not more acceptable than the
+inquisitorial curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down
+on the bench about two yards from me, and persevered long, and, for
+him, patiently, in attempts to draw me into conversation--attempts
+necessarily unavailing, because I _could_ not talk. At last I
+entreated to be let alone. In uttering the request, my voice faltered,
+my head sank on my arms and the table. I wept bitterly, though
+quietly. He sat a while longer. I did not look up nor speak, till the
+closing door and his retreating step told me that he was gone. These
+tears proved a relief.
+
+I had time to bathe my eyes before breakfast, and I suppose I appeared
+at that meal as serene as any other person: not, however, quite as
+jocund-looking as the young lady who placed herself in the seat
+opposite mine, fixed on me a pair of somewhat small eyes twinkling
+gleefully, and frankly stretched across the table a white hand to be
+shaken. Miss Fanshawe's travels, gaieties, and flirtations agreed with
+her mightily; she had become quite plump, her cheeks looked as round
+as apples. I had seen her last in elegant evening attire. I don't know
+that she looked less charming now in her school-dress, a kind of
+careless peignoir of a dark-blue material, dimly and dingily plaided
+with black. I even think this dusky wrapper gave her charms a triumph;
+enhancing by contrast the fairness of her skin, the freshness of her
+bloom, the golden beauty of her tresses.
+
+"I am glad you are come back, Timon," said she. Timon was one of her
+dozen names for me. "You don't know how often I have wanted you in
+this dismal hole."
+
+"Oh, have you? Then, of course, if you wanted me, you have something
+for me to do: stockings to mend, perhaps." I never gave Ginevra a
+minute's or a farthing's credit for disinterestedness.
+
+"Crabbed and crusty as ever!" said she. "I expected as much: it would
+not be you if you did not snub one. But now, come, grand-mother, I
+hope you like coffee as much, and pistolets as little as ever: are you
+disposed to barter?"
+
+"Take your own way."
+
+This way consisted in a habit she had of making me convenient. She did
+not like the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being
+strong or sweet enough to suit her palate; and she had an excellent
+appetite, like any other healthy school-girl, for the morning
+pistolets or rolls, which were new-baked and very good, and of which a
+certain allowance was served to each. This allowance being more than I
+needed, I gave half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, though
+many others used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would
+sometimes give me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of
+the draught; hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don't
+know why I chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another;
+nor why, if two had to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel,
+as sometimes happened--for instance, when we took a long walk into the
+country, and halted for refreshment at a farm--I always contrived that
+she should be my convive, and rather liked to let her take the lion's
+share, whether of the white beer, the sweet wine, or the new milk: so
+it was, however, and she knew it; and, therefore, while we wrangled
+daily, we were never alienated.
+
+After breakfast my custom was to withdraw to the first classe, and sit
+and read, or think (oftenest the latter) there alone, till the nine-
+o'clock bell threw open all doors, admitted the gathered rush of
+externes and demi-pensionnaires, and gave the signal for entrance on
+that bustle and business to which, till five P.M., there was no relax.
+
+I was just seated this morning, when a tap came to the door.
+
+"Pardon, Mademoiselle," said a pensionnaire, entering gently; and
+having taken from her desk some necessary book or paper, she withdrew
+on tip-toe, murmuring as she passed me, "Que mademoiselle est
+appliquee!"
+
+Appliquee, indeed! The means of application were spread before me, but
+I was doing nothing; and had done nothing, and meant to do nothing.
+Thus does the world give us credit for merits we have not. Madame Beck
+herself deemed me a regular bas-bleu, and often and solemnly used to
+warn me not to study too much, lest "the blood should all go to my
+head." Indeed, everybody in the Rue Fossette held a superstition that
+"Meess Lucie" was learned; with the notable exception of M. Emanuel,
+who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite inscrutable to me, had
+obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used
+to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee
+over their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about
+this penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great
+pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those
+on whose style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly
+stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever
+and meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was
+concerned, God had limited its powers and, its action--thankful, I
+trust, for the gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments,
+not restlessly eager after higher culture.
+
+The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without
+tap, in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known
+who this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told
+with wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my
+co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment.
+When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German
+would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous
+Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the
+playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the "Pas de Geant," or
+to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called "Un, deux,
+trois," were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little
+attentions had ceased some time ago--ceased, too, without my finding
+it necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I
+had now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one
+quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe
+made no scruple of--at times--catching me as I was crossing the carre,
+whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the
+mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra
+Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon "my learned leisure." She
+carried a huge music-book under her arm.
+
+"Go to your practising," said I to her at once: "away with you to the
+little salon!"
+
+"Not till I have had a talk with you, chere amie. I know where you
+have been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced
+sacrificing to the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I
+saw you at the concert the other night, dressed, actually, like
+anybody else. Who is your tailleuse?"
+
+"Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!--a fiddlestick!
+Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don't want your company."
+
+"But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little
+reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manoeuvre
+with our gifted compatriote--the learned 'ourse Britannique.' And so,
+Ourson, you know Isidore?"
+
+"I know John Bretton."
+
+"Oh, hush!" (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums
+with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell
+me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my
+behaviour the other night? Wasn't I cruel?"
+
+"Do you think I noticed you?"
+
+"It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to
+watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady--
+my future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little
+rude in quizzing her."
+
+"Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what _you_ did,
+don't make yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive
+_your_ sneer."
+
+"She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me
+what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up."
+
+"He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal."
+
+"Did he?" she cried with delight. "He noticed that? How charming! I
+thought he would be mad with jealousy?"
+
+"Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to
+give you up?"
+
+"Oh! you know he _can't_ do that: but wasn't he mad?"
+
+"Quite mad," I assented; "as mad as a March hare."
+
+"Well, and how _ever_ did you get him home?"
+
+"How _ever_, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me?
+Fancy us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between
+us, fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong,
+somehow, and we lost our way."
+
+"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe--"
+
+"I assure you it is fact--and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would
+_not_ stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and _would_ ride
+outside."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards--when he _did_ reach home--the scene transcends
+description."
+
+"Oh, but describe it--you know it is such fun!"
+
+"Fun for _you_, Miss Fanshawe? but" (with stern gravity) you know
+the proverb--'What is sport to one may be death to another.'"
+
+"Go on, there's a darling Timon."
+
+"Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart."
+
+"I have--such an immensity, you don't know!"
+
+"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton
+rejecting his supper in the first instance--the chicken, the
+sweetbread prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched.
+Then----but it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing
+details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and
+moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the sheets
+about him as she had that night."
+
+"He wouldn't lie still?"
+
+"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in,
+but the thing was to keep them tucked in."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra,
+anathematizing that demon, de Hamal--raving about golden locks, blue
+eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"
+
+"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"
+
+"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the
+first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has
+encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we
+will have an end of this. Go away to your practising."
+
+And I opened the door.
+
+"But you have not told me all."
+
+"You had better not wait until I _do_ tell you all. Such extra
+communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!"
+
+"Cross thing!" said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe
+was my territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of
+quittance from me.
+
+Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her
+than I was then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast
+between the reality and my description--to remember Dr. John enjoying
+the drive home, eating his supper with relish, and retiring to rest
+with Christian composure. It was only when I saw him really unhappy
+that I felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of his suffering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of
+school, and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of
+custom. One afternoon, in crossing the carre, on my way to the first
+classe, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of "style and
+literature," I saw, standing by one of the long and large windows,
+Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as usual, was quite nonchalante.
+She always "stood at ease;" one of her hands rested in her apron-
+pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter, whereof
+Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately studied the
+seal.
+
+A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain
+in its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last
+night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I
+should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that
+white envelope, with the spot of red wax in the middle, I know not.
+No; I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from
+Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp
+of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the
+Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him.
+Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the
+class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps,
+exempt me from notice; but, if caught lingering in the carre, I should
+be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated,
+to enforce perfect silence, to take out my work, and to commence it
+amidst the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. Emanuel entered
+with his vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant
+bow, prophetic of choler.
+
+As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of
+flashing lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career
+halted midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window,
+his back to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look--such a look as
+might have licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant--
+a look of scowling distrust.
+
+"Voila! pour vous," said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and
+placing on my desk a letter--the very letter I had seen in Rosine's
+hand--the letter whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop's-eye
+of vermilion-red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the
+retina of an inward vision. I knew it, I felt it to be the letter of
+my hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the
+ransom from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his unwarrantably
+interfering habits, had taken from the portress, and now delivered it
+himself.
+
+I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes:
+I held in my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at
+least, contain a sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial,
+satisfying. And here was the direction, "Miss Lucy Snowe," in a clean,
+clear, equal, decided hand; and here was the seal, round, full, deftly
+dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well-cut impress of
+initials, "J. G. B." I experienced a happy feeling--a glad emotion
+which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For
+once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid
+joy: not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy
+chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot
+live; not a mess of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago--which,
+indeed, at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and
+preternatural sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely
+loathe; longing deliriously for natural and earth-grown food, wildly
+praying Heaven's Spirits to reclaim their own spirit-dew and essence--
+an aliment divine, but for mortals deadly. It was neither sweet hail
+nor small coriander-seed--neither slight wafer, nor luscious honey, I
+had lighted on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter,
+nourishing and salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh,
+healthful, and life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch
+demanded of his son Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his
+last breath. It was a godsend; and I inwardly thanked the God who had
+vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked man, crying, "Thank you, thank
+you, Monsieur!"
+
+Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and
+strode to his estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man,
+though he had good points.
+
+Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once
+and with haste, as if Esau's shaft flew every day?
+
+I knew better. The cover with its address--the seal, with its three
+clear letters--was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from
+the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept
+locked by day. I went to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling
+lest Madame should creep up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer,
+unlocked a box, and took out a case, and--having feasted my eyes with
+one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame
+and delight, to my lips--I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair
+and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up box
+and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,
+feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream.
+Strange, sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had
+not yet read: did not yet know the number of its lines.
+
+When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a
+pestilence! Some pupil had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to
+suit his ear and taste, and now she and others were weeping, and he
+was raving from his estrade, almost livid. Curious to mention, as I
+appeared, he fell on me.
+
+"Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the
+conduct befitting ladies?--and did I permit and, he doubted not,
+encourage them to strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to
+mince and mash it between their teeth, as if they had some base cause
+to be ashamed of the words they uttered? Was this modesty? He knew
+better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment--the offspring or the
+forerunner of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing,
+this mincing and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this
+general affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the
+first class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable petites
+maitresses, and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of
+the third division."
+
+What could I say to all this? Really nothing; and I hoped he would
+allow me to be silent. The storm recommenced.
+
+"Every answer to his queries was then refused? It seemed to be
+considered in _that_ place--that conceited boudoir of a first
+classe, with its pretentious book-cases, its green-baized desks, its
+rubbish of flower-stands, its trash of framed pictures and maps, and
+its foreign surveillante, forsooth!--it seemed to be the fashion to
+think _there_ that the Professor of Literature was not worthy of
+a reply! These were new ideas; imported, he did not doubt, straight
+from 'la Grande Bretagne:' they savoured of island insolence and
+arrogance."
+
+Lull the second--the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a
+tear for the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like snow-
+statues before the intemperate heat of M. Emanuel: I not yet much
+shaken, sitting down, and venturing to resume my work.
+
+Something--either in my continued silence or in the movement of my
+hand, stitching--transported M. Emanuel beyond the last boundary of
+patience; he actually sprang from his estrade. The stove stood near my
+desk, he attacked it; the little iron door was nearly dashed from its
+hinges, the fuel was made to fly.
+
+"Est-ce que vous avez l'intention de m'insulter?" said he to me, in a
+low, furious voice, as he thus outraged, under pretence of arranging
+the fire.
+
+It was time to soothe him a little if possible.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur," said I, "I would not insult you for the world. I
+remember too well that you once said we should be friends."
+
+I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think,
+through the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present
+fear. Still there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger--a kind
+of passion of emotion--that specially tended to draw tears. I was not
+unhappy, nor much afraid, yet I wept.
+
+"Allons, allons!" said he presently, looking round and seeing the
+deluge universal. "Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only
+one pocket-handkerchief," he added, "but if I had twenty, I would
+offer you each one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here,
+Miss Lucy."
+
+And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a
+person who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his
+impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer--declined
+accepting the same--et cetera. But I too plainly felt this would never
+do: the slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient
+treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief half-way, received it
+with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my seat, and
+retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial
+care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor
+thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast
+at these implements; he hated them mortally, considering sewing a
+source of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very
+eloquent lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the
+close. Ere he had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining
+out--tears were exchanged for smiles.
+
+In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.
+
+"And your letter?" said he, this time not quite fiercely.
+
+"I have not yet read it, Monsieur."
+
+"Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a
+boy, I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?"
+
+The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-
+rising warmth in my face from revealing as much.
+
+"You promise yourself a pleasant moment," said he, "in reading that
+letter; you will open it when alone--n'est-ce pas? Ah! a smile
+answers. Well, well! one should not be too harsh; 'la jeunesse n'a
+qu'un temps.'"
+
+"Monsieur, Monsieur!" I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he
+turned to go, "do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a
+friend's letter. Without reading it, I can vouch for that."
+
+"Je concois, je concois: on sait ce que c'est qu'un ami. Bonjour,
+Mademoiselle!"
+
+"But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief."
+
+"Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall
+read the billet's tenor in your eyes."
+
+When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the
+schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to
+take their customary recreation before the five-o'clock dinner, I
+stood a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round
+my arm. For some reason--gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the
+golden glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its
+buoyancy, made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above
+all, solaced at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in
+the case, box, drawer up-stairs,--I fell to playing with the
+handkerchief as if it were a ball, casting it into the air and
+catching it--as it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than
+mine-a hand emerging from a paletot-sleeve and stretched over my
+shoulder; it caught the extemporised plaything and bore it away with
+these sullen words:
+
+"Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets."
+
+Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and,
+ubiquity: one never knew either his whim or his whereabout.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy
+recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of
+study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the
+clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame
+was safely settled in the salle-a-manger in company with her mother
+and some friends; I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for
+one half-hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my
+petition at the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, "Mais
+certainement, chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;" and,
+light in hand, I mounted noiseless to the dormitory.
+
+Great was my chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed
+indisposed,--greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap
+borders, the "figure chiffonnee" of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine
+at this moment, it is true--but certain to wake and overwhelm me with
+chatter when the interruption would be least acceptable: indeed, as I
+watched her, a slight twinkling of the eyelids warned me that the
+present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, assumed to cover sly
+vigilance over "Timon's" movements; she was not to be trusted. And I
+had so wished to be alone, just to read my precious letter in peace.
+
+Well, I must go to the classes. Having sought and found my prize in
+its casket, I descended. Ill-luck pursued me. The classes were
+undergoing sweeping and purification by candle-light, according to
+hebdomadal custom: benches were piled on desks, the air was dim with
+dust, damp coffee-grounds (used by Labassecourien housemaids instead
+of tea-leaves) darkened the floor; all was hopeless confusion.
+Baffled, but not beaten, I withdrew, bent as resolutely as ever on
+finding solitude _somewhere_.
+
+Taking a key whereof I knew the repository, I mounted three staircases
+in succession, reached a dark, narrow, silent landing, opened a worm-
+eaten door, and dived into the deep, black, cold garret. Here none
+would follow me--none interrupt--not Madame herself. I shut the
+garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of
+drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter;
+trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal.
+
+"Will it be long--will it be short?" thought I, passing my hand across
+my eyes to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south-wind
+shower.
+
+It was long.
+
+"Will it be cool?--will it be kind?"
+
+It was kind.
+
+To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind:
+to my longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it
+was.
+
+So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fulness of
+delight in this taste of fruition--such, perhaps, as many a human
+being passes through life without ever knowing. The poor English
+teacher in the frosty garret, reading by a dim candle guttering in the
+wintry air, a letter simply good-natured--nothing more; though that
+good-nature then seemed to me godlike--was happier than most queens in
+palaces.
+
+Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could be but brief; yet,
+while it lasted it was genuine and exquisite: a bubble--but a sweet
+bubble--of real honey-dew. Dr. John had written to me at length; he
+had written to me with pleasure; he had written with benignant mood,
+dwelling with sunny satisfaction on scenes that had passed before his
+eyes and mine,--on places we had visited together--on conversations we
+had held--on all the little subject-matter, in short, of the last few
+halcyon weeks. But the cordial core of the delight was, a conviction
+the blithe, genial language generously imparted, that it had been
+poured out not merely to content _me_--but to gratify _himself_.
+A gratification he might never more desire, never more seek--an
+hypothesis in every point of view approaching the certain; but _that_
+concerned the future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no want;
+full, pure, perfect, it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph seemed to have
+rested beside me, leaned towards my heart, and reposed on its throb a
+softening, cooling, healing, hallowing wing. Dr. John, you pained me
+afterwards: forgiven be every ill--freely forgiven--for the sake of that
+one dear remembered good!
+
+Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there
+evil influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was
+near me?
+
+Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely
+and certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor: a
+sort of gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by
+the malefactor cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was long--
+but as I live! I saw in the middle of that ghostly chamber a figure
+all black and white; the skirts straight, narrow, black; the head
+bandaged, veiled, white.
+
+Say what you will, reader--tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I
+was unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I
+dreamed; this I vow--I saw there--in that room--on that night--an
+image like--a NUN.
+
+I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have
+swooned. It receded: I made for the door. How I descended all the
+stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my
+course to Madame's sitting-room: I burst in. I said--
+
+"There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw
+something. Go and look at it, all of you!"
+
+I said, "All of you;" for the room seemed to me full of people, though
+in truth there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame
+Kint, who was out of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her
+brother, M. Victor Kint, and another gentleman, who, when I entered
+the room, was conversing with the old lady, and had his back towards
+the door.
+
+My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt
+cold and shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me.
+I urged them to go to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me
+good and gave me courage: it seemed as if there were some help and
+hope, with men at hand. I turned to the door, beckoning them to
+follow. They wanted to stop me, but I said they must come this way:
+they must see what I had seen---something strange, standing in the
+middle of the garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the
+drawers with the light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be
+defied for its sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew
+I was followed: they were obliged to come.
+
+Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the
+light was out. Happily some one--Madame, I think, with her usual calm
+sense--had brought a lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they
+came up, a ray pierced the opaque blackness. There stood the bougie
+quenched on the drawers; but where was the letter? And I looked for
+_that_ now, and not for the nun.
+
+"My letter! my letter!" I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I
+groped on the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To
+have my bit of comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had
+well tasted its virtue!
+
+I don't know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they
+asked me questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they
+prattled about this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or
+crack in the sky-light--I know not what. "Something or somebody has
+been here," was sagely averred.
+
+"Oh! they have taken my letter!" cried the grovelling, groping,
+monomaniac.
+
+"What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?" asked a known voice in
+my ear. Could I believe that ear? No: and I looked up. Could I trust
+my eyes? Had I recognised the tone? Did I now look on the face of the
+writer of that very letter? Was this gentleman near me in this dim
+garret, John Graham--Dr. Bretton himself?
+
+Yes: it was. He had been called in that very evening to prescribe for
+some access of illness in old Madame Kint; he was the second gentleman
+present in the salle-a-manger when I entered.
+
+"Was it _my_ letter, Lucy?"
+
+"Your own: yours--the letter you wrote to me. I had come here to read
+it quietly. I could not find another spot where it was possible to
+have it to myself. I had saved it all day--never opened it till this
+evening: it was scarcely glanced over: I _cannot bear_ to lose
+it. Oh, my letter!"
+
+"Hush! don't cry and distress yourself so cruelly. What is it worth?
+Hush! Come out of this cold room; they are going to send for the
+police now to examine further: we need not stay here--come, we will go
+down."
+
+A warm hand, taking my cold fingers, led me down to a room where there
+was a fire. Dr. John and I sat before the stove. He talked to me and
+soothed me with unutterable goodness, promising me twenty letters for
+the one lost. If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep-
+inflicted lacerations never heal--cutting injuries and insults of
+serrated and poison-dripping edge--so, too, there are consolations of
+tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their
+echo: caressing kindnesses--loved, lingered over through a whole life,
+recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed
+shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. I have
+been told since that Dr. Bretton was not nearly so perfect as I
+thought him: that his actual character lacked the depth, height,
+compass, and endurance it possessed in my creed. I don't know: he was
+as good to me as the well is to the parched wayfarer--as the sun to
+the shivering jailbird. I remember him heroic. Heroic at this moment
+will I hold him to be.
+
+He asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I
+thought, but did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins.
+I only answered that I had so few letters to care for.
+
+"I am sure you did not read it," said he; "or you would think nothing
+of it!"
+
+"I read it, but only once. I want to read it again. I am sorry it is
+lost." And I could not help weeping afresh.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a
+relationship), here--_here_ is your letter. Why is it not better
+worth such tears, and such tenderly exaggerating faith?"
+
+Curious, characteristic manoeuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter
+on the floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it
+up. He had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had
+wrought with a whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would
+ever have acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree
+cooler than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.
+
+Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing
+torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it
+broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.
+
+"Are you satisfied now?" asked Dr. John.
+
+I replied that I was--satisfied and happy.
+
+"Well then," he proceeded, "how do you feel physically? Are you
+growing calmer? Not much: for you tremble like a leaf still."
+
+It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I
+felt no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.
+
+"You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was
+quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only
+spoke of 'something,' not defining _what_. Was it a man? Was it
+an animal? What was it?"
+
+"I never will tell exactly what I saw," said I, "unless some one else
+sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but
+otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming."
+
+"Tell me," said Dr. Bretton; "I will hear it in my professional
+character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I
+read, perhaps, all you would conceal--in your eye, which is curiously
+vivid and restless: in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in
+your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me."
+
+"You would laugh--?"
+
+"If you don't tell me you shall have no more letters."
+
+"You are laughing now."
+
+"I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I
+have a right to reclaim it."
+
+I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded
+up the letter and covered it from sight.
+
+"You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don't
+know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I
+liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property
+of tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me--did you, Lucy?"
+
+"Indeed--indeed--when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more
+then than now--for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with
+subtlety. But still,--Dr. John, you have what they call in this
+country 'un air fin,' that nobody can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it,
+and---"
+
+"And liked it," said he, laughing, "because she has it herself. But,
+Lucy, give me that letter--you don't really care for it"
+
+To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood
+must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile
+playing about his lips--very sweet, but it grieved me somehow--a new
+sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring.
+I rose to go--I bid him good-night a little sadly.
+
+His sensitiveness--that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of
+his--felt in a moment the unspoken complaint--the scarce-thought
+reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as
+implying a negative.
+
+"Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go.
+You are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent
+in your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone
+this evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret--that dungeon
+under the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and
+catarrh: a place you never ought to enter--that you saw, or
+_thought_ you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to
+impress the imagination. I know that you _are_ not, nor ever
+were, subject to material terrors, fears of robbers, &c.--I am not so
+sure that a visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake
+your very mind. Be calm now. This is all a matter of the nerves, I
+see: but just specify the vision."
+
+"You will tell nobody?"
+
+"Nobody--most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did
+Pere Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the
+two, though he has not grey hair."
+
+"You will not laugh?"
+
+"Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a
+friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust."
+
+He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were
+gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were
+depressed; repose marked his attitude--attention sobered his aspect.
+Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had
+narrated to him the legend of the house--whiling away with that
+narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when be and I
+rode through Bois l'Etang.
+
+He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming
+down-stairs.
+
+"Are they going to interrupt?" said he, glancing at the door with an
+annoyed expression.
+
+"They will not come here," I answered; for we were in the little salon
+where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance
+that heat was still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and
+went on to the salle-a-manger.
+
+"Now," he pursued, "they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on:
+let them do so--mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of
+describing your nun to nobody. She may appear to you again: don't
+start."
+
+"You think then," I said, with secret horror, "she came out of my
+brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour
+and a day when I look not for her?"
+
+"I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and
+resulting from long-continued mental conflict."
+
+"Oh, Doctor John--I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an
+illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?--no preventive?"
+
+"Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate
+both."
+
+No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being
+told to _cultivate_ happiness. What does such advice mean?
+Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with
+manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven.
+She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings,
+feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of
+Paradise.
+
+"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do _you_
+cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
+
+"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged
+me. Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but
+we defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
+
+"There is no cultivation in all this."
+
+"I do not give way to melancholy."
+
+"Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling."
+
+"About Ginevra Fanshawe--eh?"
+
+"Did she not sometimes make you miserable?"
+
+"Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now."
+
+If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming
+and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he
+certainly was.
+
+"You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition," I allowed.
+
+"And why, Lucy, can't you look and feel as I do--buoyant, courageous,
+and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give
+gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the
+manoeuvre."
+
+"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"
+
+"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by
+one thing--true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness
+at no less a price."
+
+"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
+since."
+
+"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
+but I am a free man now!"
+
+He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
+his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
+more than ease--a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling
+which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
+disposed to exact love for love--passion for passion--and good measure
+of it, too."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
+difficulties--to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".
+
+He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
+sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his
+gloves), "will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"
+
+"I don't think she will."
+
+"Give her my compliments, if she does--Dr. John's compliments--and
+entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
+she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that
+yet; and _that_ is the really important point."
+
+"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes
+glittered."
+
+"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at
+least she had handsome eyes--bright and soft."
+
+"Cold and fixed," was the reply.
+
+"No, no, we'll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
+that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand
+_that_, do you think?"
+
+I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
+smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
+believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to
+very little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
+Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual:
+and as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture
+was rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a
+heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very
+closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
+clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word "nun," certain
+that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance
+and unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any
+servant, pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in
+coming to her private salle-a-manger, instead of carrying the tale of
+horror to the school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left
+secretly and sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange
+thing was of this world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether
+indeed it was only the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+VASHTI.
+
+
+To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
+life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
+dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist:
+its turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes
+a wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
+down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
+pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
+which till now the starved hollow never saw.
+
+A new creed became mine--a belief in happiness.
+
+It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
+in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
+four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
+the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
+seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
+enough--pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
+two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
+"by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued." Time, dear reader,
+mellowed them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first
+tasted their elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice
+of a divine vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very
+gods approve.
+
+Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to
+ask how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting
+check of Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
+
+To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
+down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine.
+I wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
+for Graham's perusal.
+
+To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
+her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the
+ink an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere
+heart. When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the
+language of a strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active
+gratitude--(once, for all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the
+utmost scorn, every sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer
+feelings:" women do not entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from
+the commencement, through the whole progress of an acquaintance, they
+have never once been cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be
+to commit a mortal absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he
+has seen or dreamed the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled
+waters)--when, then, I had given expression to a closely-clinging and
+deeply-honouring attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to
+itself and take to its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of
+its object; that would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away
+all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of
+solicitude--then, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would
+shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and
+revengeful, snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up,
+re-write, fold, seal, direct, and send a terse, curt missive of a page.
+She did right.
+
+I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after;
+once a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of.
+Dr. Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep
+away the nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her
+prey. He had taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly
+on account of that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the
+moment he heard of those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate
+disgust had incited him to oppose her; he was determined to try
+whether he or she was the cleverest, and he only wished she would once
+more look in upon me when he was present:" but _that_ she never
+did. In short, he regarded me scientifically in the light of a
+patient, and at once exercised his professional skill, and gratified
+his natural benevolence, by a course of cordial and attentive
+treatment.
+
+One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
+carre; it was six o'clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
+the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
+counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carre was quite dark, except a
+red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
+the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
+here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
+scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
+night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
+darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
+thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
+behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
+landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
+leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
+in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still--a shape that
+moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
+glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant door-
+bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was too
+round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.
+
+"Mademoiselle Lucy!" cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
+corridor, "on est la pour vous au salon."
+
+Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
+recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
+anticipated I should find--Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.
+
+"The carriage is at the door," said he; "my mother has sent it to take
+you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has
+prevented her: she immediately said, 'Take Lucy in my place.' Will you
+go?"
+
+"Just now? I am not dressed," cried I, glancing despairingly at my
+dark merino.
+
+"You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
+only determined on going since five o'clock, when I heard there was to
+be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress."
+
+And he mentioned a name that thrilled me--a name that, in those days,
+could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are
+all still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and
+oblivion long since closed above her; but _then_ her day--a day
+of Sirius--stood at its full height, light and fervour.
+
+"I'll go; I will be ready in ten minutes," I vowed. And away I flew,
+never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this
+moment checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without
+Mrs. Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much
+less have expressed to Graham, such thought--such scruple--without
+risk of exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire
+of shame so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon
+have licked up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother,
+knowing her son, and knowing me, would as soon have thought of
+chaperoning a sister with a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over
+our incomings and outgoings.
+
+The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
+suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
+dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
+changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
+crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier--my crape
+amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
+fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
+reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
+garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point
+there shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it
+shone, that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the
+tarnished scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before
+my eyes, it vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of
+the garret became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not
+time nor will; snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily
+near the door, I rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste,
+and darted downwards to the dormitory.
+
+But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
+fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed
+her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed
+and plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the
+lace collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately--
+in short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when
+she those. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the
+candle and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my
+shawl; she ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the
+vestibule, waiting.
+
+"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is
+the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"
+
+But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a
+second illusion. He was sceptical.
+
+"She has been, as sure as I live," said he; "her figure crossing your
+eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be
+mistaken."
+
+"She has _not_ been," I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her
+apparition with truth.
+
+"The old symptoms are there," he affirmed: "a particular pale, and
+what the Scotch call a 'raised' look."
+
+He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really
+_had_ seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect
+of the same cause: it was all optical illusion--nervous malady, and so
+on. Not one bit did I believe him; but I dared not contradict: doctors
+are so self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.
+
+Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The theatre was full--crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there:
+palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so
+thronged and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having
+a place before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I
+had heard reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I
+wondered if she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with
+feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She
+was a study of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great
+and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.
+
+She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her
+come. She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but
+that star verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a
+chaos--hollow, half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing--half lava,
+half glow.
+
+I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness
+and grimness--something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the
+shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale
+now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.
+
+For awhile--a long while--I thought it was only a woman, though an
+unique woman, Who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-
+and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something
+neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These
+evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength
+--for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir
+deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit!
+They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to
+the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask.
+Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.
+
+It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.
+
+It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.
+
+Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand;
+bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the
+public--a milder condiment for a people's palate--than Vashti torn by
+seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they
+haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.
+
+Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her
+audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure,
+resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She
+stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular
+like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest
+crimson threw her out, white like alabaster--like silver: rather, be
+it said, like Death.
+
+Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and
+study this different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the
+muscle, the abounding blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all
+materialists draw nigh and look on.
+
+I have said that she does not _resent_ her grief. No; the
+weakness of that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes
+immediately embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked,
+worried down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she
+grapples to conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a
+tigress; she rends her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence.
+Pain, for her, has no result in good: tears water no harvest of
+wisdom: on sickness, on death itself, she looks with the eye of a
+rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong; and her
+strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at
+her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile as fair. Even in the
+uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement royally,
+imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in revel or
+war, is still an angel's hair, and glorious under a halo. Fallen,
+insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she rebelled.
+Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines, and
+discloses their forlorn remoteness.
+
+Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
+and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin
+clove the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let
+him rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the
+army of his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that
+slight rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
+spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
+sea-ramparts.
+
+Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look
+good: though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so
+much of unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of
+sacred essence descend one day from above?
+
+What thought Dr. Graham of this being?
+
+For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
+question what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart
+out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a
+fierce light, not solar--a rushing, red, cometary light--hot on vision
+and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like
+this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which
+outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely
+irritating imagination with the thought of what _might_ be done,
+at the same time fevering the nerves because it was _not_ done,
+disclosed power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in
+cataract, and bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly
+sweep of its descent.
+
+Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
+Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
+in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
+charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
+mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water,
+but, almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved
+him--metal could not grave, nor fire brand.
+
+Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
+action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his
+way, but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
+influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
+beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing
+summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, what was wild and intense,
+dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, and held with it
+no communion. When I took time and regained inclination to glance at
+him, it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching
+that sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor
+yet dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain
+him, her wild moan--worse than a shriek--did not much move him; her
+fury revolted him somewhat, but not to the point of horror. Cool young
+Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the
+tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian
+inspiration of that night.
+
+Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last
+I put a question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he
+awoke as if out of a dream; for he had been thinking, and very
+intently thinking, his own thoughts, after his own manner. "How did he
+like Vashti?" I wished to know.
+
+"Hm-m-m," was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and
+then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so
+critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order
+his sympathies _were_ callous. In a few terse phrases he told me
+his opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a
+woman, not an artist: it was a branding judgment.
+
+That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but
+with a deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other
+memoranda were destined to be set down in characters of tint
+indelible.
+
+Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the death-
+scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his under-lip,
+and knit his brow, and sat still and struck--when the whole theatre
+was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point, when all
+ears listened towards one quarter--nothing being seen but the white
+form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her worst-
+hated, her visibly-conquering foe--nothing heard but her throes, her
+gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as it
+seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame, bent
+it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground, sold
+every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every faculty,
+_would_ see, _would_ hear, _would_ breathe, _would_ live, up to,
+within, well-nigh _beyond_ the moment when death says to all
+sense and all being--"Thus far and no farther!"--
+
+Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes--feet
+ran, voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a
+smell of smoke replied.
+
+"Fire!" rang through the gallery. "Fire!" was repeated, re-echoed,
+yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came
+panic, rushing, crushing--a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.
+
+And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage
+and cordial calm.
+
+"Lucy will sit still, I know," said he, glancing down at me with the
+same serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in
+him when sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother's
+hearth. Yes, thus adjured, I think I would have sat still under a
+rocking crag: but, indeed, to sit still in actual circumstances was my
+instinct; and at the price of my very life, I would not have moved to
+give him trouble, thwart his will, or make demands on his attention.
+We were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there was a most
+terrible, ruthless pressure about us.
+
+"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not
+almost equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I
+see fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near,
+I could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some
+men. There is one yonder--Good God!"
+
+While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and
+steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from
+her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under
+the feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance.
+Graham rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though
+grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head
+and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
+
+"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.
+
+"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her,
+and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."
+
+"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor
+incumbrance."
+
+He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to
+rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I
+could not get between or over.
+
+"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.
+
+Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a
+wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the flesh-and-
+blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to the
+fresh, freezing night.
+
+"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when
+we got into the street.
+
+"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.
+
+"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my
+carriage."
+
+"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"
+
+"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."
+
+"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder!
+They trod just here."
+
+"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no
+worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."
+
+And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position
+for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay
+in his arms quietly and patiently.
+
+"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my
+ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"
+
+"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient,
+demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I
+get anxious."
+
+The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange
+from one bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again.
+
+"My darling!" said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, "You
+said, sir, you are a medical man?"
+
+"I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse."
+
+"Good. Will you step into my carriage?"
+
+"My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you."
+
+"Be pleased, then, to follow us." And he named his address: "The Hotel
+Crecy, in the Rue Crecy."
+
+We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent.
+This seemed like an adventure.
+
+Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached
+the hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an
+hotel in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an
+inn--a vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading
+through a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.
+
+We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped
+at Numero 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the
+abode of I know not what "prince Russe," as Graham informed me. On
+ringing the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite
+of very handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we
+entered a drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and
+whose walls gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a
+little group: a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women
+busy about it, the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.
+
+"Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me," said the girlish
+voice, faintly.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Hurst?" demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat
+sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.
+
+"I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave
+her leave till to-morrow."
+
+"Yes--I did--I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might
+go: I remember now," interposed the young lady; "but I am so sorry,
+for Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me
+without meaning to do so."
+
+Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they
+passed a few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and
+seeing what the faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it
+for her.
+
+I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was
+no less skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found
+that no further advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of
+the present case. He ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and
+whispered to me:--"Go with the women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you
+can at least direct their movements, and thus spare her some pain. She
+must be touched very tenderly."
+
+The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with
+curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like snow-
+drift and mist--spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand
+apart, I undressed their mistress, without their well-meaning but
+clumsy aid. I was not in a sufficiently collected mood to note with
+separate distinctness every detail of the attire I removed, but I
+received a general impression of refinement, delicacy, and perfect
+personal cultivation; which, in a period of after-thought, offered in
+my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained of Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe's appointments.
+
+The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a
+model. As I folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and
+soft, and so exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young,
+pale, weary, but high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the
+eyebrows were distinct, but soft, and melting to a mere trace at the
+temples; the eyes were a rich gift of nature--fine and full, large,
+deep, seeming to hold dominion over the slighter subordinate features
+--capable, probably, of much significance at another hour and under
+other circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering.
+Her skin was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the
+petals of a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this
+delicate exterior, and her lip wore a curl--I doubt not inherent and
+unconscious, but which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments
+of health and state, would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving
+in the little lady a quite mistaken view of life and her own
+consequence.
+
+Her demeanour under the Doctor's hands at first excited a smile; it
+was not puerile--rather, on the whole, patient and firm--but yet, once
+or twice she addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that
+he hurt her, and must contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large
+eyes, too, settle on his face like the solemn eyes of some pretty,
+wondering child. I know not whether Graham felt this examination: if
+be did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it by any
+retaliatory look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and
+gentleness, sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as
+much, when he had done, by the words:--"Thank you, Doctor, and good-
+night," very gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it
+was with a repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar
+in its gravity and intentness.
+
+The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her
+father received with a smile that almost made one his friend--it was
+so glad and gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with
+as much earnestness as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who
+has served him, but is yet a stranger; he also begged him to call the
+next day.
+
+"Papa," said a voice from the veiled couch, "thank the lady, too; is
+she there?"
+
+I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now
+at comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was
+delicately designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I
+believe custom might prove it to be soft.
+
+"I thank the lady very sincerely," said her father: "I fancy she has
+been very good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst
+who has been her substitute and done her work; she will feel at once
+ashamed and jealous."
+
+And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were
+interchanged; and refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by
+us, as it was late, refused, we withdrew from the Hotel Crecy.
+
+On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness:
+the roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone--the damps, as well
+as the incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning's papers
+explained that it was but some loose drapery on which a spark had
+fallen, and which had blazed up and been quenched in a moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.
+
+
+Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the
+seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are
+liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory
+of their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably,
+perhaps, and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse--
+some congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural
+sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of
+communication--there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long
+blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and
+unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the
+visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other
+token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.
+
+Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but
+knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without
+are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which
+passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the
+wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest
+at milestones--that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and
+pants with hurry for his friends.
+
+The hermit--if he be a sensible hermit--will swallow his own thoughts,
+and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He
+will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the
+dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself,
+creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift
+which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the
+season.
+
+Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is."
+And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness
+will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of
+hedges, and carolling of birds, and singing of liberated streams, will
+call him to kindly resurrection. _Perhaps_ this may be the case,
+perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more;
+when spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his
+dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to
+be supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go
+the way of all flesh, "As well soon as syne."
+
+Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven
+weeks as bare as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on
+one of them; not a visit, not a token.
+
+About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had
+happened to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a
+beclouded point for the solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of
+long expectancy; the doubts hitherto repelled gather now to a mass
+and--strong in accumulation--roll back upon him with a force which
+savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an unkindly time, and
+sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and struggles harass
+his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of calamity,
+and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league
+against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a
+poor, pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best.
+
+Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through
+the other six I had jealously excluded--the conviction that these
+blanks were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate,
+a part of my life's lot and--above all--a matter about whose origin no
+question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever
+uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I
+had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile
+extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence,
+in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged
+them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for
+better days.
+
+I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I
+commenced an elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty
+hard, I undertook a course of regular reading of the driest and
+thickest books in the library; in all my efforts I was as orthodox as
+I knew how to be. Was there error somewhere? Very likely. I only know
+the result was as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank
+brine to quench thirst.
+
+My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
+well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
+knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
+disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that well-
+recognised ring.
+
+I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
+upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter. Oh!
+--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
+sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
+bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
+hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
+sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it
+like a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at
+my heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--
+the well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness
+in life I had to look for.
+
+In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
+the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
+month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
+was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every
+evening for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches
+to light it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and
+feasted on my crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me:
+I pined on it, and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.
+
+Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
+read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were
+losing all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves
+before my eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a
+quick tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step:
+she had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would
+come here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.
+
+Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
+her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
+drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
+recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
+humour seemed none of the best.
+
+"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people," she began.
+
+"Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house
+charming?"
+
+"I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley's."
+
+"Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?"
+
+"My uncle de Bassompierre is come."
+
+"Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?--I thought he was a
+favourite."
+
+"You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him."
+
+"Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?"
+
+"He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and
+had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a
+foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have
+left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man
+now."
+
+"Do you hate him for that reason?"
+
+"Don't I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but
+married mamma's sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt
+Ginevra with unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!"
+she went on. "I'll go no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into
+a room alone, and a great man fifty years old coming forwards, and
+after a few minutes' conversation actually turning his back upon me,
+and then abruptly going out of the room. Such odd ways! I daresay his
+conscience smote him, for they all say at home I am the picture of
+aunt Ginevra. Mamma often declares the likeness is quite ridiculous."
+
+"Were you the only visitor?"
+
+"The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little
+spoiled, pampered thing."
+
+"M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?"
+
+"Yes, yes: don't tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired."
+
+She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, "It
+seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the
+theatre some weeks ago."
+
+"Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crecy?"
+
+"Justement. How do _you_ know?"
+
+"I have been there."
+
+"Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose
+Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the _entree_ of
+the de Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy
+on the occasion of her accident--Accident? Bah! All affectation! I
+don't think she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her
+airs. And now there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something
+about 'auld lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!"
+
+"_All!_ You said you were the only visitor."
+
+"Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her
+boy."
+
+"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"
+
+"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
+conceited doll it is!"
+
+Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the
+causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of
+incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention
+coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She
+lay fuming in the vapours.
+
+"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.
+
+"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
+and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see
+the old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
+prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite
+sickening."
+
+"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been
+changed: if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."
+
+"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"
+
+"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
+mother never calls him so."
+
+"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."
+
+"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience
+is now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from
+that bed, and vacate this room."
+
+"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
+what always makes you so mighty testy a l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
+Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"
+
+Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly
+to have given vent--for there was no contending with that
+unsubstantial feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my
+taper, locked my bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me.
+Small-beer as she was, she had turned insufferably acid.
+
+The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
+withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
+nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
+spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
+would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
+lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
+me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
+entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
+so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and
+east owned a terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all
+sorrow sadder. The south could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless,
+indeed, they brought on their wings the burden of thunder-clouds,
+under the weight and warmth of which all energy died.
+
+Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the
+classe, and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long
+garden, and then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn
+hope that the postman's ring might occur while I was out of hearing,
+and I might thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or
+nerves, almost gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed
+idea, were becoming wholly unfit to support. I lingered as long as I
+dared without fear of attracting attention by my absence. I muffled my
+head in my apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing
+clang, sure to be followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum
+for me. At last I ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it
+was not yet nine o'clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing
+seen was a white object on my black desk, a white, flat object. The
+post had, indeed, arrived; by me unheard. Rosine had visited my cell,
+and, like some angel, had left behind her a bright token of her
+presence. That shining thing on the desk was indeed a letter, a real
+letter; I saw so much at the distance of three yards, and as I had but
+one correspondent on earth, from that one it must come. He remembered
+me yet. How deep a pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart.
+
+Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but
+almost certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on
+the contrary, an autograph for the moment deemed unknown--a pale
+female scrawl, instead of a firm, masculine character. I then thought
+fate was _too_ hard for me, and I said, audibly, "This is cruel."
+
+But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs:
+our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of
+what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be
+quite silenced.
+
+I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as
+perfectly familiar. It was dated "La Terrasse," and it ran thus:--
+
+"DEAR LUCY,--It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with
+yourself for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have
+the least difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I
+daresay you have been just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La
+Terrasse. As to Graham, his professional connection extends daily: he
+is so much sought after, so much engaged, that I tell him he will grow
+quite conceited. Like a right good mother, as I am, I do my best to
+keep him down: no flattery does he get from me, as you know. And yet,
+Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother's heart dances at the sight of
+him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and passing the
+ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices,
+and sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings--perhaps, occasionally, as I
+tell him, inflicting them--at night he still comes home to me in such
+kindly, pleasant mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral
+antipodes, and on these January evenings my day rises when other
+people's night sets in.
+
+"Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and
+I do him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such
+thing as vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him
+to the sullens, he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you
+know him and all his iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to
+make him the subject of this epistle.
+
+"As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have
+been plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to
+regain for Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He
+laughs to scorn my anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how
+he can provide for himself and me too, and asking what the old lady
+can possibly want that she has not; hinting about sky-blue turbans;
+accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, keep livery servants,
+have an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English clan in
+Villette.
+
+"Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other
+evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his
+tea, he threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To
+my great delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about
+being drowsy; I, who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.)
+While he slept, I thought he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to
+be so proud of him; but who can help it? Show me his peer. Look where
+I will, I see nothing like him in Villette. Well, I took it into my
+head to play him a trick: so I brought out the sky-blue turban, and
+handling it with gingerly precaution, I managed to invest his brows
+with this grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all misbecome
+him; he looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody,
+however, can accuse him of having red hair _now_--it is genuine
+chestnut--a dark, glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere
+about him, there was as fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as
+you would wish to see.
+
+"It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone:
+you should have been there.
+
+"In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon
+intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under
+threat and dread of vengeance.
+
+"But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a half-
+holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the afternoon,
+at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La Terrasse.
+Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by, my wise,
+dear, grave little god-daughter.--Very truly yours,
+
+"LOUISA BRETTON.".
+
+Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after
+reading that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered,
+perhaps, but relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no
+accident had occurred to Graham; no illness had seized his mother-
+calamities that had so long been my dream and thought. Their feelings
+for me too were--as they had been. Yet, how strange it was to look on
+Mrs: Bretton's seven weeks and contrast them with my seven weeks!
+Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional position
+to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position galls
+them! The world can understand well enough the process of perishing
+for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or follow out
+that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the long-buried
+prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!--how his senses left him--
+how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and then
+sunk to palsy--is a subject too intricate for examination, too
+abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might almost as
+well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings
+in that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial
+hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may
+the minds to whom such themes are no mystery--by whom their bearings
+are sympathetically seized--be few in number, and rare of rencounter.
+Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit
+compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When the world was younger
+and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper mystery still: perhaps
+in all the land of Israel there was but one Saul--certainly but one
+David to soothe or comprehend him.
+
+The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day,
+by a sharp breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over
+the temperate zone, and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and
+thick with snow, sailed up from the north, and settled over expectant
+Europe. Towards afternoon began the descent. I feared no carriage
+would come, the white tempest raged so dense and wild. But trust my
+godmother! Once having asked, she would have her guest. About six
+o'clock I was lifted from the carriage over the already blocked-up
+front steps of the chateau, and put in at the door of La Terrasse.
+
+Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room,
+there I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been
+twice as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have
+warmed me. Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards,
+black benches, desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me
+gorgeous. In its Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and
+crimson splendour which quite dazzled me.
+
+When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted
+with me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last
+saw me, she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my
+hair, and sent me up-stairs to make it neat and remove my shawl.
+
+Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright
+fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the
+great looking glass; but between the candles, and before the glass,
+appeared something dressing itself--an airy, fairy thing--small,
+slight, white--a winter spirit.
+
+I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral
+illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new
+vision. It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its
+girdle was red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining--a
+little wreath with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was
+nothing frightful, and I advanced.
+
+Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over
+me, the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened
+with their pencilling the orb they guarded.
+
+"Ah! you are come!" she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she
+smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
+
+I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that
+cast of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
+
+"Miss de Bassompierre," I pronounced.
+
+"No," was the reply, "not Miss de Bassompierre for _you!_" I did
+not inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
+
+"You are changed, but still you are yourself," she said, approaching
+nearer. "I remember you well--your countenance, the colour of your
+hair, the outline of your face...."
+
+I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me;
+and as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive
+of thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear
+vision.
+
+"It makes me almost cry to look so far back," said she: "but as to
+being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am
+quite pleased and glad."
+
+Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I
+stammered, "I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago,
+when you were hurt...?"
+
+She smiled. "You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee,
+been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer
+remember the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as
+I was, to your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the
+comfort and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back
+to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home."
+
+At last I saw it all. "And you are little Polly?"
+
+"I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre."
+
+How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features,
+her fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of
+interest and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful--not with
+the beauty that strikes the eye like a rose--orbed, ruddy, and
+replete; not with the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her
+blond cousin Ginevra; but her seventeen years had brought her a
+refined and tender charm which did not lie in complexion, though hers
+was fair and clear; nor in outline, though her features were sweet,
+and her limbs perfectly turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow
+from the soul outward. This was not an opaque vase, of material
+however costly, but a lamp chastely lucent, guarding from extinction,
+yet not hiding from worship, a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of
+her attractions, I would not exaggerate language; but, indeed, they
+seemed to me very real and engaging. What though all was on a small
+scale, it was the perfume which gave this white violet distinction,
+and made it superior to the broadest camelia--the fullest dahlia that
+ever bloomed.
+
+"Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?"
+
+"Better," said she, "better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with
+minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and
+the hours of the days."
+
+"You must have forgotten some things?"
+
+"Very little, I imagine."
+
+"You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere
+this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief,
+affection and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago."
+
+"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked
+them when a child?"
+
+"The sharpness must be gone--the point, the poignancy--the deep
+imprint must be softened away and effaced?"
+
+"I have a good memory for those days."
+
+She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can
+remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose
+youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and
+incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on
+another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement,
+and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I
+could not quite admit the conviction that _all_ the pictures
+which now crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond
+attachments, her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the
+patient, true devotion of her child's heart, her fears, her delicate
+reserves, her little trials, the last piercing pain of separation....
+I retraced these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted.
+"The child of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen," said
+she.
+
+"You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton," I remarked,
+intending to test her. She set me right at once.
+
+"Not _excessively_ fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her
+as I should do now: she seems to me very little altered."
+
+"She is not much changed," I assented.
+
+We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, "There
+are several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that
+pincushion and that looking-glass."
+
+Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not,
+at least, so far.
+
+"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.
+
+"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive
+complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."
+
+"Dr. Bretton, of course," I pursued, "would be out of the question:
+and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that
+he appeared to you as a stranger."
+
+"That first night I was puzzled," she answered.
+
+"How did the recognition between him and your father come about?"
+
+"They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de
+Bassompierre gave rise to questions and explanations. That was on the
+second day; but before then I was beginning to know something."
+
+"How--know something?"
+
+"Why," she said, "how strange it is that most people seem so slow to
+feel the truth--not to see, but _feel_! When Dr. Bretton had
+visited me a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had
+observed the look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the
+form of his chin, the carriage of his head, and all that we _do_
+observe in persons who approach us--how could I avoid being led by
+association to think of Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he,
+and not grown so tall, and had a smoother face, and longer and lighter
+hair, and spoke--not so deeply--more like a girl; but yet _he_ is
+Graham, just as _I_ am little Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe."
+
+I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are
+certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it
+seems a miracle when that chance befalls.
+
+"You and Graham were once playmates."
+
+"And do you remember that?" she questioned in her turn.
+
+"No doubt he will remember it also," said I.
+
+"I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find
+that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?"
+
+"Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?"
+
+"I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was
+studious; sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or
+disposed for play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not
+much heeding those with whom he read or amused himself."
+
+"Yet to you he was partial."
+
+"Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates--his school-fellows; I
+was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind
+on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary's,
+and his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still
+he was on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so
+patient with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be
+depended on, for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a
+constant fear that he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but
+he never did, nor seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it
+can be no more. I suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton's dining-out
+day....?"
+
+"Children, come down!" here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina
+would still have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
+
+
+Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our
+sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that
+evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winter-
+night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while women
+and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and imaginations
+are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons,
+forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of
+weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and
+stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the
+father, the son, the husband coming home.
+
+Father and son came at last to the chateau: for the Count de
+Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of
+our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the
+weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the
+two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance:
+both were white--two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton,
+seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen;
+prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted
+staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas
+they now affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help
+following them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and
+pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a circle about her
+equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying, "Papa, papa, you
+look like an enormous Polar bear."
+
+The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen
+shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing
+the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought,
+threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
+
+"Come, then," said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was
+playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some
+little chamois.
+
+Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten;
+her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took
+her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach
+his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving
+delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men
+_do_ look on what is the apple of their eye.
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said he: "what am I to do with this daughter or
+daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature.
+Don't you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten
+years ago?"
+
+"She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine," said Mrs.
+Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress
+she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against
+the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm's length.
+
+"Come, mamma," said he, "by way of compromise, and to secure for us
+inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup,
+and toast Old England here, on the hearth."
+
+So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced
+to and fro--happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen--Mrs.
+Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl,
+and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round,
+reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as
+Graham's christening-cup.
+
+"Here's to Auld Lang Syne!" said the Count; holding the glancing cup
+on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.--
+
+  "We twa ha' paidlet i' the burn
+      Fra morning sun till dine,
+  But seas between us braid ha' roared
+      Sin' auld lane syne.
+
+  "And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
+      And surely I'll be mine;
+  And we'll taste a cup o' kindness yet
+      For auld lang syne."
+
+"Scotch! Scotch!" cried Paulina; "papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch
+he is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and
+Gallic."
+
+"And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked
+her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in
+the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being
+quite cannie: she is a strange little mortal."
+
+"Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe."
+
+Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as
+of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying
+kindly, "he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less
+trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter's lips, and he had
+listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old
+acquaintance."
+
+Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de
+fee, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so
+profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked
+of her mortal privileges.
+
+"Let me taste," said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the
+shelf of the dresser out of her reach.
+
+Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John
+had not been unobservant of the fairy's dance; he had watched it, and
+he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the
+movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in
+his mother's house charmed him, for it set _him_ at ease: again
+she seemed a child for him--again, almost his playmate. I wondered how
+he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first
+words proved that the old days of "little Polly" had been recalled to
+his mind by this evening's child-like light-heartedness.
+
+"Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?"
+
+"I think I said so. I think I intimated as much."
+
+"Couldn't consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it,
+but couldn't do it."
+
+"Why? I am quite well now: it can't break my collar-bone again, or
+dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?"
+
+"No; nor dew."
+
+"I don't want dew; I don't like dew: but what is it?"
+
+"Ale--strong ale--old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born."
+
+"It must be curious: is it good?"
+
+"Excessively good."
+
+And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this
+mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment
+with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.
+
+"I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any
+'old October:' is it sweet?"
+
+"Perilously sweet," said Graham.
+
+She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that
+longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it
+down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste
+from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of
+pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it
+_was_ a gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the
+position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy,
+sipping lips by which its brim was courted.
+
+"A little more--a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand
+with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and
+yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your
+wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy."
+
+He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: "Don't tell my
+mother or Lucy; they wouldn't approve."
+
+"Nor do I," said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as
+she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her
+like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find
+it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath.
+Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no
+more."
+
+And, with a slight bend--careless, but as graceful as her dance--she
+glided from him and rejoined her father.
+
+I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of
+seventeen.
+
+Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye
+was on her a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not
+seem to notice him.
+
+As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father's arm:
+her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were
+dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our
+little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely
+to all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait
+or adventure.
+
+"And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then?
+And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion." Thus she drew
+him out.
+
+She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine
+sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and
+docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham
+was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke
+the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend
+responsive. I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas
+the dancing fairy and delicate dame.
+
+Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table,
+shivering and fresh from the morning's chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton
+pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity,
+should quit her house that day.
+
+Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower
+panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air
+vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall
+now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth,
+whirled round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred
+fantastic forms.
+
+The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Papa shall not go out," said she, placing a seat for herself beside
+her father's arm-chair. "I will look after him. You won't go into
+town, will you, papa?"
+
+"Ay, and No," was the answer. "If you and Mrs. Bretton are _very_
+good to me, Polly--kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a
+very nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to
+wait an hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind
+settles. But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing:
+you let me starve."
+
+"Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee," entreated
+Paulina, "whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other
+respects: since he grew into a Count, he has needed _so_ much
+attention."
+
+She separated and prepared a roll.
+
+"There, papa, are your 'pistolets' charged," said she. "And there is
+some marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at
+Bretton, and which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in
+Scotland--"
+
+"And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy--do you
+remember that?" interposed Mrs. Bretton. "Have you forgotten how you
+would come to my elbow and touch my sleeve with the whisper, 'Please,
+ma'am, something good for Graham--a little marmalade, or honey, or
+jam?"'
+
+"No, mamma," broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; "it surely
+was not so: I could not have cared for these things."
+
+"Did he or did he not, Paulina?"
+
+"He liked them," asserted Paulina.
+
+"Never blush for it, John," said Mr. Home, encouragingly. "I like them
+myself yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for
+a friend's material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of
+such good manners--nor do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a
+small slice of that tongue."
+
+"There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this
+assiduity; on condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself
+to La Terrasse for the day."
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said the Count, "I want to get rid of my daughter--to
+send her to school. Do you know of any good school?"
+
+"There is Lucy's place--Madame Beck's."
+
+"Miss Snowe is in a school?"
+
+"I am a teacher," I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of
+saying this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a
+false position. Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the
+Count and his daughter did not. They might choose to vary by some
+shades their hitherto cordial manner towards me, when aware of my
+grade in society. I spoke then readily: but a swarm of thoughts I had
+not anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, making me sigh
+involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his breakfast-plate
+for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not caught the
+words--perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature,
+politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud;
+and homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I
+have all along intimated that he was not without his share of the
+national quality. Was his a pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave
+the question undecided in its wide sense. Where it concerned me
+individually I can only answer: then, and always, he showed himself a
+true-hearted gentleman.
+
+By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his
+reflections spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing:
+in trouble and bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much
+about Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend:
+indeed his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he
+saw my walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave
+me credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight;
+he would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping,
+he still wished me well. When he did look at me, his eye was kind;
+when he did speak, his voice was benevolent.
+
+"Yours," said he, "is an arduous calling. I wish you health and
+strength to win in it--success."
+
+His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so
+composedly: she fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder--almost
+with dismay.
+
+"Are you a teacher?" cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable
+idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking:
+for me, you were always Lucy Snowe."
+
+"And what am I now?" I could not forbear inquiring.
+
+"Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?"
+
+"I really do."
+
+"And do you like it?"
+
+"Not always."
+
+"And why do you go on with it?"
+
+Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he
+only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism--prove
+yourself the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and
+look confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and
+I would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only
+smiles, so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. Well, Miss
+Snowe, why do you go on with it?"
+
+"Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get."
+
+"Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging
+to that hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your
+eccentricity."
+
+"No--no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep
+over my head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that
+while I can work for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to
+anybody."
+
+"Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy."
+
+"Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as
+you might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without
+leave; put it back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and
+receive in your ear this whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by
+experience the uncertain nature of this world's goods, I should like
+her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, that she might burden
+neither kith nor kin."
+
+"Yes, papa," said she, pensively and tractably. "But poor Lucy! I
+thought she was a rich lady, and had rich friends."
+
+"You thought like a little simpleton. _I_ never thought so. When
+I had time to consider Lucy's manner and aspect, which was not often,
+I saw she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not
+be served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience
+for which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she
+may yet bless Providence. But this school," he pursued, changing his
+tone from grave to gay: "would Madame Beck admit my Polly, do you
+think, Miss Lucy?"
+
+I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was
+fond of English pupils. "If you, sir," I added, "will but take Miss de
+Bassompierre in your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can
+answer for it that Rosine, the portress, will not be very slow in
+answering your ring; and Madame, I am sure, will put on her best pair
+of gloves to come into the salon to receive you."
+
+"In that case," responded Mr. Home, "I see no sort of necessity there
+is for delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady's
+'things' after her; Polly can settle down to her horn-book before
+night; and you, Miss Lucy, I trust, will not disdain to cast an
+occasional eye upon her, and let me know, from time to time, how she
+gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, Countess de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+The Countess hemmed and hesitated. "I thought," said she, "I thought I
+had finished my education--"
+
+"That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts I hold a
+far different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of
+your profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou
+hast much to learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he
+has done! Come, there is nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and
+the weather seems settling, and I have finished my breakfast--"
+
+"But, papa!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see an obstacle."
+
+"I don't at all."
+
+"It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you
+in your greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top."
+
+"And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?"
+
+"No! it is of too--too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss
+Lucy, warn Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me,
+because, in the end, it would turn out that she would have to take
+papa too: as he is so teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs.
+Bretton and all of you listen: About five years ago, when I was twelve
+years old, he took it into his head that he was spoiling me; that I
+was growing unfitted for the world, and I don't know what, and nothing
+would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I cried, and so
+on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and flinty,
+and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable
+manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see
+me. Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last,
+papa and I were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame
+Beck this little trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has
+to expect."
+
+Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this
+statement. As he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and
+Paulina triumphed.
+
+But she had other moods besides the arch and naive. After breakfast;
+when the two elders withdrew--I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs.
+Bretton's business matters--and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were
+for a short time alone together--all the child left her; with us, more
+nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her
+very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look,
+which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round,
+yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and less
+_mobile_.
+
+No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some
+minutes near the window, looking out at the snow; presently he,
+approached the hearth, and entered into conversation, but not quite
+with his usual ease: fit topics did not seem to rise to his lips; he
+chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and consequently
+infelicitously: he spoke vaguely of Villette--its inhabitants, its
+notable sights and buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre
+in quite womanly sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed
+wholly disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there,
+rather animated and quick than measured and stately, still recalled
+little Polly; but yet there was so fine and even a polish, so calm and
+courteous a grace, gilding and sustaining these peculiarities, that a
+less sensitive man than Graham would not have ventured to seize upon
+them as vantage points, leading to franker intimacy.
+
+Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was
+still observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks
+escaped him. He did not miss one characteristic movement, one
+hesitation in language, or one lisp in utterance. At times, in
+speaking fast, she still lisped; but coloured whenever such lapse
+occurred, and in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite as amusing
+as the slight error, repeated the word more distinctly.
+
+Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they
+conversed, the restraint on each side slackened: might the conference
+have but been prolonged, I believe it would soon have become genial:
+already to Paulina's lip and cheek returned the wreathing, dimpling
+smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct herself. And Dr. John, I
+know not how _he_ changed, but change he did. He did not grow
+gayer--no raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect--but his
+position seemed to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he
+spoke his augmented comfort in readier language, in tones more suave.
+Ten years ago this pair had always found abundance to say to each
+other; the intervening decade had not narrowed the experience or
+impoverished the intelligence of either: besides, there are certain
+natures of which the mutual influence is such, that the more they say,
+the more they have to say. For these out of association grows
+adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation.
+
+Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are
+neither to be ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he
+could leave the house there was a return. I am sure he came back--not
+for the paper, or card in his desk, which formed his ostensible
+errand--but to assure himself, by one more glance, that Paulina's
+aspect was really such as memory was bearing away: that he had not
+been viewing her somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a
+fond mistake. No! he found the impression true--rather, indeed, he
+gained than lost by this return: he took away with him a parting look
+--shy, but very soft--as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn
+could lift out of its cover of fern, or any lamb from its meadow-bed.
+
+Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both
+took out some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood
+workbox of old days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious
+mosaic, and furnished with implements of gold; the tiny and trembling
+fingers that could scarce guide the needle, though tiny still, were
+now swift and skilful: but there was the same busy knitting of the
+brow, the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick turns and
+movements--now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the
+silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust--some clinging fibre of
+thread.
+
+That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the
+winter-day had on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of
+January, so white and so bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had
+raved itself hoarse, but seemed no nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra
+Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, she would not have
+suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence just gone
+from us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the
+changes on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with
+questions and surmises--worried and oppressed me with comments and
+confidences I did not want, and longed to avoid.
+
+Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating
+glance of her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the
+impulse of coming utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my
+inclination for silence.
+
+"This will not hold long," I thought to myself; for I was not
+accustomed to find in women or girls any power of self-control, or
+strength of self-denial. As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip
+about their usually trivial secrets, their often very washy and paltry
+feelings, was a treat not to be readily foregone.
+
+The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was
+tired of sewing, and then she took a book.
+
+As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton's own
+compartment of the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton book--
+some illustrated work of natural history. Often had I seen her
+standing at Graham's side, resting that volume on his knee, and
+reading to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, begging, as a
+treat, that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched her
+keenly: here was a true test of that memory she had boasted would her
+recollections now be faithful?
+
+Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her
+face passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of
+which was a full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the
+title-page, and looked at the name written in the schoolboy hand. She
+looked at it long; nor was she satisfied with merely looking: she
+gently passed over the characters the tips of her fingers,
+accompanying the action with an unconscious but tender smile, which
+converted the touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the
+peculiarity of this little scene was, that she _said_ nothing:
+she could feel without pouring out her feelings in a flux of words.
+
+She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking
+down volume after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each.
+This done, she seated herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her
+hand, and thought, and still was mute.
+
+The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her
+father's voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at
+last. She sprang up: she was down-stairs in one second.
+
+"Papa! papa! you are not going out?"
+
+"My pet, I must go into town."
+
+"But it is too--_too_ cold, papa."
+
+And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well
+provided against the weather; and how he was going to have the
+carriage, and to be quite snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving
+that she need not fear for his comfort.
+
+"But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is
+quite dark;--you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit
+to ride."
+
+"Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her
+commands to take care of his precious health and come home early under
+my escort."
+
+"Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be
+obedient And, papa, mind to come soon, for I _shall_ watch and
+listen."
+
+The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and
+back returned the Countess, pensive and anxious.
+
+She _did_ listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in
+stillest sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She
+checked at intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted
+the night sounds: I should rather say, the night silence; for now, at
+last, the wind was fallen. The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay
+naked and pale: through the barren boughs of the avenue we could see
+it well, and note also the polar splendour of the new-year moon--an
+orb white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw also the
+return of the carriage.
+
+Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort
+of gravity that she took immediate possession of her father, as he
+entered the room; but she at once made him her entire property, led
+him to the seat of her choice, and, while softly showering round him
+honeyed words of commendation for being so good and coming home so
+soon, you would have thought it was entirely by the power of her
+little hands he was put into his chair, and settled and arranged; for
+the strong man seemed to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to
+this dominion-potent only by love.
+
+Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half
+turned when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two;
+their fingers met a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina
+remained beside her father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the
+other side of the room.
+
+It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to
+each other-almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old
+recollections; otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a
+still one that evening.
+
+After tea, Paulina's quick needle and pretty golden thimble were
+busily plied by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes
+seemed reluctant to raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-
+fringed. Graham, too, must have been tired with his day's work: he
+listened dutifully to his elders and betters, said very little
+himself, and followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina's
+thimble; as if it had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden
+head of some darting little yellow serpent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A BURIAL.
+
+
+From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
+with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
+grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
+first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that
+I was liable to frequent invitations from a chateau and a great hotel,
+respect improved into distinction.
+
+Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
+in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
+self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
+without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
+a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
+with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
+cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
+depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
+was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
+the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
+asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
+gracious sort:--
+
+"Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de coeur et de
+gre. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours ete admirable, rempli de
+zele et de discretion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
+donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant a votre choix de connaissances, j'en
+suis contente; c'est sage, digne, laudable."
+
+She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.
+
+The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
+about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
+disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
+sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
+grace.
+
+"Patience!" whispered I to myself. "Let me say nothing, but wait
+peaceably; they will come back again."
+
+And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to
+Madame's chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly
+and truly: I found them all right the next day.
+
+I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
+form of Dr. John Bretton's epistolary powers? In what light did the
+often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
+opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
+style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous
+vein, which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few
+kind words scattered here and there-not thickly, as the diamonds were
+scattered in the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in
+unfabled beds? Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?
+
+I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
+One day after she had _borrowed_ them of me (in speaking of so
+suave a little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her
+examining me with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but
+not at all malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons,
+when the pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's
+recreation; she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met
+her eye, her thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.
+
+"Il y a," said she, "quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le
+caractere Anglais."
+
+"How, Madame?"
+
+She gave a little laugh, repeating the word "how" in English.
+
+"Je ne saurais vous dire 'how;' mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idees
+a eux, en amitie, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n'est pas besoin
+de les surveiller," she added, getting up and trotting away like the
+compact little pony she was.
+
+"Then I hope," murmured I to myself, "you will graciously let alone my
+letters for the future."
+
+Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
+vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
+winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
+had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river
+on whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops
+had trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving
+my little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of
+waters far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could
+be said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my
+Ganges, and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged,
+should vanish like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a
+stoic; drops streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry
+shower, heavy and brief.
+
+But soon I said to myself, "The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
+me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
+agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."
+
+Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience
+a habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face,
+and composed its limbs with great calm.
+
+The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
+undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
+mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
+by sharp revival of regret.
+
+One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
+intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
+a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
+the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
+untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had
+been visited.
+
+This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
+discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
+ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
+casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
+inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
+understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
+ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
+had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents,
+in my eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the
+case I now saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her
+kinsman, M. Paul Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she
+was much in the habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him
+matters she broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that
+gentleman had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have
+borrowed from Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment
+comprehended that blue, yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I
+read its meaning now. _He_, I believed, was not apt to regard
+what concerned me from a fair point of view, nor to judge me with
+tolerance and candour: I had always found him severe and suspicious:
+the thought that these letters, mere friendly letters as they were,
+had fallen once, and might fall again, into his hands, jarred my very
+soul.
+
+What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
+was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
+safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?
+
+In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
+boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
+gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
+the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
+Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
+certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
+grenier would not do--but where then?
+
+While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
+was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
+pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allee defendue." One
+great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
+skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
+queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
+put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.
+
+Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
+and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
+moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a
+half deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of
+broker's shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted
+was a metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or
+bottle which might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst
+miscellaneous heaps, I found and purchased the latter article.
+
+I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
+bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
+Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
+directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
+frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed
+on hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a
+sad, lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
+controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
+induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained
+the pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.
+
+At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils
+and teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
+children in the salle-a-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
+home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
+myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
+door, into the berceau and thence into the "allee defendue."
+
+Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
+my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
+Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
+there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
+was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
+round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
+going to hide a treasure--I meant also to bury a grief. That grief
+over which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-
+sheet, must be interred.
+
+Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
+to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
+bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
+masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
+thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured
+it with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally,
+replaced the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree;
+lingering, like any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.
+
+The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
+which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
+mist, there was some quality--electrical, perhaps--which acted in
+strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in England--on
+a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping round
+heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch that
+mustering of an army with banners--that quivering of serried lances--
+that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to the dark,
+high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far otherwise, but
+strong with reinforced strength.
+
+If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
+pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters--to leave an
+encampment where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this
+change, another pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I
+had a mind to the encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to
+gain. But what road was open?--what plan available?
+
+On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
+seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
+me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly,
+to make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
+suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye:
+it took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three
+yards from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.
+
+Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
+I spoke.
+
+"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"
+
+She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
+masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.
+
+I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
+often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
+one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She
+seemed to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became
+swift. A mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
+intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that
+obstacle, I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have
+any errand to men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or
+re-appeared.
+
+This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
+one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crecy. In the old
+Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
+society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
+to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
+trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
+little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by
+yourself? You must come into the parlour."
+
+In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
+said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
+Madame Beck gives you."
+
+Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present salary--
+if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined.
+I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with
+scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect.
+I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to
+be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me.
+Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
+deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
+gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks,
+in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have
+made shirts and starved.
+
+I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
+enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
+dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
+at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
+Beck's fist classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
+in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
+qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
+made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
+any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
+understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
+children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
+herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
+been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
+all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something
+in her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had
+proceeded much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring
+neglect--she made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of
+steadiness. To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and
+told me she had no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous
+to the St. Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to
+you, there will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation.
+One thing, however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone
+with your liberty: c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every
+slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that time, with
+quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her
+rules: gratification in devoting double time, in taking double pains
+with the pupils she committed to my charge.
+
+As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I
+would not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely
+even my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable
+to her. M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this
+conjecture, blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the
+signs, the likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to
+an end, he might not approve.
+
+Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
+Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests;
+keen, intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
+pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
+life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling"
+as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion
+that others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of
+what should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown
+up; and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and
+take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-
+grey locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls:
+but she never said, "Papa, I _am_ grown up."
+
+She had different moods for different people. With her father she
+really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
+playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and
+feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant,
+but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at
+moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him.
+His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her
+answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed
+and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
+
+"My little Polly," he said once, "you live too retired a life; if you
+grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
+for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
+this? Don't you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
+partial to him?"
+
+"_Rather_, papa," echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle
+and simple tone.
+
+"And you don't like him now? What has he done?"
+
+"Nothing. Y--e--s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to
+each other."
+
+"Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
+away when he is here, and have no fear of him?"
+
+"_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think,
+papa?"
+
+"Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
+lady?"
+
+"Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
+way, and that I have no unfriendly intention."
+
+"Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
+only your whim!"
+
+"Well, I'll improve, papa."
+
+And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
+keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
+John on general topics. The attention called into her guest's face a
+pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
+softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
+the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
+Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could
+not be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.
+
+When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father's chair.
+
+"Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?"
+
+"My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
+this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
+guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
+look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
+should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
+flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
+as you lisped when you were six years old."
+
+"No, papa," interrupted she indignantly, "that can't be true."
+
+"I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton's
+question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
+Bois l'Etang, say, 'yeth,' she had been there 'theveral' times?"
+
+"Papa, you are satirical, you are mechant! I can pronounce all the
+letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you
+are very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like
+him yourself?"
+
+"To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
+good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
+in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough."
+
+"_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the
+Aberdeen accent you have?"
+
+"Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
+is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
+always succeeds well at the French."
+
+"_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
+schooling."
+
+"Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
+me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical."
+
+The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded "Miss Snowe,"
+used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
+attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
+the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
+blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
+teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat
+conventional, perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still
+the pink and pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person,
+Professor Paul Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of
+intimating his opinion that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature--
+adventurous, indocile, and audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one
+knew me it was little Paulina Mary.
+
+As I would not be Paulina's nominal and paid companion, genial and
+harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to
+join her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
+communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
+she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
+Rue Crecy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
+some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
+perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
+associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear
+child.
+
+That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
+Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was
+no longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
+hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
+surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
+Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
+manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
+more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would
+analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and
+forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not
+whether I was more amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one
+morning and whispering solemnly that he "had his eye on me: _he_
+at least would discharge the duty of a friend, and not leave me
+entirely to my own devices. My, proceedings seemed at present very
+unsettled: he did not know what to make of them: he thought his cousin
+Beck very much to blame in suffering this sort of fluttering
+inconsistency in a teacher attached to her house. What had a person
+devoted to a serious calling, that of education, to do with Counts and
+Countesses, hotels and chateaux? To him, I seemed altogether 'en
+l'air.' On his faith, he believed I went out six days in the seven."
+
+I said, "Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage
+of a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and
+the privilege was by no means exercised in excess."
+
+"Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
+Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
+'religieuses,' and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change."
+
+I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
+but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
+worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
+for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no "devouement," no
+"recueillement" in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
+or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
+mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.
+
+"He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
+revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism."
+
+I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
+silence.
+
+A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
+"juron:" he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
+word _sacre_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated,
+with the unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed
+him about two hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and
+take my German lesson in the Rue Crecy. Never was a better little man,
+in some points, than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little
+despot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our German mistress, Fraeulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
+of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
+Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
+breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
+nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
+called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial
+with her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented
+to kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive
+smack. These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably;
+still, on the whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct
+foreign girls, who hardly ever will think and study for themselves--
+who have no idea of grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by
+dint of reflection or application--our progress, which in truth was
+very leisurely, seemed to astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of
+glacial prodigies, cold, proud, and preternatural.
+
+The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
+perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
+feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
+never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
+could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
+in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
+and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its
+steelly glisten.
+
+Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while
+she half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--
+an Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of
+easier mood.
+
+A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
+Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fraeulein would
+listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice
+sounded like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of
+language, and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek
+would flush, her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or
+melt as she went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often
+recite them when we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des
+Maedchens Klage:" that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she
+found plaintive melody in the sound; the sense she would criticise.
+She murmured, as we sat over the fire one evening:--
+
+  Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurueck,
+  Ich habe genossen das irdische Glueck,
+    Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!
+
+"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
+the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme
+of mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture
+of feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have
+come nearer the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"
+
+"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
+you? What do you know about it?"
+
+She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
+
+"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
+papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
+me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am
+verging on my nineteenth year."
+
+"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no
+feelings by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said she--all in hurry and heat--"you may think to
+check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I _have_ talked
+about it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
+disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve."
+
+And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
+discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
+Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance--combined
+with some transient perverseness and petulance--I said at last,--
+
+"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
+that has near access to you would dare to do it?"
+
+"Lucy," replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me
+miserable sometimes; and I wish she would keep away--I don't want
+her."
+
+"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much."
+
+"It is--it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit
+Mrs. Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she
+begins to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all
+she has to say about love."
+
+"Oh, I have heard it," said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole,
+perhaps it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be
+regretted, it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra's mind cannot
+influence yours. You can look over both her head and her heart."
+
+"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
+happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the
+feelings and people dearest to me."
+
+"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
+counteraction of the damage done."
+
+"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She
+does not spare Mrs. Bretton--she does not spare.... Graham."
+
+"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and
+her...._love_? She does mix them, I suppose?"
+
+"Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton.
+We both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever
+mean or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her
+feet, pursuing her like her shadow. She--repulsing him with insult,
+and he imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it
+true?"
+
+"It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him
+out as still her suitor?"
+
+"She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent."
+
+"It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner
+towards Graham which your father noticed."
+
+"They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As
+Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed
+truth: I believe she exaggerates--perhaps invents--but I want to know
+how far."
+
+"Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity
+of displaying the power she boasts."
+
+"I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner,
+all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant,
+too--skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science--is among
+the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported,
+amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A---- and Z----,
+the Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put
+in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a
+word, will join you."
+
+"Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have
+the chance of justifying her character for veracity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE HOTEL CRECY.
+
+
+The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I,
+at least-had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the
+young princes of Labassecour-the eldest, I think, the Duc de
+Dindonneau, and a general holiday was given in his honour at the
+schools, and especially at the principal "Athenee," or college. The
+youth of that institution had also concocted, and were to present a
+loyal address; for which purpose they were to be assembled in the
+public building where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the
+prizes distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
+"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.
+
+Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends-the savants-being more or less
+connected with the Athenee, they were expected to attend on this
+occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
+Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
+Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
+accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
+and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
+early that we might join her.
+
+As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
+Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.
+
+"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
+her attire, and was gazing at me.
+
+"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest half-
+insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a level,
+visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."
+
+"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
+chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
+have suited me at all."
+
+"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
+undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my
+turn.
+
+"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
+here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have
+seen you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few
+governesses would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats
+you with more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and
+that proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"
+
+"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
+indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
+character."
+
+"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
+take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
+thought you, you must be a cool hand."
+
+"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a
+little hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-
+girl's crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
+therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and
+asked "what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
+confusion?"
+
+"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
+
+"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
+
+"Yes; let me take your arm."
+
+"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
+
+When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
+as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
+
+"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
+intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
+as a compliment."
+
+"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
+be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
+fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
+teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
+quite blush for your companion?"
+
+"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
+gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
+was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
+character otherwise not formed to keep.
+
+I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
+or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
+reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
+gave her.
+
+"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
+square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
+Rue Crecy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you
+are!"
+
+"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
+will let you alone."
+
+"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
+mysterious!"
+
+"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
+brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
+of my sight."
+
+"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in
+spite of me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with
+inhospitable closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the
+intruder.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
+then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."
+
+"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged,
+adhering with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito
+she had got hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now
+obtained full possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged
+to pause in the park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most
+fanciful changes on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity,
+or incredulity, her incapacity to conceive how any person not
+bolstered up by birth or wealth, not supported by some consciousness
+of name or connection, could maintain an attitude of reasonable
+integrity. As for me, it quite sufficed to my mental tranquillity that
+I was known where it imported that known I should be; the rest sat on
+me easily: pedigree, social position, and recondite intellectual
+acquisition, occupied about the same space and place in my interests
+and thoughts; they were my third-class lodgers--to whom could be
+assigned only the small sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even
+if the dining and drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to
+them, as thinking minor accommodations better suited to their
+circumstances. The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate:
+and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe
+also that I am not quite wrong in mine.
+
+There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom
+loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified
+in placing the highest value on that station and association which is
+their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
+contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
+were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
+capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
+fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
+chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
+experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
+conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
+small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
+man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.
+
+We reached the Hotel Crecy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
+her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were
+soon conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at
+a convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athenee were
+marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
+places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
+conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with
+the aristocracy and first burghers of the town.
+
+Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
+be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
+vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
+formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
+princes.
+
+The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
+was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms
+grew above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape,
+port, expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the
+blackness and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of
+brow, the blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in
+the memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost
+by this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
+confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
+head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
+of my mirth.
+
+I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
+otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
+candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
+His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
+him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
+college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither
+formalism nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed
+us, for what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads
+--I own I was not prepared.
+
+He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the
+burghers, with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed,
+choleric earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three
+divisions of the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as
+schoolboys, but as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times
+which have since come on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M.
+Emanuel's spirit seemed new to me. Who would have thought the flat and
+fat soil of Labassecour could yield political convictions and national
+feelings, such as were now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his
+opinions I need here give no special indication; yet it may be
+permitted me to say that I believed the little man not more earnest
+than right in what he said: with all his fire he was severe and
+sensible; he trampled Utopian theories under his heel; he rejected
+wild dreams with scorn;--but when he looked in the face of tyranny--
+oh, then there opened a light in his eye worth seeing; and when he
+spoke of injustice, his voice gave no uncertain sound, but reminded me
+rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at twilight from the park.
+
+I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing
+his flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as
+he eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in
+their country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud,
+ringing cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their
+favourite professor.
+
+As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
+me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered
+the words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
+reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
+restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-
+control, which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just
+then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_
+care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his
+wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his
+_naivete_. I would have praised him: I had plenty of praise in my
+heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who _has_ words at the
+right moment? I stammered some lame expressions; but was truly glad
+when other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my
+deficiency by their redundancy.
+
+A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
+had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
+the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
+Hotel Crecy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
+at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
+independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
+pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
+character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
+a French Academician, in the course of the evening.
+
+At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
+very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
+charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
+and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
+winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson
+relieved well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like
+bloom. Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat,
+but in texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate
+life of her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for
+the tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow
+of her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
+eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
+Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
+hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
+them to a high and delicate finish.
+
+Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she
+conversed modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true
+a sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more
+than once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an
+eye of proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very
+learned, but quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I
+was charmed with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct,
+the idioms true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life
+on the Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed
+Miss Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor
+in any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre
+was gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.
+
+Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
+exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
+were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
+at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
+arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
+now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
+rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
+mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
+disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
+pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
+thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
+keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
+regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the
+demand on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required:
+his manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his
+neighbour, and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined
+his notice. She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in
+very good spirits.
+
+Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
+became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
+both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
+her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
+her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
+move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
+dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
+up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
+post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
+him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while
+_he_ looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina
+charmed these thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the
+soft courtesy of her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact,
+pleased their national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to
+talk science; which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many
+subjects in letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon
+appeared that she had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure
+that though Graham stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well
+as his vision was very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered
+the conversation; I felt that the mode in which it was sustained
+suited him exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.
+
+In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
+most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
+show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader,
+there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable
+refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as
+trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit and blossom on a
+rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble
+and relaxed nature. For a little while, the blooming semblance of
+beauty may flourish round weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it
+soon fades, even in serenest sunshine. Graham would have started had
+any suggestive spirit whispered of the sinew and the stamina
+sustaining that delicate nature; but I who had known her as a child,
+knew or guessed by what a good and strong root her graces held to the
+firm soil of reality.
+
+While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
+his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by
+chance on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother
+and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home
+called "a two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as
+a tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me
+how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
+thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
+me-a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
+silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
+were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
+forms--studied both faces.
+
+Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
+since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst
+the gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
+glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
+inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the
+gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies,
+excepting myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see
+me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr.
+Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all,
+there would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with
+holding back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and
+looked so ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle.
+M. Joseph Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at
+this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-
+touch succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones
+the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
+
+"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
+glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe
+is certainly a fine girl."
+
+Of course I assented.
+
+"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"
+
+"I think there is not another as handsome."
+
+"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in
+taste, I think; or at least in judgment."
+
+"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
+god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
+our opinions would have melted into each other."
+
+He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
+shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
+solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
+Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the
+same but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station,
+would your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what
+they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously
+infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then
+mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if
+a cloud crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I
+should stand more at fault than you.
+
+Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
+heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
+others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
+more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
+calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"
+
+"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
+for the possession; yet I have it."
+
+"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
+estimate them differently?"
+
+"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
+to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in
+the room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs
+A---- and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
+A---- and Z----."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
+now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."
+
+"You don't remember her as a child?"
+
+"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."
+
+"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
+persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may,
+under certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's
+mind, revive."
+
+"That is possible enough."
+
+"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
+partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one
+of a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
+corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
+Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
+stay with mamma?"
+
+"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."
+
+"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
+I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or
+kindly about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't
+recollect me, of course?"
+
+"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
+personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."
+
+"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity.
+What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"
+
+"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."
+
+"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
+instance."
+
+"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured
+brutality."
+
+"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted
+nothing of my grace."
+
+"As little of your cruelty."
+
+"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
+inoffensive as a shadow."
+
+I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let
+me alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
+from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
+back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
+coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
+weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.
+
+"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
+deceive me, we were not foes--"
+
+"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
+definite?"
+
+"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
+Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
+nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
+in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
+horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."
+
+"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"
+
+"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
+restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
+preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
+me!"
+
+"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.
+
+"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember
+_now_. She liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."
+
+"You thought so."
+
+"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
+rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
+it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
+watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
+you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"
+
+"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
+not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt,
+too, an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
+disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
+realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
+wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
+did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
+gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me
+coaxingly, he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."
+
+And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
+enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
+part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his,
+soft, eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_
+content me, Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
+
+"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden boa-
+constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, reveur, mais vous
+ne l'etes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme a l'ame,
+l'eclair aux yeux!"
+
+"Oui; j'ai la flamme a l'ame, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
+in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was
+gone.
+
+The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
+said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he
+put his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
+
+"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
+Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe
+it is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really,
+by my word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so
+savage with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is
+frantic at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease
+him."
+
+And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
+whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
+
+Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
+Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve.
+This movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant,
+even while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed
+the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his
+whole life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he
+had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed
+action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion
+dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How
+well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he
+reached her side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering
+glance, animated, yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became
+half a blush, half a glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful:
+subdued and unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his
+ardour. I gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my
+observation--time failed me, had inclination served: the night wore
+late; Ginevra and I ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I
+rose, and bade good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
+
+I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
+acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
+was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
+of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
+Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
+whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
+_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked
+apologetic and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a
+word, nor meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never
+hitherto had I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or
+freeze before his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I
+considered unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding
+must be marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
+attendance."
+
+Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
+and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
+be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.
+
+Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
+there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.
+
+"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
+frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
+act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
+grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
+effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
+had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from
+the pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
+misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
+experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
+sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
+took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
+lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
+aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
+folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
+painting darkening the wall.
+
+Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
+still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
+nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
+uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
+thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
+is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
+an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
+M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
+Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
+denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your
+cheeks so hot as they are even now?"
+
+"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
+such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I
+again surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.
+
+"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
+forgotten my words; what were they?"
+
+"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
+
+"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid:
+permit my retractation; accord my pardon."
+
+"I am not angry, Monsieur."
+
+"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
+
+"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."
+
+"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
+alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
+
+He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
+simplicity, his earnestness?
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "Voila que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."
+
+"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
+
+"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
+you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my
+friend!"
+
+Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy
+than "_mon ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic
+and intimate affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M.
+Paul; "my friend," I could, and did say without difficulty. This
+distinction existed not for him, however, and he was quite satisfied
+with the English phrase. He smiled. You should have seen him smile,
+reader; and you should have marked the difference between his
+countenance now, and that he wore half an hour ago. I cannot affirm
+that I had ever witnessed the smile of pleasure, or content, or
+kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his eyes before. The ironic, the
+sarcastic, the disdainful, the passionately exultant, I had hundreds
+of times seen him express by what he called a smile, but any
+illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me as wholly new
+in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep lines
+left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher;
+that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood,
+became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in
+any other human face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He
+now took me to the carriage: at the same moment M. de Bassompierre
+came out with his niece.
+
+In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
+grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
+uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the carriage-
+door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something venomous
+in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or sting him,
+hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed in terms
+so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after listening for a
+while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of justice at last and
+suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I could be passionate,
+too; especially with my present fair but faulty associate, who never
+failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well that the carriage-
+wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty Choseville pavement,
+for I can assure the reader there was neither dead silence nor calm
+discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half in seeming, I
+made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set out rampant
+from the Rue Crecy; it was necessary to tame her before we reached the
+Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up her sterling
+value and high deserts; and this must be done in language of which the
+fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with the
+compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
+discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
+that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
+all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE WATCHGUARD.
+
+
+M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of
+interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to
+pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the
+teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to
+be as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.
+
+Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry"
+through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable
+estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress--on
+whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils
+out of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their
+music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the salle-a-
+manger, or some other piano-station--she would, upon her second or
+third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of
+consternation--a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled
+at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.
+
+One morning I was sitting in the carre, at work upon a piece of
+embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to
+finish, and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled
+themselves with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice
+haranguing in the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily
+more unquiet, more ominously varied. There was a good strong
+partition-wall between me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile
+means of flight through the glass-door to the court, in case it swept
+this way; so I am afraid I derived more amusement than alarm from
+these thickening symptoms. Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that
+blessed morning had she made the passage of peril; and now, for the
+fifth time, it became her dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a
+brand from the burning--a pupil from under M. Paul's nose.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried she. "Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me
+tuer, je suis sure; car il est d'une colere!"
+
+Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!" was her cry.
+
+Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this
+voice uttered itself:--
+
+"Des ce moment!--la classe est defendue. La premiere qui ouvrira cette
+porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue--fut-ce Madame Beck
+elle-meme!"
+
+Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when
+Rosine's French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the
+corridor.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into
+that classe again just now: Monsieur's lunettes are really terrible;
+and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athenee. I
+have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to
+charge you with it."
+
+"Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come,
+come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave--charge once more!"
+
+"I, Mademoiselle?--impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day.
+Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n'en puis
+plus!"
+
+"Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?"
+
+"Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered:
+an urgent summons to go directly to the Athenee, as there is an
+official visitor--inspector--I know not what--arrived, and Monsieur
+_must_ meet him: you know how he hates a _must_."
+
+Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb:
+against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt.
+However, I accepted the responsibility--not, certainly, without fear,
+but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I
+opened the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and
+quietly as a rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or
+bustling, to rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were
+aggravations of crime often more disastrous in result than the main
+crime itself. There I stood then, and there he sat; his humour was
+visibly bad--almost at its worst; he had been giving a lesson in
+arithmetic--for he gave lessons on any and every subject that struck
+his fancy--and arithmetic being a dry subject, invariably disagreed
+with him: not a pupil but trembled when he spoke of figures. He sat,
+bent above his desk: to look up at the sound of an entrance, at the
+occurrence of a direct breach of his will and law, was an effort he
+could not for the moment bring himself to make. It was quite as well:
+I thus gained time to walk up the long classe; and it suited my
+idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near burst of anger like his,
+than to bear its menace at a distance.
+
+At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of
+immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not
+do: he must hear and he must answer my message.
+
+Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated
+upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I
+ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a
+better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing
+a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow
+tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and
+receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the
+obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its
+very pupil--transfixed by the "lunettes." Rosine was right; these
+utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile
+wrath of the wearer's own unglazed eyes.
+
+I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted "lunettes"
+were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur's nose;
+accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.
+
+I am glad I was not really much afraid of him--that, indeed, close in
+his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and
+gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to
+furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such
+accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of
+his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy
+before public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the
+desk, and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the
+Professor's chair.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said he in a growl of which the music was wholly
+confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and
+seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly
+should wring from him a smile.
+
+My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux
+l'impossible, des choses inouies;" and thinking it best not to mince
+matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but
+quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating
+its urgency.
+
+Of course, he would not hear a word of it. "He would not go; he would
+not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send
+for him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the
+bidding of king, cabinet, and chambers together."
+
+I knew, however, that he _must_ go; that, talk as he would, both
+his duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance
+with the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had
+not yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.
+
+"Only Monsieur's answer to deliver to the commissionaire."
+
+He waved an impatient negative.
+
+I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim
+repose on the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his
+eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.
+
+"Ah!" he muttered, "if it came to that--if Miss Lucy meddled with his
+bonnet-grec--she might just put it on herself, turn garcon for the
+occasion, and benevolently go to the Athenee in his stead."
+
+With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel
+seemed to give me an awful nod.
+
+"I'll write a note of apology--that will do!" said he, still bent on
+evasion.
+
+Knowing well it would _not_ do, I gently pushed the bonnet
+towards his hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of
+the varnished and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-
+framed "lunettes," and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A
+score of times ere now had I seen them fall and receive no damage--
+_this_ time, as Lucy Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so
+fell that each clear pebble became a shivered and shapeless star.
+
+Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
+these "lunettes": M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
+these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as
+I picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
+through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I
+think I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not
+look the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.
+
+"La!" said he: "me voila veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle
+Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she
+trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You
+are resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!"
+
+I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and
+furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I
+had seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crecy. He was not
+angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
+clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event,
+which seemed so untoward--which I thought had ruined at once my chance
+of successful persuasion--proved my best help. Difficult of management
+so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon
+as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.
+
+Still gently railing at me as "une forte femme--une Anglaise terrible
+--une petite casse-tout"--he declared that he dared not but obey one
+who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it was
+absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire
+dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and
+taking his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon
+and encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athenee in
+first-rate humour and spirits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to
+hear that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it
+was, and I could not help it.
+
+It was his occasional custom--and a very laudable, acceptable custom,
+too--to arrive of an evening, always a l'improviste, unannounced,
+burst in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism
+over us and our occupations, cause books to be put away, work-bags to
+be brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful
+of pamphlets, substitute for the besotted "lecture pieuse," drawled by
+a sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by
+fiery action--some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the
+intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring,
+and filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a
+vital brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness
+a reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current
+literature of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or
+the last witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons
+of Paris; taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand,
+whether from tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage,
+phrase, or word, could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes
+filles." I noticed more than once, that where retrenchment without
+substitute would have left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness,
+he could, and did, improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than
+irreproachable; the dialogue--the description--he engrafted was often
+far better than that he pruned away.
+
+Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a
+"retreat," the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my
+work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it
+had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when
+finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste
+was requisite, and my fingers were busy.
+
+We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step
+familiar to each ear: the words "Voila Monsieur!" had scarcely broken
+simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as
+split it always did for his admission--such a slow word as "open" is
+inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of
+us.
+
+There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over
+the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the
+table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and
+the left; the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics;
+the idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles.
+Monsieur's habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher,
+generally Zelie St. Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her
+vacated seat; and thus avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or
+Capricorn, which, owing to his near sight, he needed.
+
+As usual, Zelie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her
+mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth--that
+strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a
+sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and
+neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose Monsieur did
+not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for
+he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his "lunettes" (he
+had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little
+oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed
+by Zelie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could
+start up to clear the way, whispered, "Ne bougez pas," and established
+himself between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my
+neighbour, and have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to
+her, "Ginevra, I wish you were at Jericho."
+
+It was easy to say, "Ne bougez pas;" but how could I help it? I must
+make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that _I_
+might recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me,
+"keeping herself warm," as she said, on the winter evenings, and
+harassing my very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me,
+indeed, sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle by way of
+protection against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be
+subjected to the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working
+materials, to clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make
+room for his person; not, however, leaving more than a yard of
+interval, just what any reasonable man would have regarded as a
+convenient, respectful allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never
+_was_ reasonable; flint and tinder that he was! he struck and
+took fire directly.
+
+"Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin," he growled: "vous vous donnez
+des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria;" he scowled. "Soit! je
+vais arranger la chose!" And he set to work.
+
+"Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!" cried he.
+
+The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then
+placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and
+carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my
+implements, he fixed himself quite at the other end.
+
+At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room
+dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle.
+As for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and
+cut off from human intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was
+quiet, and not at all unhappy.
+
+"Est ce assez de distance?" he demanded.
+
+"Monsieur en est l'arbitre," said I.
+
+"Vous savez bien que non. C'est vous qui avez cree ce vide immense:
+moi je n'y ai pas mis la main."
+
+And with this assertion he commenced the reading.
+
+For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he
+called "un drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu," he further
+announced, "de ces sots paiens, les Anglais." How far otherwise he
+would have characterized him had his temper not been upset, I scarcely
+need intimate.
+
+Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did
+I make any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its
+forlorn lapses were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or
+beseemed me to say anything: but one can occasionally _look_ the
+opinion it is forbidden to embody in words. Monsieur's lunettes being
+on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; I don't think he lost
+one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a screen, that their
+blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north pole to
+which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general
+temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under
+the vertical ray of Cancer itself.
+
+The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with
+his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
+was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
+definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered
+a sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or
+penalty for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the
+muscles about my eyes and mouth.
+
+The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water,
+was brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor's
+presence, the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
+immediately handed round.
+
+"Take your supper, ladies," said he, seeming to be occupied in making
+marginal notes to his "Williams Shackspire." They took it. I also
+accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
+my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
+bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_;
+with a certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits,
+and pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
+nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
+feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
+such as were placid and harmonious.
+
+He rose. "Will he go away without saying another word?" Yes; he turned
+to the door.
+
+No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
+pencil-case, which had been left on the table.
+
+He took it--shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
+wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.
+
+The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
+pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
+habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue
+their voices much.
+
+M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and
+I said I was making a watchguard.
+
+He asked, "For whom?" And I answered, "For a gentleman--one of my
+friends."
+
+M. Paul stooped down and proceeded--as novel-writers say, and, as was
+literally true in his case--to "hiss" into my ear some poignant words.
+
+He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
+herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
+least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a "caractere
+intraitable," and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
+possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever
+pacific and amicable intentions a person accosted me--crac! I turned
+concord to discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he--M. Paul--
+wished me well enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of;
+he might, at least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a
+neutral acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I
+behaved to him! With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of
+mutiny--what a "fougue" of injustice!
+
+Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even
+slipping in a slight interjectional observation: "Vivacities? Impetus?
+Fougue? I didn't know...."
+
+"Chut! a l'instant! There! there I went--vive comme la poudre!" He was
+sorry--he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
+peculiarity. This "emportement," this "chaleur"--generous, perhaps,
+but excessive--would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity:
+I was not--he believed, in his soul--wholly without good qualities:
+and would I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less "en
+l'air," less "coquette," less taken by show, less prone to set an
+undue value on outside excellence--to make much of the attentions of
+people remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, "des couleurs
+de poupee," "un nez plus ou moins bien fait," and an enormous amount
+of fatuity--I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary
+character. But, as it was--And here, the little man's voice was for a
+minute choked.
+
+I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
+word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
+odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.
+
+I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
+at his ease.
+
+"While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my
+anger for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change
+he had noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first
+knew me--or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of
+me from time to time--I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
+austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to
+inspire the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence
+had impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my
+bonnet, to wear 'des cols brodes,' and even to appear on one occasion
+in a _scarlet gown_--he might indeed conjecture, but, for the
+present, would not openly declare."
+
+Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
+indignant and horror-struck.
+
+"Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale
+pink to: and further subdued by black lace."
+
+"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
+one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
+talked of, _that_ was but a 'colifichet de plus.'" And he sighed
+over my degeneracy. "He could not, he was sorry to say, be so
+particular on this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact
+names of these 'babioles,' he might run into small verbal errors which
+would not fail to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily
+sudden and passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general
+terms--and in these general terms he knew he was correct--that my
+costume had of late assumed 'des facons mondaines,' which it wounded
+him to see."
+
+What "facons mondaines" he discovered in my present winter merino and
+plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked
+him, he said it was all made with too much attention to effect--and
+besides, "had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?"
+
+"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
+necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"--holding
+up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
+groan--I suppose over my levity.
+
+After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of
+the chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he
+inquired: "Whether what he had just said would have the effect of
+making me entirely detest him?"
+
+I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don't
+think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
+friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he
+turned back just to explain, "that he would not be understood to speak
+in entire condemnation of the scarlet dress" ("Pink! pink!" I threw
+in); "that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_
+rather well" (the fact was, M. Emanuel's taste in colours decidedly
+leaned to the brilliant); "only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I
+wore it, to do so in the same spirit as if its material were 'bure,'
+and its hue 'gris de poussiere.'"
+
+"And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?" I asked. "They are very
+little ones--?"
+
+"Keep them little, then," said he. "Permit them not to become full-
+blown."
+
+"And the bow, Monsieur--the bit of ribbon?"
+
+"Va pour le ruban!" was the propitious answer.
+
+And so we settled it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
+pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
+your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
+You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
+there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
+day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
+the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
+uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
+creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
+say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
+manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own
+and your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little
+man, differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with
+being too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
+coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
+your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose-
+colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
+your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
+each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
+Life's sunshine: it its a new thing to see one testily lifting his
+hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+MONSIEUR'S FETE.
+
+
+I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
+guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for
+the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its
+last watch.
+
+All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up
+before the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had
+wrought it double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit
+the particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
+appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
+little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
+fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it,
+then coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small
+box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the
+colour called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling
+blue stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my
+scissors' point certain initials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
+fete; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
+present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance
+of this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
+modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the
+latter case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and
+contrived beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many
+others, of the estimation in which--despite his partialities,
+prejudices, and irritabilities--the professor of literature was held
+by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him: he distinctly
+gave it to be understood, that he would accept neither plate nor
+jewellery. Yet he liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value,
+did not touch him: a diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with
+pomp, would have pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered
+simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man,
+not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with
+"the dayspring on high."
+
+M. Paul's fete fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
+fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
+customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
+half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping,
+or paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations
+induced a general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were
+in vogue; the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for
+something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zelie St. Pierre, on this
+particular Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in
+economical Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury;
+nay, it was remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair
+that morning; there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had
+bedewed her handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable
+perfume. Poor Zelie! It was much her wont to declare about this time,
+that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that
+she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some
+one to work for her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was
+woefully encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at
+liberty, as she said, to "gouter un peu les plaisirs." It had long
+been rumoured, that her eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's
+eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her
+perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a
+quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while the class was silently composing,
+and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of
+this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered,
+half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes
+looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible
+unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place the
+last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings
+the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and its perverted
+tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all that men and women would
+not have known--the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born
+with them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps
+brought on themselves. No calamity so accursed but M. Emanuel could
+pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged candidly; but where his
+questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where his ruthless researches
+found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could be cruel, and I
+thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen from poor
+shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the mount
+of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor living
+lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
+unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
+has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
+visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
+not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it
+was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
+righteous and needed.
+
+Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
+rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
+and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing
+in her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers
+all fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no
+bouquet. I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered,
+they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and
+perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers
+to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I
+had been so remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me:
+surely I must have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small
+knot of violets, something to win myself praise for taste,
+commendation for ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better
+than the Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of
+bloom or leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zelie smiled, well
+pleased.
+
+"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
+"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-
+house flowers!"
+
+And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.
+
+But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with
+a promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by
+other feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of
+intent. We thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically)
+had in it a friendly promise this morning; and so it had.
+
+He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
+already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
+plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M.
+Paul's all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't
+know why I should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor
+Labassecourien), he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion.
+Not by the vague folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-
+dark paletot were the outlines of his person obscured; on the
+contrary, his figure (such as it was, I don't boast of it) was well
+set off by a civilized coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold.
+The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec had vanished: bare-headed, he came
+upon us, carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. The little man
+looked well, very well; there was a clearness of amity in his blue
+eye, and a glow of good feeling on his dark complexion, which passed
+perfectly in the place of beauty: one really did not care to observe
+that his nose, though far from small, was of no particular shape, his
+cheek thin, his brow marked and square, his mouth no rose-bud: one
+accepted him as he was, and felt his presence the reverse of damping
+or insignificant.
+
+He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
+jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
+amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund, good-
+fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice he
+had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the words
+to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an irritable,
+it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place, tender beyond a
+man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little children, that
+bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would, he could not
+disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he was better
+with them than with his own sex.
+
+"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
+congratulations on the anniversary of his fete," said Mademoiselle
+Zelie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
+with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
+the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
+bowed over it.
+
+The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
+with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
+went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that
+when the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a
+blooming pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with
+such exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This
+ceremony over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence,
+expectant of a speech.
+
+I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
+unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.
+
+Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
+well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he
+kept his station behind the pile of flowers.
+
+At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
+a hollow:--
+
+"Est-ce la tout?"
+
+Mademoiselle Zelie looked round.
+
+"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.
+
+Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
+youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
+signified as much.
+
+"Est-ce la tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
+had now descended some notes lower.
+
+"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
+speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you
+that, with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
+bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
+foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
+their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
+frivolous to be honoured by her observance."
+
+"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zelie,
+when you begin."
+
+The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
+given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
+manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.
+
+A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his
+eclipse; and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing
+straight and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the
+wall opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic
+tones--
+
+"Est-ce la tout?"
+
+I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping
+into his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight
+in my own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the
+comic side of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now,
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity.
+The reader not having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss
+Snowe's character the most distant pretensions to perfection, will be
+scarcely surprised to learn that she felt too perverse to defend
+herself from any imputation the Parisienne might choose to insinuate
+and besides, M. Paul was so tragic, and took my defection so
+seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I kept, then, both my box and my
+countenance, and sat insensate as any stone.
+
+"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
+uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
+wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
+lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
+his customary "discours."
+
+I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
+it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his
+mortification or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-
+counteracted the ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce la tout?"
+
+Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
+attention was again amusingly arrested.
+
+Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
+on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
+against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
+me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
+became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
+the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
+to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
+give him ease.
+
+I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
+to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
+when I began to listen.
+
+Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which
+scathed, or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with
+fury upon "les Anglaises."
+
+Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
+handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
+nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
+stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress,
+their pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their
+insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his
+teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
+singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
+consequence, detestably ugly.
+
+"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
+with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
+you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
+pyramid"
+
+I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
+time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
+bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
+cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at last--
+fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names and
+best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
+jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
+most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
+nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zelie, and the whole class,
+became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
+how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
+struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
+cry:--
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Heros! A bas la France, la
+Fiction et les Faquins!"
+
+The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
+Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
+folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the
+victory, since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-
+humoured. With great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers;
+talked poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume,
+purity, etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes
+filles" and the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre a very full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet;
+and ended by announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy
+morning in spring, he intended to take the whole class out to
+breakfast in the country. "Such of the class, at least," he added,
+with emphasis, "as he could count amongst the number of his friends."
+
+"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
+
+"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
+flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
+and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't
+know whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess
+that _I_ did.
+
+Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
+of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
+smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that
+the box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would
+not have it so.
+
+In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
+by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well
+to secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E.,
+for Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
+foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
+schoolroom.
+
+It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
+boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of
+the week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions
+was vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe
+hanging in the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its
+horizontal grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath.
+I rather wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being
+usually locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save
+Madame Beck and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered
+still more, on approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a
+step, a chair stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.
+
+"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
+following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
+opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
+inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
+coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
+chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
+amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
+moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
+discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletot was resumed; the
+perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
+hand, culpably busy.
+
+Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was
+on the most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered
+the lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as
+my own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left
+signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I
+had never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect
+the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in
+exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next morning
+carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans
+full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out
+grammar would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a
+classic, mellow and sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would
+laughingly peep a romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the
+magazine, whence last evening's reading had been extracted. Impossible
+to doubt the source whence these treasures flowed: had there been no
+other indication, one condemning and traitor peculiarity, common to
+them all, settled the question--_they smelt of cigars_. This was
+very shocking, of course: _I_ thought so at first, and used to
+open the window with some bustle, to air my desk, and with fastidious
+finger and thumb, to hold the peccant brochures forth to the purifying
+breeze. I was cured of that formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at
+it one day, understood the inference, instantly relieved my hand of
+its burden, and, in another moment, would have thrust the same into
+the glowing stove. It chanced to be a book, on the perusal of which I
+was bent; so for once I proved as decided and quicker than himself;
+recaptured the spoil, and--having saved this volume--never hazarded a
+second. With all this, I had never yet been able to arrest in his
+visits the freakish, friendly, cigar-loving phantom.
+
+But now at last I had him: there he was--the very brownie himself; and
+there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian
+darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him.
+Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him--pleased,
+that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last
+her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn--I
+softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his
+shoulder.
+
+My heart smote me to see that--after this morning's hostility, after
+my seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings,
+and the ruffling undergone by his temper--he, all willing to forget
+and forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the
+title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat
+bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with
+gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not harming. My
+heart smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me
+what good he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my
+morning's anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.
+
+I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was
+nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour: there was
+something hardy about him.
+
+"I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers," said he,
+taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half-escaped him--
+"It is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not
+I. I often visit your desk."
+
+"Monsieur, I know it."
+
+"You find a brochure or tome now and then; but you don't read them,
+because they have passed under this?"--touching his cigar.
+
+"They have, and are no better for the process; but I read them."
+
+"Without pleasure?"
+
+"Monsieur must not be contradicted."
+
+"Do you like them, or any of them?--are they acceptable?" "Monsieur
+has seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many
+recreations as to undervalue those he provides."
+
+"I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little
+amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?"
+
+"A fatalist would say--because we cannot."
+
+"This morning," he continued, "I awoke in a bright mood, and came into
+classe happy; you spoiled my day."
+
+"No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally."
+
+"Unintentionally! No. It was my fete-day; everybody wished me
+happiness but you. The little children of the third division gave each
+her knot of violets, lisped each her congratulation:--you--nothing.
+Not a bud, leaf, whisper--not a glance. Was this unintentional?"
+
+"I meant no harm."
+
+"Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You
+would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me
+pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is
+forgotten, and the pain soothed."
+
+"I did know that it was expected: I _was_ prepared; yet I laid
+out no centimes on flowers."
+
+"It is well--you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you
+had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once 'Paul Carl Emanuel
+--je te deteste, mon garcon!'--than smile an interest, look an
+affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold I don't
+think you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I
+believe; I think your judgment is warped--that you are indifferent
+where you ought to be grateful--and perhaps devoted and infatuated,
+where you ought to be cool as your name. Don't suppose that I wish you
+to have a passion for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do
+you start for? Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is
+such a word, and there is such a thing--though not within these walls,
+thank heaven! You are no child that one should not speak of what
+exists; but I only uttered the word--the thing, I assure you, is alien
+to my whole life and views. It died in the past--in the present it
+lies buried--its grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old:
+in the future there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls
+consolation; but all will then be changed--form and feeling: the
+mortal will have put on immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but
+heaven. All I say to _you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought
+to treat Professor Paul Emanuel decently."
+
+I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.
+
+"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fete-day, and I will
+not grudge a few centimes for a small offering."
+
+"You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes,
+and I did not grudge its price."
+
+And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.
+
+"It lay ready in my lap this morning," I continued; "and if Monsieur
+had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less
+interfering--perhaps I should say, too, if _I_ had been calmer
+and wiser--I should have given it then."
+
+He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure
+circlet, pleased his eyes. I told him to open it.
+
+"My initials!" said he, indicating the letters in the lid. "Who told
+you I was called Carl David?"
+
+"A little bird, Monsieur."
+
+"Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing
+when needful.",
+
+He took out the chain--a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with
+silk and sparkling with beads. He liked that too--admired it
+artlessly, like a child.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you."
+
+"This is the thing you were working at last night?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You finished it this morning?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"And offered on my fete-day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This purpose continued as you wove it?"
+
+Again I assented.
+
+"Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion--saying,
+this part is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the
+adornment of another?"
+
+"By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just."
+
+"This object is _all_ mine?"
+
+"That object is yours entirely."
+
+Straightway Monsieur opened his paletot, arranged the guard splendidly
+across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he
+could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought
+decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonniere--he
+was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
+others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragees" as freely as
+he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie's gifts left in my desk, I
+forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in
+these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple
+lunch consisted frequently of a "brioche," which, as often as not, to
+shared with some child of the third division.
+
+"A present c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletot;
+and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two
+volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife
+(he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were
+novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his
+censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose,
+politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good-day.
+
+"We are friends now," thought I, "till the next time we quarrel."
+
+We _might_ have quarrelled again that very same evening, but,
+wonderful to relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our
+opportunity.
+
+Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having
+seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence
+at night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he
+appeared. I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help
+greeting his arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the
+same seat about which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly
+arisen, I took good care not to make too much room for him; he watched
+with a jealous, side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I
+did not, though the bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early
+impulse to recoil from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletot and bonnet-
+grec, the neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer
+uncomfortable or very formidable. I did not now sit restrained,
+"asphyxiee" (as he used to say) at his side; I stirred when I wished
+to stir, coughed when it was necessary, even yawned when I was tired--
+did, in short, what I pleased, blindly reliant upon his indulgence.
+Nor did my temerity, this evening at least, meet the punishment it
+perhaps merited; he was both indulgent and good-natured; not a cross
+glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty word left his lips. Till the
+very close of the evening, he did not indeed address me at all, yet I
+felt, somehow, that he was full of friendliness. Silence is of
+different kinds, and breathes different meanings; no words could
+inspire a pleasanter content than did M. Paul's worldless presence.
+When the tray came in, and the bustle of supper commenced, he just
+said, as he retired, that he wished me a good night and sweet dreams;
+and a good night and sweet dreams I had.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+M. PAUL.
+
+
+Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly
+conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that
+day M. Paul became a changed character--easy to live with, and no
+longer apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.
+
+No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When over-
+wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and,
+besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the
+essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the
+heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment whose seat is in the head.
+
+I used to think, as I Sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting
+his brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had
+not as many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a
+knot of blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had
+points of resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.
+
+In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
+Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women,
+would have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and
+recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling
+himself about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty
+Madame de Staels, if, they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or
+opposed him.
+
+I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache--a
+lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history.
+She was clever--that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides,
+thoroughly possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of
+words and confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal
+appearance was far from destitute of advantages; I believe many people
+would have pronounced her "a fine woman;" and yet there were points in
+her robust and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and
+demonstrative presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious
+tastes of M. Paul could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing
+through the carre, would put him into a strange taking; her long free
+step--almost stride--along the corridor, would often make him snatch
+up his papers and decamp on the instant.
+
+With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her
+class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it
+differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less
+courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he
+expected submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid
+opposition, accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly
+unjustifiable interference.
+
+Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he
+threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a
+Penthesilea, picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the
+intermeddler's face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M.
+Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of
+fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his
+fair foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, M.
+Paul detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his
+earnest fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to
+rest peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or
+even serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of
+the establishment. The Professor conquered, but I cannot say that the
+laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I
+ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might
+be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men
+or women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame
+Panache was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an
+unspeakable and active aversion impelled him to a war of
+extermination.
+
+Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with
+reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of
+employment, he forgot his hatred, and alike active in good and evil,
+he moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming
+to make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness,
+the old voice--a little loud--the old manner--a little forward--so
+acted upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or
+rather himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.
+
+To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an
+eager grasp after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a
+man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist;
+it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him
+that his requirements went beyond reason--that his absolutism verged
+on tyranny.
+
+The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing
+within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even
+disturbed him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held
+back his hand--perhaps said, "Come on if you have strength," but would
+not aid the birth.
+
+When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
+breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
+when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
+yet offer to foster.
+
+"Prove yourself true ere I cherish you," was his ordinance; and how
+difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
+strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
+tearlessly--ordeals that he exacted should be passed through--
+fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached the
+bourne, were sometimes marked in blood--followed them grimly, holding
+the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And when at
+last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he
+opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed
+deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart,
+to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest
+forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at
+last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him
+suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he
+was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the
+health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied and
+endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed
+to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded
+silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
+
+I speak not ignorant of these evils.
+
+Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been
+my professor--he had not given me lessons, but about that time,
+accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some
+branch of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have
+disgraced a charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me
+in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly
+deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks.
+
+He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed
+exultation, condescending to say that he believed I was "bonne et pas
+trop faible" (i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of
+parts), but, owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, "as yet in a
+state of wretchedly imperfect mental development."
+
+The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a
+preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common
+acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A
+depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have
+turned in life.
+
+So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
+forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty
+humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can
+hardly do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes
+would moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened
+as he was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation
+to give to me.
+
+But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
+yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free,
+and my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
+trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
+kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam
+to a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more
+I did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of
+which the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then
+flowed out the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I
+was vaguely threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed
+the limits proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for
+unfeminine knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it
+joyed me by any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in
+the abstract--the godlike thirst after discovery--these feelings were
+known to me but by briefest flashes.
+
+Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
+his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes--it imparted a strong
+stimulus--it gave wings to aspiration.
+
+In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
+uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
+warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
+Whatever my powers--feminine or the contrary--God had given them, and
+I felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.
+
+The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's
+affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he
+would insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he
+called "faible"--that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false
+incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the
+most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that
+I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard of--
+and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down in
+a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus.
+
+Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him--I
+rose against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I
+filled my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his
+feet.
+
+"Take them away, M. Paul," I said, "and teach me no more. I never
+asked to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly
+that learning is not happiness."
+
+And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
+to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
+affection had been very sweet and dear--a pleasure new and
+incomparable: now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his
+lessons.
+
+The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
+careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He
+made his peace somehow--too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood
+out longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand
+with amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
+moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!
+
+On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
+attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
+before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
+delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
+steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
+presence, stand "carrement" before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
+rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words,
+"Qu'il est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux--
+quel regard! Tenez! J'en ai le coeur tout emu!"
+
+When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered "cette
+fille effrontee, cette creature sans pudeur," to address me in such
+terms.
+
+I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
+Rosine--a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and
+reserve were not largely developed--was in the constant habit of
+using. Besides, what she said about the young doctor was true enough.
+Graham _was_ handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling: glance.
+An observation to that effect actually formed itself into sound on my
+lips.
+
+"Elle ne dit que la verite," I said.
+
+"Ah! vous trouvez?"
+
+"Mais, sans doute."
+
+The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
+very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released, pupils
+rushed out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A
+mandate to remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air
+sadly--the stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable
+voice merely recommended silence; and this salamander--for whom no
+room ever seemed too hot--sitting down between my desk and the stove--
+a situation in which he ought to have felt broiled, but did not--
+proceeded to confront me with--a Greek quotation!
+
+In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both
+Greek and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if
+they would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in
+fear of its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a
+fund of knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to
+conceal. The privileges of a "classical education," it was insinuated,
+had been mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store,
+hived in memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily
+nurtured my wits.
+
+A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret--to
+wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
+Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's
+jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait
+for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
+and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic
+tones fell musically from his lips--for he had a good voice--
+remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he
+would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was
+evident he sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never
+occurred, however; not comprehending, of course I could neither be
+charmed nor annoyed.
+
+Baffled--almost angry--he still clung to his fixed idea; my
+susceptibilities were pronounced marble--my face a mask. It appeared
+as if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me
+for what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort;
+if not made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for
+themselves.
+
+At moments I _did_ wish that his suspicions had been better
+founded. There were times when I would have given my right hand to
+possess the treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign
+punishment for his testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing
+home to him his worst apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could
+have exulted to burst on his vision, confront and confound his
+"lunettes," one blaze of acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to
+make me clever while I was young enough to learn, that I might, by one
+grand, sudden, inhuman revelation--one cold, cruel, overwhelming
+triumph--have for ever crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl
+David Emanuel!
+
+Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
+fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.
+
+"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
+of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
+accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
+creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
+the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
+passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
+and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
+mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?
+
+This "hein?" was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
+contradiction or objection. However, I only said--"Cela ne me regarde
+pas: je ne m'en soucie pas;" and presently added--"May I go, Monsieur?
+They have rung the bell for the second dejeuner" (_i.e._ luncheon).
+
+"What of that? You are not hungry?"
+
+"Indeed I was," I said; "I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
+and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell."
+
+"Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him."
+
+And he broke in two the "brioche" intended for his own refreshment,
+and gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the
+really formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I
+could not forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of
+which he accused me.
+
+"Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?" he asked, in a
+softened tone.
+
+If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
+would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
+the spot, but I answered--
+
+"Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
+me, but I _sometimes_, not _always_, feel a knowledge of my
+own."
+
+"What did I mean?" he inquired, sharply.
+
+Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
+subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche feeling sure that
+on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
+indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
+apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
+not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
+said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
+run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
+believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
+baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
+a glass or two of vin blanc--might I go?
+
+"Petite gourmande!" said he, smiling, "I have not forgotten how
+pleased you were with the pate a la creme I once gave you, and you
+know very well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will
+be the same as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back
+quickly."
+
+And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and
+return with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and
+then to vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future
+settlement.
+
+That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
+scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and
+fixed me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from
+my hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered
+me to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I
+suppose, by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery.
+All he had yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying
+nothing: not so of the present attack.
+
+It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
+afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
+engage--foreigner as I was--to take my place on the first form of
+first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French,
+on any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar
+or lexicon.
+
+I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
+nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
+a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not
+under the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or
+the recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one
+evidence of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that
+Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the most
+maddening of masters (him before me always excepted)--a deity which
+sometimes, under circumstances--apparently propitious, would not speak
+when questioned, would not hear when appealed to, would not, when
+sought, be found; but would stand, all cold, all indurated, all
+granite, a dark Baal with carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast
+like the stone face of a tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some
+sound, some long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an
+unseen stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake
+unsolicited, would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal
+like a perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice,
+whatever the hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath,
+whatever the circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously
+promising vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum
+of oracles, but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds,
+and grudging to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--
+yielding it sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the
+deathless ichor of its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel
+into bondage, and make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade,
+between a Mathilde and a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for
+the pleasure, and to the inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!
+
+Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
+battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
+repulse.
+
+On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
+sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable."
+I feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or
+not? Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me
+good to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one
+minute he paused to take breath.
+
+"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"
+
+"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
+compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
+write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."
+
+"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
+sake?"
+
+"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
+had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would
+harass me thus."
+
+He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
+his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
+there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
+form it was not for him to make use.
+
+"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois
+d'ici," said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately
+arming for the effort."
+
+"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
+hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."
+
+And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
+to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.
+
+"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away;
+_he_ was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I
+suffer, thoroughly screened by his person?"
+
+"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
+history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
+and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step
+to the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
+thirsty?"
+
+"If that was all, he would do my errand."
+
+He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
+behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
+prey had escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DRYAD.
+
+
+The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
+This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for
+many others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this
+time left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid
+days.
+
+One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
+the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
+refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
+down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
+
+Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
+watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
+foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
+entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
+centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
+and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
+
+My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
+in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
+a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
+she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
+between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers,
+and the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul
+was not of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl
+with him ere now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to
+judge, she seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an
+indulgent guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through
+his, and hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had
+struck through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the
+family of presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell
+upon it. While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and
+following the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly
+dressed, for she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the
+glancing leaves of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they
+closed; my lassitude, the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and
+birds, all lulled me, and at last I slept.
+
+Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight
+behind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees
+had gone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests,
+too, had vanished; each alley was void.
+
+On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have been
+after sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were
+not benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of
+the bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,
+carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (both
+taken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round
+me.
+
+Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of
+the pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of
+them had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?
+Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have
+heard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?
+
+As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at
+all, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had
+meddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; she
+has come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. She
+considers me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which it
+was hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"
+methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very
+chill."
+
+So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.
+
+I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have
+hardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious
+illusion of vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place
+some months ago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey
+crown of Jean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet
+vanished into their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-
+ivy. I paced up and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had
+pondered that night when I buried my glass jar--how I should make some
+advance in life, take another step towards an independent position;
+for this train of reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by
+me been wholly abandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from
+me, and a certain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice,
+into that track of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little
+by little, I had laid half a plan.
+
+"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town of
+Villette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are in
+dear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and less
+emulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite
+as homely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a
+prudently chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved
+one thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and
+two or three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and
+desks, a black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and
+table, with a sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-
+pupils, and so work my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as
+I have often heard her say--from no higher starting-point, and where
+is she now? All these premises and this garden are hers, bought with
+her money; she has a competency already secured for old age, and a
+flourishing establishment under her direction, which will furnish a
+career for her children.
+
+"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady
+exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not
+to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks
+interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,
+by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is
+there nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearer
+to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me
+better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at
+whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism,
+and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for
+others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so
+rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a
+huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see
+that a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on
+conditions of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be
+of the few favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine
+sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all;
+neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust
+while I weep."
+
+So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts
+bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is
+a poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items,
+and sets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Call
+anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong
+characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to
+Doom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written
+"pain;" and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass,
+or accept the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the
+strongest--if the darkest angel of God's host--water, when he has
+asked blood--will he take it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I
+settled another account.
+
+Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--and
+leaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone
+sealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of
+feeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for
+him; my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was
+become of that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and
+half life; only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?
+
+Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I
+thought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth,
+and of hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.
+
+Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would
+occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with
+Dr. John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice
+still kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so
+well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity,
+this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part
+of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his
+mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness
+the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their
+perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is
+the sweetbriar enamoured of the air?
+
+"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are
+not mine. Good-night, and God bless you!"
+
+Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heard
+the words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.
+
+"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarce
+set; I hope you slept well?"
+
+I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and
+speaker.
+
+"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"
+
+"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,
+and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"
+
+"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen, gift-
+bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how I
+fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."
+
+"Did the shawls keep you warm?"
+
+"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"
+
+"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"
+
+"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."
+
+"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,
+Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very
+faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,
+and keeping down."
+
+This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the most
+habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of
+it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not
+trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been
+gone had I left him nothing to "keep down."
+
+"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well
+for you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I
+watch you and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and
+oftener than you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in
+it?"
+
+He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.
+
+"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for a study--
+virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read for hours
+together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; its contents
+are human nature--female human nature. I know you all by heart. Ah! I
+know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cette maitresse-femme, my
+cousin Beck herself."
+
+"It is not right, Monsieur."
+
+"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin
+or Luther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich
+father (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a year
+in a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and
+sometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was a
+good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. I
+retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they not
+aided me!"
+
+"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."
+
+"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. You
+know the St. Pierre?"
+
+"Partially."
+
+He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know
+her _thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me
+the amiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned
+on me. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against
+my reason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young,
+or knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art
+of dressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which
+spared me the pain of embarrassment--"
+
+"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you
+embarrassed in my life."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite
+pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"
+
+"Monsieur, I never saw it."
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."
+
+"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,
+before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in
+the third division."
+
+"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and
+publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it
+quite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into
+action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.
+If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may
+spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at
+the thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could
+look upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved
+that I am as I say--modest"
+
+I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a
+sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.
+
+"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voice
+had altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I
+don't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little
+lattice with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery
+hast thou wrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her
+vanities, her levities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed
+what bucklers me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zelie."
+
+"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunes
+filles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp like
+boys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the
+trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early
+preference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched
+her well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you
+recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of
+white violets when we were strangers?"
+
+"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."
+
+"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without
+prudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when
+it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return.
+Not only did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--
+another guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after
+night my cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly
+pursued your movements when you did not see her."
+
+"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see
+what passed in this garden at night?"
+
+"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but the
+garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a
+door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of
+that door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This
+afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again
+this evening I have availed myself of the same entrance."
+
+I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, how
+terrible would all this be!"
+
+His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the
+subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a
+tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour
+was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often
+lectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speak
+my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his Jesuit-
+system.
+
+"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming
+and going by stealth degrades your own dignity."
+
+"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble my
+head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' How
+often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in
+trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,
+scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with
+such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a
+third-rate London actor."
+
+"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a
+wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human
+heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.
+I wish you were a Protestant."
+
+Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet
+thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen other
+things."
+
+"What other things?"
+
+Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the
+shrubs, where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
+
+"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you
+and me?"
+
+He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I
+have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me
+watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."
+
+The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
+
+"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye
+just winking itself out?"
+
+"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it
+is time to go in."
+
+"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only
+this question."
+
+Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk
+had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the
+trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too
+much absorbed to be sensible of the change.
+
+"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"
+
+"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst
+Protestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do
+you ask such a question?"
+
+"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"
+
+"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such
+subjects. I dislike it the more because--"
+
+"You believe?"
+
+"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"
+
+"Since you came here?"
+
+"Yes; not many months ago."
+
+"Here?--in this house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
+conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
+choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
+strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are alike--
+there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when you
+look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
+mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
+of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
+perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
+you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
+mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
+knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
+But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too,
+have had my 'impressions.'"
+
+"Monsieur, tell me them."
+
+"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
+house and garden?"
+
+"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
+here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
+bears us."
+
+"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."
+
+"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"
+
+"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this
+house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I
+have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its
+conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to
+any other living being. A nun!"
+
+"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."
+
+"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
+that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
+as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
+has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"
+
+Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
+the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--
+the high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its
+boughs on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
+inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had
+swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and
+crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,
+and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood
+still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and
+heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more
+solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the
+boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?
+What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell
+rang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there
+came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a
+sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the very
+NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of
+stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing;
+the rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE FIRST LETTER.
+
+
+Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my
+intercourse with the sumptuous Hotel Crecy? That intercourse had, for
+an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre
+had been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and
+capital of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly
+after it took place.
+
+I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering
+slowly on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not
+unpleasing, when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if
+they had just encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of
+the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged
+gentleman and young lady, on the other--a young and handsome man. Very
+graceful was the lady's mien, choice her appointments, delicate and
+stately her whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known
+to me, and, drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the
+Count Home de Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.
+
+How animated was Graham's face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring
+the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the
+combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to
+subdue and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of
+great price and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in
+appreciating the gem, could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina
+with the same youth, beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded,
+and in simple attire, a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would
+have thought her a pretty little creature, and would have loved with
+his eye her movements and her mien, but it required other than this to
+conquer him as he was now vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion
+as now, without loss, and even with gain to his manly honour, one saw
+that he was reduced; there was about Dr. John all the man of the
+world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve--the
+world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and
+futile. In his victrix he required all that was here visible--the
+imprint of high cultivation, the consecration of a careful and
+authoritative protection, the adjuncts that Fashion decrees, Wealth
+purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these conditions his spirit
+stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to the utmost fulfilled;
+and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did homage to Paulina as
+his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling, rather than of
+conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.
+
+They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he
+skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome;
+mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.
+
+"Papa, there is Lucy!" cried a musical, friendly voice. "Lucy, dear
+Lucy--_do_ come here!"
+
+I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her
+saddle to kiss me.
+
+"I was coming to see you to-morrow," said she; "but now to-morrow you
+will come and see me."
+
+She named the hour, and I promised compliance.
+
+The morrow's evening found me with her--she and I shut into her own
+room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were
+brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so
+signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the
+interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tete-a-
+tete, a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear
+soft voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My
+own attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she
+herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up
+her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an
+abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed--a restless
+silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in
+a diffident, half-appealing voice--"Lucy--"
+
+"Well, I am at your side."
+
+"Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck's?"
+
+"Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her."
+
+"No--not much."
+
+"You want to invite her to spend another evening?"
+
+"No... I suppose she still talks about being married?"
+
+"Not to any one you care for."
+
+"But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have
+changed her mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months
+ago."
+
+"Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they
+stood."
+
+"There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she
+seem unhappy?"
+
+"Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or
+from. Graham during your absence?"
+
+"Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He
+undertook the management of some affair which required attention while
+we were away. Dr. Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure
+in obliging him."
+
+"Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to
+judge from his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious
+about his health?"
+
+"Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is
+not particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of
+other things than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr.
+Bretton rode away, `Really it does a man good to see the spirit and
+energy of that boy.' He called Dr. Bretton a boy; I believe he almost
+thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little girl; he was not speaking
+to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy...."
+
+Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her
+chair, and came and sat on the stool at my feet.
+
+I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my
+acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it
+for once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina
+only what was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard
+for her lay deep. An admiration more superficial might have been more
+demonstrative; mine, however, was quiet.
+
+"What have you to ask of Lucy?" said I; "be brave, and speak out"
+
+But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and
+there was no coolness on her cheek--not a transient surface-blush, but
+a gathering inward excitement raised its tint and its temperature.
+
+"Lucy, I _do_ wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do,
+_do_ give me your real opinion of his character, his disposition."
+
+"His character stands high, and deservedly high."
+
+"And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition," she urged; "you
+know him well."
+
+"I know him pretty well."
+
+"You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of
+him as a son."
+
+"He is a fine-hearted son; his mother's comfort and hope, her pride
+and pleasure."
+
+She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a
+little caressing stroke.
+
+"In what other way is he good, Lucy?"
+
+"Dr. Bretton is benevolent--humanely disposed towards all his race,
+Dr. Bretton would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst
+criminal."
+
+"I heard some gentlemen, some of papa's friends, who were talking
+about him, say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the
+hospitals, who tremble before some pitiless and selfish surgeons,
+welcome him."
+
+"They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a
+hospital; I saw how he was received: your father's friends are right."
+
+The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She
+had yet more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk
+was beginning to reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight
+ruddiness; but I thought she wished the room dimmer, the hour later.
+
+"How quiet and secluded we feel here!" I remarked, to reassure her.
+
+"Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to
+tea; papa is dining out."
+
+Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously,
+dressed them, now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine
+of her beautiful hair; she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and
+at last, having cleared a voice that was naturally liquid as a lark's,
+she said:--
+
+"You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr.
+Bretton, ask so many questions, take such an interest, but--".
+
+"Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him."
+
+"And if I did," said she, with slight quickness, "is that a reason why
+I should talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?"
+
+"If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here
+waiting for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about
+the room, and anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go
+on."
+
+"I mean to go on," retorted she; "what else do you suppose I mean to
+do?"
+
+And she looked and spoke--the little Polly of Bretton--petulant,
+sensitive.
+
+"If," said she, emphatically, "if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to
+die for liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise
+than dumb--dumb as the grave--dumb as you, Lucy Snowe--you know it--
+and you know you would despise me if I failed in self-control, and
+whined about some rickety liking that was all on my side."
+
+"It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either
+in boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of
+feelings. But as to you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear
+you. Tell me all it will give you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no
+more."
+
+"Do you care for me, Lucy?"
+
+"Yes, I do, Paulina."
+
+"And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I
+was a little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me
+then to lavish on you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable
+to me, and I like to talk with and trust you. So listen, Lucy."
+
+And she settled herself, resting against my arm--resting gently, not
+with honest Mistress Fanshawe's fatiguing and selfish weight.
+
+"A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham
+during our absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on
+business; this was true, but I did not tell you all."
+
+"You evaded?"
+
+"I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak
+the truth now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one's ease. Papa
+often lets me open the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One
+morning, about three weeks ago, you don't know how surprised I was to
+find, amongst a dozen letters for M. de Bassompierre, a note addressed
+to Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, amidst all the rest; the
+handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. I was going to
+say, 'Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;' but the 'Miss'
+struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman
+before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read
+it first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa's ideas
+about me: he forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is
+not aware that other people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be;
+so, with a curious mixture of feelings, some of them self-reproachful,
+and some so fluttering and strong, I cannot describe them, I gave papa
+his twelve letters--his herd of possessions--and kept back my one, my
+ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during breakfast, looking up at me with an
+inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself a thing double-existent--a
+child to that dear papa, but no more a child to myself. After
+breakfast I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured myself by
+turning the key in the door, I began to study the outside of my
+treasure: it was some minutes before I could get over the direction
+and penetrate the seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind
+by instant storm--one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say.
+Graham's hand is like himself, Lucy, and so is his seal--all clear,
+firm, and rounded--no slovenly splash of wax--a full, solid, steady
+drop--a distinct impress; no pointed turns harshly pricking the optic
+nerve, but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, that soothes you as
+you read. It is like his face--just like the chiselling of his
+features: do you know his autograph?"
+
+"I have seen it: go on."
+
+"The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my
+scissors. On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew
+back voluntarily; it was too soon yet to drink that draught--the
+sparkle in the cup was so beautiful--I would watch it yet a minute.
+Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my prayers that
+morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a little earlier than
+usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had hastened to
+join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers till
+afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and
+then man; but I don't think heaven could be jealous of anything I
+might do for papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to
+say that another feeling than filial affection was in question--to
+urge me to pray before I dared to read what I so longed to read--to
+deny myself yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I have had
+these impulses ever since I can remember. I put the letter down and
+said my prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that whatever
+happened, I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and
+might never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of
+such a possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But
+still, Lucy, I felt that in time papa would have to be taught the
+truth, managed, and induced to hear reason.
+
+"I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment.
+_I_ was not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart
+did more than throb--it trembled fast--every quiver seemed like the
+pant of an animal athirst, laid down at a well and drinking; and the
+well proved quite full, gloriously clear; it rose up munificently of
+its own impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and not a mote, Lucy,
+no moss, no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden gurgle.
+
+"Life," she went on, "is said to be full of pain to some. I have read
+biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to
+suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near,
+or lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing
+grasp. I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so
+far from being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was
+borne off by sudden whirlwind; and, alas! some of these met the winter
+with empty garners, and died of utter want in the darkest and coldest
+of the year."
+
+"Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?"
+
+"Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I
+am not endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow
+in sun, due moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered,
+taught, by my dear father; and now--now--another comes. Graham loves
+me."
+
+For some minutes we both paused on this climax.
+
+"Does your father know?" I inquired, in a low voice.
+
+"Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not
+approach that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added
+that he must have some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere
+he ventured to risk a step in the matter elsewhere."
+
+"How did you reply?"
+
+"I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled
+for fear of making the answer too cordial: Graham's tastes are so
+fastidious. I wrote it three times--chastening and subduing the
+phrases at every rescript; at last, having confected it till it seemed
+to me to resemble a morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest
+of fruit or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch it."
+
+"Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr.
+Bretton."
+
+"But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain."
+
+"Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further
+correspondence till your father knows all, and gives his sanction."
+
+"Will he ever give it?"
+
+"Time will show. Wait."
+
+"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm,
+brief note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my
+sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my fathers
+knowledge, write again."
+
+"You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it
+will increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable
+of increase. Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so
+much pure, fine flame, is a priceless privilege of nature."
+
+"You see I feel Graham's disposition," said she. "I feel that no
+delicacy can be too exquisite for his treatment."
+
+"It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then--whatever
+Dr. Bretton's disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly
+met--you would still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your
+father."
+
+"Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake
+papa from his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!"
+
+"Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and
+your kind Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for
+you: doubt not she will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly
+appoint the hour. Yes: I have thought over your life just as you have
+yourself thought it over; I have made comparisons like those to which
+you adverted. We know not the future, but the past has been
+propitious.
+
+"As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more
+susceptible than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect,
+neither your outward nor your inward self would have ripened to what
+they now are. Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled
+the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have
+harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation you would
+have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness.
+Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake,
+but I believe for Graham's. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop
+fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there
+you are, ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you
+together at La Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham
+there seems to me promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny
+youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is
+deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy--not as
+angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives _are_
+thus blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and
+lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another
+course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and
+variable--breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early
+closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of
+God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored
+the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures
+contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.
+
+
+On the first of May, we had all--i.e. the twenty boarders and the
+four teachers--notice to rise at five o'clock of the morning, to be
+dressed and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le
+Professeur Emanuel, who was to head our march forth from Villette, for
+it was on this day he proposed to fulfil his promise of taking us to
+breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the reader may perhaps
+remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this excursion
+was first projected--rather the contrary; but on my now making
+allusion to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear
+received a pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the
+repetition by raising, further difficulties.
+
+"Je vous conseille de vous faire prier," said M. Emanuel, imperially
+menacing the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was
+enough, so I made up my mind to be of the party.
+
+The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden,
+and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm,
+and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in
+assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print
+dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French
+workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly
+unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume.
+Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best article.
+
+At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase,
+through the carre, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood
+our Professor, wearing, not his savage-looking paletot and severe
+bonnet-grec, but a young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat.
+He had for us all the kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had
+a thanksgiving smile. We were marshalled in order and soon started.
+
+The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful
+as fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief
+of ours had the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when
+he would; just as, in an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to
+fear.
+
+He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a
+word to every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly
+neglecting even those he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason
+I had, to keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with
+Ginevra Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel's
+not unsubstantial limb--(she continued in excellent case, and I can
+assure the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of
+her loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to
+goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)--however,
+having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her
+always between myself and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I
+heard him coming up to the right hand or the left. My private motive
+for this manoeuvre might be traced to the circumstance of the new
+print dress I wore, being pink in colour--a fact which, under our
+present convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in a
+shawl with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where
+pastured a bull.
+
+For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in
+the arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but, by-
+and-by, he found out, that whether he came to this side or to that,
+Miss Fanshawe was still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance
+between Ginevra and him had never run so smooth that his temper did
+not undergo a certain crisping process whenever he heard her English
+accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; they jarred if they came
+in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed him bearish,
+meddling, repellent.
+
+At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time,
+finding still the same untoward result to the experiment--he thrust
+his head forward, settled his eyes on mine, and demanded with
+impatience, "Qu'est-ce que c'est? Vous me jouez des tours?"
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his
+customary quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I
+shook out the long fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf.
+"A-h-h! c'est la robe rose!" broke from his lips, affecting me very
+much like the sudden and irate low of some lord of the meadow.
+
+"It is only cotton," I alleged, hurriedly; "and cheaper, and washes
+better than any other colour."
+
+"Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes," he
+answered. "A-t-on jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutot son
+chapeau, et ses gants, et ses brodequins!" These articles of dress
+were just like what my companions wore; certainly not one whit
+smarter--perhaps rather plainer than most--but Monsieur had now got
+hold of his text, and I began to chafe under the expected sermon. It
+went off, however, as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes passes
+on a summer day. I got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape
+of a single bantering smile from his eyes; and then he said,
+"Courage!--a vrai dire je ne suis pas fache, peut-etre meme suis je
+content qu'on s'est fait si belle pour ma petite fete."
+
+"Mais ma robe n'est pas belle, Monsieur--elle n'est que propre."
+
+"J'aime la proprete," said he. In short, he was not to be
+dissatisfied; the sun of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious
+morning; it consumed scudding clouds ere they sullied its disk.
+
+And now we were in the country, amongst what they called "les bois et
+les petits sentiers." These woods and lanes a month later would offer
+but a dusty and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May
+greenness and morning repose, they looked very pleasant.
+
+We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour,
+with an orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the
+green swell of ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be
+seated, Monsieur taking his place in our midst, and suffering us to
+gather in a knot round him. Those who liked him more than they feared,
+came close, and these were chiefly little ones; those who feared more
+than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom much affection had
+given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, observed the
+greatest distance.
+
+He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction
+as children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its
+strength, and strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches
+in that little tale; sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description
+that, while I listened, sunk into my mind, and since have never faded.
+He tinted a twilight scene--I hold it in memory still--such a picture
+I have never looked on from artist's pencil.
+
+I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps
+that very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it
+in perfection. M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have
+heard him lavish, with careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental
+wealth as books seldom boast; his mind was indeed my library, and
+whenever it was opened to me, I entered bliss. Intellectually
+imperfect as I was, I could read little; there were few bound and
+printed volumes that did not weary me--whose perusal did not fag and
+blind--but his tomes of thought were collyrium to the spirit's eyes;
+over their contents, inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to
+think what a delight it would be for one who loved him better than he
+loved himself, to gather and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so
+recklessly flung to heaven's reckless winds.
+
+His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat
+apart. In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence
+to wait till it was voluntarily offered) he asked, "Were you
+interested?"
+
+According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply answered--
+"Yes."
+
+"Was it good?"
+
+"Very good."
+
+"Yet I could not write that down," said he.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur?"
+
+"I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could
+dictate it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me.
+Would Mademoiselle Lucy write for me if I asked her?"
+
+"Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my
+pen did not keep pace with his lips."
+
+"Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the
+circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean
+to make you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?"
+
+"Surrounded with trees? Yes.".
+
+"There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermiere makes the cafe
+au lait in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will
+spread with butter half a hundred rolls."
+
+Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on
+the farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without
+capitulation.
+
+Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen
+of us, chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to
+prepare for breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had
+been ordered to provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming.
+Coffee and chocolate were already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs
+were added to the treat, and M. Emanuel, always generous, would have
+given a large order for "jambon" and "confitures" in addition, but
+that some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our influence, insisted
+that it would be a most reckless waste of victual. He railed at us for
+our pains, terming us "des menageres avares;" but we let him talk, and
+managed the economy of the repast our own way.
+
+With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth
+looking on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he
+liked to have movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him.
+We asked where he would sit. He told us, we knew well he was our
+slave, and we his tyrants, and that he dared not so much as choose a
+chair without our leave; so we set him the farmer's great chair at the
+head of the long table, and put him into it.
+
+Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he
+could be so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed,
+at the worst, it was only his nerves that were irritable, not his
+temper that was radically bad; soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he
+was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. Only to the very stupid,
+perverse, or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest degree dangerous.
+
+Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say
+a little prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as
+devotedly as a woman. I had never seen him pray before, or make that
+pious sign; he did it so simply, with such child-like faith, I could
+not help smiling pleasurably as I watched; his eyes met my smile; he
+just stretched out his kind hand, saying, "Donnez-moi la main! I see
+we worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different
+rites."
+
+Most of M. Emanuel's brother Professors were emancipated free-
+thinkers, infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would
+not bear scrutiny; he was more like a knight of old, religious in his
+way, and of spotless fame. Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were
+safe at his side. He had vivid passions, keen feelings, but his pure
+honour and his artless piety were the strong charm that kept the lions
+couchant.
+
+That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant
+clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his
+social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only
+by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he
+had his own way, and a pleasant way it was.
+
+The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a
+few stayed to help the farmer's wife to put away her earthenware. M.
+Paul called me from among these to come out and sit near him under a
+tree--whence he could view the troop gambolling, over a wide pasture--
+and read to him whilst he took his cigar. He sat on a rustic bench,
+and I at the tree-root. While I read (a pocket-classic--a Corneille--I
+did not like it, but he did, finding therein beauties I never could be
+brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of calm the more
+impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature; the deepest
+happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad forehead. I, too,
+was happy--happy with the bright day, happier with his presence,
+happiest with his kindness.
+
+He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than
+sit there? I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked
+whether, if I were his sister, I should always he content to stay with
+a brother such as he. I said, I believed I should; and I felt it.
+Again, he inquired whether, if he were to leave Villette, and go far
+away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, and made no reply.
+
+"Petite soeur," said he; "how long could you remember me if we were
+separated?"
+
+"That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it
+will be before I shall cease to remember everything earthly."
+
+"If I were to go beyond seas for two--three--five years, should you
+welcome me on my return?"
+
+"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?"
+
+"Pourtant j'ai ete pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant."
+
+I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked
+him why he talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and
+cheered me again with the kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness
+with which he treated me during the rest of the day, went somehow to
+my heart. It was too tender. It was mournful. I would rather he had
+been abrupt, whimsical, and irate as was his wont.
+
+When hot noon arrived--for the day turned out as we had anticipated,
+glowing as June--our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture,
+and proceeded to lead us all softly home. But we had a whole league to
+walk, thus far from Villette was the farm where he had breakfasted;
+the children, especially, were tired with their play; the spirits of
+most flagged at the prospect of this mid-day walk over chaussees
+flinty, glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been foreseen and
+provided for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two spacious
+vehicles coming to fetch us--such conveyances as are hired out
+purposely for the accommodation of school-parties; here, with good
+management, room was found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made
+safe consignment of his charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a
+pleasant day: it would have been perfect, but for the breathing of
+melancholy which had dimmed its sunshine a moment.
+
+That tarnish was renewed the same evening.
+
+Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door,
+accompanied by Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an
+hour, talking earnestly: he--looking grave, yet restless; she--wearing
+an amazed, expostulatory, dissuasive air.
+
+I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered
+the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in
+the garden, I said to myself--"He called me 'petite soeur' this
+morning. If he were really my brother, how I should like to go to him
+just now, and ask what it is that presses on his mind. See how he
+leans against that tree, with his arms crossed and his brow bent. He
+wants consolation, I know: Madame does not console: she only
+remonstrates. What now----?"
+
+Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and
+quick down the garden. The carre doors were yet open: I thought he was
+probably going to water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his
+occasional custom; on reaching the court, however, he took an abrupt
+turn and made for the berceau and the first-classe glass door. There,
+in that first classe I was, thence I had been watching him; but there
+I could not find courage to await his approach. He had turned so
+suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within
+me grew pale, shrank and--not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing
+the shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance--she was gone on
+the wings of panic.
+
+Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty.
+Listening there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined
+apprehension, I heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing
+the doors impatiently as he went; I heard him invade the refectory
+which the "lecture pieuse" was now holding under hallowed constraint;
+I heard him pronounce these words--"Ou est Mademoiselle Lucie?"
+
+And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do
+what, after all, I most wished to do in the world--viz., meet him--the
+wiry voice of St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, "Elle est au
+lit." And he passed, with the stamp of vexation, into the corridor.
+There Madame Beck met, captured, chid, convoyed to the street-door,
+and finally dismissed him.
+
+As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse
+proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me
+he wanted--me he was seeking--and had not I wanted him too? What,
+then, had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had
+something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear
+strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence
+impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience
+and solace beyond hope's reach--no sooner did opportunity suddenly and
+fully arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled
+shaft of mortality.
+
+Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort,
+the certain satisfaction, I might have won--could I but have put
+choking panic down, and stood firm two minutes--here was dead blank,
+dark doubt, and drear suspense.
+
+I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MALEVOLA.
+
+
+Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
+any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
+little commissions for her at the shops.
+
+Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
+furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
+etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
+manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I
+was just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue
+forth, when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-a-manger.
+
+"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
+thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
+good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
+
+Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
+Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
+filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
+amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
+know not what, exotic plant.
+
+"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
+toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
+favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
+with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,
+Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long,
+but you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you
+are not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved,
+or Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing
+up some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten,
+ma bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure
+to insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket
+into her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is
+rather a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
+
+And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to
+execute, that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a
+tedious business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for
+the slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
+tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was
+off my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to
+be attended to.
+
+I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
+Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
+city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
+and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
+
+I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength
+and use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall,
+the thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--
+the quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In
+return, it sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a
+quiet path through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as
+if by eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor.
+Let, then, the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first
+get rid of this basket of fruit.
+
+An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
+too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
+when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
+the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
+square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
+houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
+of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
+region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
+quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
+dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable
+and formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had
+long since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving
+these their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or
+perhaps to stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course
+of winters.
+
+As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
+large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
+whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given
+in the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and
+propped on a staff--the type of eld and decay.
+
+He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
+paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
+turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
+thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
+age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a
+young ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have
+thought such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I
+found myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique
+peasant costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of
+native lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like
+little boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in
+character.
+
+The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
+costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
+scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
+would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
+priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
+message with which I was charged.
+
+His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
+understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit
+into her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that
+such were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
+Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
+of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
+inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
+ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
+
+The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
+windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
+coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller
+room; there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed;
+through the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These
+few I amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
+attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
+
+By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it
+shook, it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an
+opening arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding
+stair; both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and
+unpainted. Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick;
+soon there fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of
+a substance.
+
+Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
+obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
+
+It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
+Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might
+the three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic
+sages of a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell
+had opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing
+picture, that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of
+a fairy tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the
+chief figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How
+was she?
+
+She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
+rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
+staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
+breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
+hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
+malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
+all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull
+displeasure!
+
+This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as
+the gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large
+pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so
+large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her
+chief points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing
+with a lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on
+her skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green,
+and blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like
+a barbarian queen.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of
+male than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her
+chin.
+
+I delivered my basket and my message.
+
+"Is that all?" she demanded.
+
+"It is all," said I.
+
+"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame
+Beck, and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant a ses
+felicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her
+back.
+
+Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
+blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
+proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
+into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
+tempest.
+
+What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
+acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
+inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
+There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
+incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and
+muttering venomously as she vanished.
+
+Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
+while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale,
+as if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a
+shower, I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the
+gleams of lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near;
+this storm had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have
+burst at the zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts
+pierced athwart vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent
+blanched as white metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its
+swollen abundance.
+
+Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
+cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
+Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
+priest.
+
+"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
+displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in
+this house."
+
+And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
+discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
+furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced
+me. Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more
+like an oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking
+as if it were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than
+designed for present use and comfort.
+
+The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
+conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
+employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
+A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
+remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
+seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
+bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then,
+it was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
+awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
+thoughts and observations were free.
+
+To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
+that Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
+Beguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in
+dusk and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought
+also I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one
+lifted look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that
+too had its half mystic interest.
+
+Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
+sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich
+missal and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn
+my eyes before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and
+let in phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna;
+revealed by clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a
+nun's dress. The face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale,
+young, and shaded with the dejection of grief or ill health. I say
+again it was not beautiful; it was not even intellectual; its very
+amiability was the amiability of a weak frame, inactive passions,
+acquiescent habits: yet I looked long at that picture, and could not
+choose but look.
+
+The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
+yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
+his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as
+I knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
+attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped,
+concerning it, these four observations:--
+
+"She was much beloved.
+
+"She gave herself to God.
+
+"She died young.
+
+"She is still remembered, still wept."
+
+"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I
+had discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that
+same aged lady's desperate ill-humour.
+
+The father shook his head with half a smile.
+
+"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
+children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it
+is only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have
+trebly denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as
+Justine Marie is still mourned."
+
+I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
+inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
+reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively,
+with the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say
+it might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been
+less French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and
+rather more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father
+was obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more
+persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of
+Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners,
+with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could
+survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a
+good old man.
+
+The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
+his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine
+Marie, the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly
+prospects were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand.
+The pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left
+behind him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to
+think of Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen,
+Madame Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper
+which deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither
+the treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her
+lover; she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second
+with a heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her
+noviciate.
+
+Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
+which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
+shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
+
+Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house
+too: her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a
+good deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial
+transactions which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of
+grief for the loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked
+mother and his bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died
+too of want; but their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-
+hearted suitor, hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with
+singular devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride
+the revenge of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending
+them, so as no son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently.
+The mother--on the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange,
+godless, loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely
+supported by this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of
+his life, blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic
+happiness, long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the
+respect a good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to
+this house, "and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to
+his eyes, "here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a
+superannuated servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and
+to other charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income,
+keeping only the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most
+modest accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it
+impossible to himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and
+to his angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
+
+The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last
+words, and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to
+mine. I caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the
+momentary gleam shot a meaning which struck me.
+
+These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
+know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
+China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
+to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
+impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
+that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and
+such circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
+apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency.
+Madame Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless
+embassy to the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally
+descending the steps and crossing the square, his interposition on my
+behalf with the bonne who would have sent me away, his reappearance on
+the staircase, my introduction to this room, the portrait, the
+narrative so affably volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as
+they fell out, seemed each independent of its successor; a handful of
+loose beads: but threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance
+of a Jesuit-eye, they dropped pendent in a long string, like that
+rosary on the prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the
+little clasp of this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could
+not yet find the spot, or detect the means of connection.
+
+Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
+somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
+inundated streets?"
+
+"More than half a league."
+
+"You live----?"
+
+"In the Rue Fossette."
+
+"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaitre mon noble
+eleve, mon Paul?"
+
+"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
+
+"He and none other."
+
+A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
+become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
+
+"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
+he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
+
+"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
+emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal,
+of that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
+
+"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I
+accentuated the question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I
+was ere this quite prepared for the answer which actually came.
+
+"I, daughter, am Pere Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
+once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the
+core of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn
+truth, I coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor
+have I for a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in
+you a rooted interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by
+her high training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by
+the zeal she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual
+rank, your practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
+
+This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
+that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
+inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
+deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
+
+"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
+which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
+
+"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
+his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
+mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
+and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
+splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
+a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
+her son the jeweller's wealth."
+
+"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
+seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
+great things!"
+
+I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
+act of confession, or the saint-worship.
+
+"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
+Marie.
+
+"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then
+very young, for he is not much beyond forty."
+
+"Does he yet weep her?"
+
+"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature is--
+constancy."
+
+This was said with marked emphasis.
+
+And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
+there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured
+out its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
+return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his
+tale, was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made
+kindly welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but
+I liked less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
+
+"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle
+that made me shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door.
+Few of us know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had
+happened yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded
+Protestant: there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy
+Church" which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering
+many things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this
+man, Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition,
+influenced by priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious
+devotion, for sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to
+see how Rome, by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she
+cherished them for their own sake and for God's, or put them out to
+usury and made booty of the interest.
+
+By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me
+a portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the
+little cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
+appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
+
+"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
+Walravens give you? Elle est drole, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
+with which I had been charged.
+
+"Oh la singuliere petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous
+qu'elle me deteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin
+Paul; ce petit devot qui n'ose pas bouger, a moins que son confesseur
+ne lui donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to
+marry ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he
+has too large a family already on his hands: Mere Walravens, Pere
+Silas, Dame Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never
+was a man like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can
+bear, voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he
+harbours a romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--
+personnage assez niaise a ce que je pense" (such was Madame's
+irreverent remark), "who has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere,
+this score of years, and to whom he means to go, free from all earthly
+ties, pure comme un lis, a ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you
+but know half M. Emanuel's crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder
+you from taking refreshment, ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat
+your supper, drink your wine, oubliez les anges, les bossues, et
+surtout, les Professeurs--et bon soir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+FRATERNITY.
+
+
+"Oubliez les Professeurs." So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a
+wise woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was
+a mistake. That night she should have left me calm--not excited,
+indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
+others--not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I
+was to forget.
+
+Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him--the
+wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
+man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
+of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
+he could love at all or not?
+
+I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
+tendernesses, fitfulnesses--a softness which came like a warm air, and
+a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
+irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Pere Silas
+and Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
+doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart--showed me one grand love,
+the child of this southern nature's youth, born so strong and perfect,
+that it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of
+matter, clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had
+watched beside a tomb twenty years.
+
+This had been done--not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
+sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
+energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless
+personal sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized--he had laid
+down vengeance, and taken up a cross.
+
+Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had
+seen her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in
+Madame Beck's school--phlegmatics--pale, slow, inert, but kind-
+natured, neutral of evil, undistinguished for good.
+
+If she wore angels' wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
+her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
+fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.
+
+Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
+pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
+which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to
+virginity?
+
+Madame Beck--Pere Silas--you should not have suggested these
+questions. They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest
+obstruction, and the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of
+nights and days I fell asleep--I dreamt, and I woke upon these two
+questions. In the whole world there was no answer to them, except
+where one dark little man stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the
+head-piece of a bandit bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry
+paletot, much be-inked, and no little adust.
+
+After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him
+again. I felt as if--knowing what I now knew--his countenance would
+offer a page more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing
+to trace in it the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of
+that half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest's narrative
+imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
+character I wanted to view him.
+
+Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
+test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my "Christian
+hero"--an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
+lively enough in its way.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first classe--
+safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of Madame
+Beck, who, _in propria persona_ was giving one of her orderly and
+useful lessons--this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by the
+wild inburst of a paletot.
+
+Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
+by Madame Beck's presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
+edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
+taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing--that is, copying an
+elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish
+of the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange
+to say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
+curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint plates--
+things about as valuable as so many achievements in worsted-work, but
+I thought pretty well of them in those days.
+
+What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy,
+gathered into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I
+myself appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary
+and withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited
+cook. That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletot, one under
+each sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture;
+in two minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle
+--a vast adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
+singing-lessons--fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
+remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.
+
+Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
+presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say--one dark, the
+other light--one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
+braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
+careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
+full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
+stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
+strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "your business is to prove to these gentlemen
+that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
+questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
+shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
+unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
+sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You
+will disprove this charge."
+
+Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a
+thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering
+personages, were none other than dandy professors of the college--
+Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte--a pair of cold-blooded fops and
+pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been rashly
+exhibiting something I had written--something, he had never once
+praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed
+forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only _seemed_
+remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign school-
+girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce
+noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to
+question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my
+testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their
+examination.
+
+A memorable scene ensued.
+
+They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French
+history. I hardly knew Merovee from Pharamond. They tried me in
+various 'ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an
+unchanging "Je n'en sais rien."
+
+After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general
+information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well,
+and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood
+looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he
+thought I should now show myself at least no fool.
+
+He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up
+fast, my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words.
+I either _could_ not, or _would_ not speak--I am not sure which:
+partly, I think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was
+crossed.
+
+I heard one of my examiners--he of the braided surtout--whisper to his
+co-professor, "Est-elle donc idiote?"
+
+"Yes," I thought, "an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as
+you."
+
+But I suffered--suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul's
+brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not
+believe in my total lack of popular cleverness; he thought I
+_could_ be prompt if I _would_.
+
+At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:
+
+"Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as
+you say, I am an idiot."
+
+I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense
+had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped,
+faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of
+triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I
+burst in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger
+than grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that
+pair on the spot--but it _was_ emotion, and I would rather have
+been scourged than betrayed it.
+
+The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice
+in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical.
+When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I
+heard it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no
+material for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts,
+laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real,
+and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in
+this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious
+time till my facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor
+could I rest from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct
+anatomy; the strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or
+falsity sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the
+knowledge was not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been
+sown in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered
+through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh;
+glean of wild herbs my lapful, and shred them green into the pot.
+Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook
+my work for the work of a ripe scholar.
+
+They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them.
+As I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the
+white paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges
+began mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.
+
+"Nous agissons dans l'interet de la verite. Nous ne voulons pas vous
+blesser," said he.
+
+Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,--
+
+"Dictate, Monsieur."
+
+Rochemorte named this theme: "Human Justice."
+
+Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction,
+unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel,
+sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.
+
+At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I
+would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction,
+that their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and
+that, notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M.
+Emanuel's honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced
+themselves the--champions: I _meant_ to utter all this, I say,
+when suddenly, a light darted on memory.
+
+Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and
+whisker--those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages--
+were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full gaslight
+from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death
+on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally
+certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner
+beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless over a
+whole quarter of the town.
+
+"Pious mentors!" thought I. "Pure guides for youth! If `Human Justice'
+were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present
+post, or enjoy your present credit."
+
+An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me
+in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in
+her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or
+help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and
+starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled
+round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy,
+cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She
+had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a
+short black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she
+smoked and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a
+cry of the suffering souls about her 'pierced her ears too keenly--my
+jolly dame seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was
+weak, wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was
+strong, lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand
+in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.
+
+Such was the sketch of "Human Justice," scratched hurriedly on paper,
+and placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M.
+Emanuel read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to
+the trio, and withdrew.
+
+After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting
+did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that
+forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed
+dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et sans-
+coeur," and in Monsieur's temporary departure.
+
+Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that
+such a transport as he had that day given way to, could not be
+indulged with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon
+after, gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew
+near also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by
+Monsieur laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation,
+passed to other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.
+
+Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a
+charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted,
+too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some
+allowance ought to be made for him. "But," said he, "I can hardly
+expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my
+position, nor my history."
+
+His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.
+
+"No, Monsieur," I rejoined. "Of course, as you say, I know neither
+your history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your
+sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know
+nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger."
+
+"Hein?" he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.
+
+"You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe--stern, dogmatic, hasty,
+imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to
+originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A
+man like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without
+dependants, no duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are
+machines, which you thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their
+feelings. You seek your recreations in public, by the light of the
+evening chandelier: this school and yonder college are your workshops,
+where you fabricate the ware called pupils. I don't so much as know
+where you live; it is natural to take it for granted that you have no
+home, and need none."
+
+"I am judged," said he. "Your opinion of me is just what I thought it
+was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of
+affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by
+principle or faith. It is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in
+this life."
+
+"You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher" (and I looked
+at his paletot, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with
+his hand), "despising the foibles of humanity--above its luxuries--
+independent of its comforts."
+
+"Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous etes proprette et douillette, et
+affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marche."
+
+"But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you _must_ live
+somewhere? Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you
+keep?"
+
+With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of
+scorn the most decided, he broke out--
+
+"Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss--a cavern, where you would
+not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole
+truth, I talked about my 'study' in that college: know now that this
+'study' is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As
+for my 'establishment of servants'" (mimicking my voice) "they number
+ten; les voila."
+
+And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.
+
+"I black my boots," pursued he savagely. "I brush my paletot."
+
+"No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that," was my
+parenthesis.
+
+"Je fais mon lit et mon menage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my
+supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless;
+nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and
+nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn
+like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in
+purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to
+whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the
+kingdom of heaven."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur; but I know!"
+
+"What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!"
+
+"I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of
+the Basse-Ville--why don't you go and live there?"
+
+"Hein?" muttered he again.
+
+"I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the
+grey flags in front, the nodding trees behind--real trees, not shrubs
+--trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the boudoir-oratoire--you
+should make that room your study; it is so quiet and solemn."
+
+He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. "Where did you pick
+up all that? Who told you?" he asked.
+
+"Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?"
+
+"Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman's waking thoughts,
+much less her sleeping fantasies?"
+
+"If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I
+saw a priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic--old, too, and
+picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce
+reach to my elbow--her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a
+gown bright as lapis-lazuli--a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was
+decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a
+beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in
+two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years
+of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and
+sorrow. She was become morose--almost malevolent; yet _somebody_,
+it appears, cared for her in her infirmities--somebody forgave her
+trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived
+together, these three people--the mistress, the chaplain, the servant
+--all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing."
+
+He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not
+conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.
+
+"I see you have entered into my secrets," said he, "but how was it
+done?"
+
+So I told him how--the commission on which I had been sent, the storm
+which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the
+priest.
+
+"As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Pere Silas whiled away the
+time with a story," I said.
+
+"A story! What story? Pere Silas is no romancist."
+
+"Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?"
+
+"Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy's French--
+her best or her worst--I don't much care which: let us have a good
+poignee of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent."
+
+"Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious
+proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the
+midst. But I will tell him the title--the 'Priest's Pupil.'"
+
+"Bah!" said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. "The
+good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak
+point. But what of the 'Priest's Pupil?'"
+
+"Oh! many things."
+
+You may as well define _what_ things. I mean to know."
+
+"There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his
+ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil,
+Monsieur!--so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!
+
+"Et puis?" said he, taking a cigar.
+
+"Et puis," I pursued, "he underwent calamities which one did not pity
+--bore them in a spirit one did not admire--endured wrongs for which
+one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of heaping
+coals of fire on his adversary's head."
+
+"You have not told me all," said he.
+
+"Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Pere Silas's
+chapters."
+
+"You have forgotten one-that which touched on the pupil's lack of
+affection--on his hard, cold, monkish heart."
+
+"True; I remember now. Pere Silas _did_ say that his vocation was
+almost that of a priest--that his life was considered consecrated."
+
+"By what bonds or duties?"
+
+"By the ties of the past and the charities of the present."
+
+"You have, then, the whole situation?"
+
+"I have now told Monsieur all that was told me."
+
+Some meditative minutes passed.
+
+"Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I
+believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise
+your eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust
+me--I am a man to be trusted."
+
+I raised my eyes.
+
+"Knowing me thoroughly now--all my antecedents, all my
+responsibilities--having long known my faults, can you and I still be
+friends?"
+
+"If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in
+him."
+
+"But a close friend I mean--intimate and real--kindred in all but
+blood. Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered,
+burdened, encumbered man?"
+
+I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I _did_ answer
+him; he took my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his.
+_His_ friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit--a cold,
+distant hope--a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a
+finger: I at once felt (or _thought_ I felt) its support like
+that of some rock.
+
+"When I talk of friendship, I mean _true_ friendship," he
+repeated emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so
+earnest had blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of
+that kind, anxious look he gave. If he _really_ wished for my
+confidence and regard, and _really_ would give me his--why, it
+seemed to me that life could offer nothing more or better. In that
+case, I was become strong and rich: in a moment I was made
+substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix and seal it, I
+asked--
+
+"Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can
+take an interest in me as a sister?"
+
+"Surely, surely," said he; "a lonely man like me, who has no sister,
+must be but too glad to find in some woman's heart a sister's pure
+affection."
+
+"And dare I rely on Monsieur's regard? Dare I speak to him when I am
+so inclined?"
+
+"My little sister must make her own experiments," said he; "I will
+give no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she
+has drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile
+material in some hands."
+
+While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now
+affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never
+felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her
+husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend.
+If he would but prove reliable, and he _looked_ reliable, what,
+beyond his friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a
+dream, as once before had happened--?
+
+"Qu'est-ce donc? What is it?" said he, as this thought threw its
+weight on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and
+after a moment's pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an
+equal fear--lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult
+and fitful--had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.
+
+On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of
+re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was
+courted. I grew quite happy--strangely happy--in making him secure,
+content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth
+held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing.
+Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close
+darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and
+grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.
+
+"Lucy," said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did
+you see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"
+
+"I did; a picture painted on a panel."
+
+"The portrait of a nun?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You heard her history?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"
+
+"I shall never forget it."
+
+"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"
+
+"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait," said I; which
+was true enough.
+
+"You did not, nor will you fancy," pursued he, "that a saint in heaven
+perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely
+superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset _you?_"
+
+"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly
+natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at."
+
+"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman--much less a
+pure, happy spirit-would trouble amity like ours n'est-il pas vrai?"
+
+Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out
+that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some
+English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were
+needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable:
+sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good
+sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid
+fancies," against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE APPLE OF DISCORD.
+
+
+Besides Fifine Beck's mother, another power had a word to say to M.
+Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We
+were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously
+her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to
+which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the
+confessional.
+
+"Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?" asks the reader.
+"Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof
+of a certain partiality in his feelings?"
+
+Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly--that he
+was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender
+deference--that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when
+taught how. He had called me "sister." It was well. Yes; he might call
+me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be
+his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that
+relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to
+celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.
+
+Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening's
+interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for
+the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and
+breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last
+which brought me the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more
+thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how
+much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to
+prove how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover
+whether I could summon a sister's courage, and he a brother's
+frankness.
+
+He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will
+not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His
+lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also
+more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly
+to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I
+got neither: to my portion fell one nod--hurried, shy.
+
+This distance, I argued, is accidental--it is involuntary; patience,
+and it will vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it
+increased. I suppressed my surprise, and swallowed whatever other
+feelings began to surge.
+
+Well might I ask when he offered fraternity--"Dare I rely on you?"
+Well might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True,
+he had bid me make my own experiments--tease and try him. Vain
+injunction! Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use
+it! Nothing in my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave
+band. Left alone, I was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my
+lips would not utter, nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had
+been an error somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to
+disclose it.
+
+But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One
+evening in seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to
+the examination of what had been done in various studies during the
+past week, and to the preparation of work for the week in prospect. On
+these occasions my schoolroom was anywhere, wherever the pupils and
+the other teachers happened to be, or in their close vicinage, very
+often in the large second division, where it was easy to choose a
+quiet nook when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the few
+boarders gathered in a knot about the surveillante's estrade.
+
+On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I
+collected my books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large
+division.
+
+In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but
+through the open double doors was seen the carre, filled with pupils
+and with light; over hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It
+blushed so ruddily and vividly, that the hues of the walls and the
+variegated tints of the dresses seemed all fused in one warm glow.
+The, girls were seated, working or studying; in the midst of their
+circle stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. His
+dark paletot, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of
+crimson; his Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the
+sun's animated kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk.
+
+The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom,
+basked also in the sun's laughing bounty; they had partaken it the
+whole day, and now asked water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening;
+he liked to tend and foster plants. I used to think that working
+amongst shrubs with a spade or a watering-pot soothed his nerves; it
+was a recreation to which he often had recourse; and now be looked to
+the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous cactuses, and revived
+them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His lips meantime
+sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and prime
+luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the
+flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor
+to the mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small
+spanieless (if one may coin a word), that nominally belonged to the
+house, but virtually owned him as master, being fonder of him than any
+inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and lovable little doggie she was,
+trotting at his side, looking with expressive, attached eyes into his
+face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his handkerchief,
+which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the air of
+a miniature lion guarding a kingdom's flag.
+
+There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the
+water from the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work
+spun on to some length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour
+struck. The carre and the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset.
+Day was drooping. My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very short;
+but the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Was
+it my turn?
+
+Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,--favourite
+rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and
+whine followed the receding paletot down the alleys. I put up some of
+my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited,
+involuntarily deprecating the creeping invasion of twilight.
+
+Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the
+returning paletot; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it
+had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in
+a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere
+long the prayer-bell must ring; but still we should meet; he would
+speak; a chance would be offered of reading in his eyes the riddle of
+his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly re-arranging his
+cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the opal sky,
+and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched the
+mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to
+break it. He looked down.
+
+"Petite exigeante," said he; "you must not be forgotten one moment, it
+seems."
+
+He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within
+a yard of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered
+lingeringly, fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender
+names in a tender voice. On the front-door steps he turned; once again
+he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires
+and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the
+sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he
+suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white
+facade of the classes, swept the long line of croisees. I think he
+bowed; if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he
+was gone; the moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the
+closed front door.
+
+Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I
+carried back the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The
+prayer-bell rang; I obeyed its summons.
+
+The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being
+devoted entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over
+the intermediate hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself
+for its heavy ennuis. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates,
+or to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter
+alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart
+or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the
+lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some
+book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black
+fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with
+a weary hand I turned up its contents.
+
+One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers,
+were taken out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could
+not comfort. Is this something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not
+seen it before, and I re-arranged my desk this very day--this very
+afternoon; the tract must have been introduced within the last hour,
+while we were at dinner.
+
+I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me?
+
+It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither
+sung, nor related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it
+preached and it persuaded.
+
+I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed
+its own spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism;
+it persuaded to conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a
+honeyed voice; its accents were all unction and balm. Here roared no
+utterance of Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her
+displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, not so much in fear of
+the heretic's hell, as on account of the comfort, the indulgence, the
+tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten or to
+coerce; her wish was to guide and win. _She_ persecute? Oh dear
+no! not on any account!
+
+This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was
+not even strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild
+effluence of a mother's love towards her tenderest and her youngest;
+intended wholly and solely for those whose head is to be reached
+through the heart. Its appeal was not to intellect; it sought to win
+the affectionate through their affections, the sympathizing through
+their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his orphans about
+him, never spoke more sweetly.
+
+I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact
+that the Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the
+unspeakable solace of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did
+not touch on the firmer peace of those whose belief dispenses with
+purgatory altogether: but I thought of this; and, on the whole,
+preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. The little book
+amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting,
+sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my
+gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this
+unlicked wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a
+guileless lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan
+Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; they were flavoured
+with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had
+written it was no bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained
+cunning--the cloven hoof of his system--I should pause before accusing
+himself of insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props;
+it was rickety.
+
+I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the
+ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own
+disinclination, not to say disability, to meet these melting favours.
+Glancing at the title-page, I found the name of "Pere Silas." A fly-
+leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known pencil characters: "From
+P. C. D. E. to L--y." And when I saw this I laughed: but not in my
+former spirit. I was revived.
+
+A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the
+solution of the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two
+names, Pere Silas and Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent
+had been with his director; permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to
+keep no corner of his heart sacred to God and to himself; the whole
+narrative of our late interview had been drawn from him; he had avowed
+the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted sister. How
+could such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church?
+Fraternal communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Pere Silas
+annulling the unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils;
+entreating, enjoining reserve, nay, by the authority of his office,
+and in the name, and by the memory of all M. Emanuel held most dear
+and sacred, commanding the enforcement of that new system whose frost
+had pierced to the marrow of my bones.
+
+These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were
+welcome. The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background,
+was as nothing, matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in
+M. Paul himself.
+
+At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above
+conjectures were self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their
+origin and confirmation to another quarter. Help was not wanting.
+
+This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud;
+no summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a
+clammy fog from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the
+watering-pot might rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had
+been drizzling all the afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly.
+This was no weather for rambling in the wet alleys, under the dripping
+trees; and I started to hear Sylvie's sudden bark in the garden--her
+bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied and yet this glad,
+quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one presence.
+
+Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep
+vista of the allee defendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through
+its gloom like a white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining,
+springing, harassing little birds amongst the bushes. I watched five
+minutes; no fulfilment followed the omen. I returned to my books;
+Sylvie's sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I looked up. She was
+standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery tail as
+fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of
+a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel,
+bent over the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden
+and streaming shrubs, working as hard as if his day's pittance were
+yet to earn by the literal sweat of his brow.
+
+In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow
+on the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion,
+whether of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He
+would dig by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his
+head, or open his lips.
+
+Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding
+here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last
+discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as
+if to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she
+had seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and I
+doubt not, considered it my duty to join him now, wet as it was.
+
+She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course
+perceived why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off;
+she only barked the louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the
+glass door opened. Tired, I suppose, with her importunity, he threw
+down his spade, approached, and pushed the door ajar. Sylvie burst in
+all impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her paws at my neck, and her
+little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy about my face,
+mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and
+scattered books and papers far and wide.
+
+M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the
+disarrangement. Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and
+stowed her away under his paletot, where she nestled as quiet as a
+mouse, her head just peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the
+prettiest little innocent face, the silkiest long ears, the finest
+dark eyes in the world. I never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de
+Bassompierre: forgive the association, reader, it _would_ occur.
+
+M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not
+to be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her
+vivacious life.
+
+While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books
+just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he
+half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to
+address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more
+honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second
+effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It
+is not sufficiently inviting?"
+
+I replied that I had read it.
+
+He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked.
+Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any
+concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was
+the affair of the very docile pupil of Pere Silas, not mine. His eye
+settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue
+ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings
+composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment
+probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I
+could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed
+confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my
+desk, and begin soberly to mend them.
+
+I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to
+see me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was
+unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own finger
+--half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state, to set
+him at his ease, to get him to chide.
+
+"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."
+
+He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
+depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
+point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.
+
+"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.
+
+Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.
+
+"Had it moved me?"
+
+"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."
+
+(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
+him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my
+faults at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilite
+et de sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so
+touching."
+
+"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
+all--not a whit."
+
+And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief,
+still clean and in its folds.
+
+Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather
+piquant than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of
+unnatural silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing
+again just in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself
+and Sylvie with the contents of a bonbonniere, which M. Emanuel's
+gifts kept well supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see
+even a small matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me
+and the spaniel while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife.
+Touching my hand with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites
+donc, petite soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during
+the last two days?"
+
+But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport
+made my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--
+over the desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he
+said: "I hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know
+I think of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you
+are to be feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper
+caution."
+
+"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."
+
+"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
+whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
+panoply. You are good--Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
+your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
+expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it gives you certain
+tones and certain gestures that make my flesh creep. You are not
+demonstrative, and yet, just now--when you handled that tract--my God!
+I thought Lucifer smiled."
+
+"Certainly I don't respect that tract--what then?"
+
+"Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love,
+charity! I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted
+that it could not fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must
+indeed be a sinner: Heaven will not hear the petitions that come
+warmest from my heart. You scorn my little offering. Oh, cela me fait
+mal!"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't scorn it--at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit
+down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am
+not unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not
+trouble your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and
+so do I."
+
+"But _do_ you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation?
+What limits are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and
+sect. Pere Silas dropped dark hints."
+
+By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they
+amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked
+seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. _I_ could not
+argue--a fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical
+opposition to effect all the director wished to be effected; but I
+could talk in my own way--the way M. Paul was used to--and of which he
+could follow the meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the
+strange stammerings, strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I
+could defend my creed and faith in my own fashion; in some degree I
+could lull his prejudices. He was not satisfied when he went away,
+hardly was he appeased; but he was made thoroughly to feel that
+Protestants were not necessarily the irreverent Pagans his director
+had insinuated; he was made to comprehend something of their mode of
+honouring the Light, the Life, the Word; he was enabled partly to
+perceive that, while their veneration for things venerable was not
+quite like that cultivated in his Church, it had its own, perhaps,
+deeper power--its own more solemn awe.
+
+I found that Pere Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though
+the advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in
+general, and myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to
+us strange "isms;" Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank
+fashion, which knew not secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with
+a kind, earnest fear, almost trembling lest there should be truth in
+the charges. Pere Silas, it seems, had closely watched me, had
+ascertained that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, to the three
+Protestant Chapels of Villette--the French, German, and English--_id
+est_, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such liberality
+argued in the father's eyes profound indifference--who tolerates all,
+he reasoned, can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had
+often secretly wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the
+differences between these three sects--at the unity and identity of
+their vital doctrines: I saw nothing to hinder them from being one day
+fused into one grand Holy Alliance, and I respected them all, though I
+thought that in each there were faults of form, incumbrances, and
+trivialities. Just what I thought, that did I tell M. Emanuel, and
+explained to him that my own last appeal, the guide to which I looked,
+and the teacher which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, rather
+than any sect, of whatever name or nation.
+
+He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as
+strong as a prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right.
+I heard, poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to
+"Marie, Reine du Ciel," some deep aspiration that _his_ hope
+might yet be _mine_.
+
+Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his
+fathers. I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and
+clay; but it seemed to me that _this_ Romanist held the purer
+elements of his creed with an innocency of heart which God must love.
+
+The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o'clock of
+the evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a
+sequestered garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour
+of the succeeding evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience,
+were breathed verbatim in an attent ear, at the panel of a
+confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It ensued that Pere
+Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not what
+mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the
+Englishwoman's spiritual direction.
+
+Hereupon I was put through a course of reading--that is, I just
+glanced at the books lent me; they were too little in my way to be
+thoroughly read, marked, learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I
+had a book up-stairs, under my pillow, whereof certain chapters
+satisfied my needs in the article of spiritual lore, furnishing such
+precept and example as, to my heart's core, I was convinced could not
+be improved on.
+
+Then Pere Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and
+bade me judge the tree by its fruits.
+
+In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were _not_ the
+fruits of Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair
+promise she showed the world, That bloom, when set, savoured not of
+charity; the apple full formed was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry.
+Out of men's afflictions and affections were forged the rivets of
+their servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and sheltered, to bind
+it by obligation to "the Church;" orphanage was reared and educated
+that it might grow up in the fold of "the Church;" sickness was tended
+that it might die after the formula and in the ordinance of "the
+Church;" and men were overwrought, and women most murderously
+sacrificed, and all laid down a world God made pleasant for his
+creatures' good, and took up a cross, monstrous in its galling weight,
+that they might serve Rome, prove her sanctity, confirm her power, and
+spread the reign of her tyrant "Church."
+
+For man's good was little done; for God's glory, less. A thousand ways
+were opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life;
+mountains were cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to
+their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight
+on and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they
+might at last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch "Church."
+
+It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still
+for the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and
+ambitions, as once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed
+Jerusalem!
+
+Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world's kingdoms!
+an hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your hearts--
+pausing faint at each broken beat--that there is a Mercy beyond human
+compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even you
+must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
+even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds--nay, absolves Priests.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome--the glory of her
+kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions--days of fete
+and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at
+it.
+
+Many people--men and women--no doubt far my superiors in a thousand
+ways, have felt this display impressive, have declared that though
+their Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say
+the same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers,
+nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
+jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
+tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
+
+This I did not tell Pere Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
+through every abortive experiment, under every repeated
+disappointment, he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender
+of hurting his feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when,
+from the balcony of a great house, I had been made to witness a huge
+mingled procession of the church and the army--priests with relics,
+and soldiers with weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited in
+cambric and lace, looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-
+paradise plumage, and a band of young girls fantastically robed and
+garlanded--_then_ I spoke my mind to M. Paul.
+
+"I did not like it," I told him; "I did not respect such ceremonies; I
+wished to see no more."
+
+And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to
+go on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show
+him that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
+Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were
+errors in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely
+pure was my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face
+had been unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer
+forms between us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps,
+the nature of mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due
+observance. I told him I could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-
+lights and embroidery, at such times and under such circumstances as
+should be devoted to lifting the secret vision to Him whose home is
+Infinity, and His being--Eternity. That when I thought of sin and
+sorrow, of earthly corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe
+--I could not care for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when
+the pains of existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before
+me--when the mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in
+view--_then_, even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a
+language learned and dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only
+longed to cry--"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
+
+When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
+myself, from him I addressed--then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
+echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting
+spirits.
+
+"Whatever say priests or controversialists," murmured M. Emanuel, "God
+is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
+believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
+cry--'O Dieu, sois appaise envers moi qui suis pecheur!'"
+
+He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:
+
+"How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
+nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
+yonder--how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God,
+nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves
+in our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy
+of one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light
+He has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of
+satellites about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns
+around that mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with
+strange mental effort only divined.
+
+"God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SUNSHINE.
+
+
+It was very, well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
+Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
+could not live within a league of the Hotel Crecy, and not contrive to
+visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
+distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
+went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.
+
+All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
+awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
+Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
+intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
+all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
+gratification when it came.
+
+I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
+formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
+reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
+fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
+very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
+chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
+response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
+to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
+talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and
+answered with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a
+music waxing finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a
+suggestive, persuasive, magic accent that opened a, scarce-known
+treasure-house within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind,
+and what was better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way
+in which the other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression
+pleased; each keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met
+each other's meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often
+matched like carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by
+nature; Paulina possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--
+unstimulated, she inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she
+seemed merry as a lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced
+like some soft glad light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I
+can hardly express, but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice
+of hers--that reserve on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah!
+Graham would not long bear it; he brought with him a generous
+influence that soon thawed the timid, self-imposed restriction.
+
+Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
+with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
+growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
+than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
+collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
+reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his
+own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
+than if suggested by me.
+
+More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
+and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
+in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
+seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she
+had once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces,
+and cried out, "Graham, I _do_ like you!" He told her how she
+would set a footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At
+this day he said he could recall the sensation of her little hands
+smoothing his cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He
+remembered the touch of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly,
+half curiously, in the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with
+which she would name it "a pretty dimple," then seek his eyes and
+question why they pierced so, telling him he had a "nice, strange
+face; far nicer, far stranger, than either his mamma or Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Child as I was," remarked Paulina, "I wonder how I dared be so
+venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
+and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble
+chin, at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful,
+Lucy; he is not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful,
+but what is he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do
+_you_ admire him?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I do, Paulina," was once my answer to her many
+questions. "_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice
+about a year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes;
+and if he were to cross their balls twelve times between each day's
+sunset and sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what
+shape had gone by."
+
+"Lucy, what do you mean?" said she, under her breath.
+
+"I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind."
+
+It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever
+the tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey,
+and sometimes dropped in my ear--molten lead. To me, she commented no
+more on her lover's beauty.
+
+Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
+sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite
+in itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
+gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled
+her native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy--fitful.
+
+"Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says
+you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
+you are excellent; we both think so."
+
+"You both think you know not what," said I. "Have the goodness to make
+me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
+I have my sort of life apart from yours."
+
+"But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
+share it."
+
+"I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you
+understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
+sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary."
+
+"But solitude is sadness."
+
+"Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
+melancholy, lies heart-break."
+
+"Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether."
+
+There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have
+a witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina
+had forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
+correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
+these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and
+of the heiress's imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I
+read Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her
+pride: they were fine letters--manly and fond--modest and gallant.
+Hers must have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to
+show her talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the
+contrary, it appeared that she had proposed to herself the task of
+hiding that feeling, and bridling her lover's ardour. But how could
+such letters serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her life;
+he drew her like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence
+unspeakable in all he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this
+unconfessed confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from
+greeting to adieu.
+
+"I wish papa knew; I _do_ wish papa knew!" began now to be her
+anxious murmur. "I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back
+from telling him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this
+affair settled--to speak out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I
+know, I am certain, papa will be angry at the first; I fear he will
+dislike me almost; it will seem to him an untoward business; it will
+be a surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its whole effect on him."
+
+The fact was--her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little
+stirred: long blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning
+to trespass on his eye.
+
+To _her_, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or
+perhaps thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her.
+
+One evening--Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to
+Graham; she had left me in the library, reading--M. de Bassompierre
+came in; he sat down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to
+remain--gently, yet in a manner which showed he wished compliance. He
+had taken his seat near the window, at a distance from me; he opened a
+desk; he took from it what looked like a memorandum-book; of this book
+he studied a certain entry for several minutes.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said he, laying it down, "do you know my little girl's
+age?"
+
+"About eighteen, is it not, sir?"
+
+"It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of
+May, in the year 18--, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost
+the just reckoning of her age. I thought of her as twelve--fourteen--
+an indefinite date; but she seemed a child."
+
+"She is about eighteen," I repeated. "She is grown up; she will be no
+taller."
+
+"My little jewel!" said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated
+like some of his daughter's accents.
+
+He sat very thoughtful.
+
+"Sir, don't grieve," I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken
+as they were.
+
+"She is the only pearl I have," he said; "and now others will find out
+that she is pure and of price: they will covet her."
+
+I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had
+shone both in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom
+embellished his aspect and mellowed his intercourse. Under the
+stimulus of a high hope, something had unfolded in his whole manner
+which compelled attention. I think he had purposed on that day to
+indicate the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his ambition. M.
+de Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the
+direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he
+was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided
+him through a long labyrinth.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked.
+
+"She is up-stairs."
+
+"What is she doing?"
+
+"She is writing."
+
+"She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?"
+
+"None but such as she can show me. And--sir--she--_they_ have
+long wanted to consult you."
+
+"Pshaw! They don't think of me--an old father! I am in the way."
+
+"Ah, M. de Bassompierre--not so--that can't be! But Paulina must speak
+for herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate."
+
+"It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems."
+
+"Sir, till you approve, nothing is done--only they love each other."
+
+"Only!" he echoed.
+
+Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was
+obliged to go on: "Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point
+of appealing to you, sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you
+mortally."
+
+"He may well--he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I
+have. Had he but let her alone, she would have remained a child for
+years yet. So. Are they engaged?"
+
+"They could not become engaged without your permission."
+
+"It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety
+which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my
+little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son;
+Bretton might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich
+and pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks,
+and conduct, and connection. Would nothing serve him but my Polly?"
+
+"If he had never seen your 'Polly,' others might and would have
+pleased him--your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance."
+
+"Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!--I
+can't let him have her. No--I can't. He is not her equal," he
+affirmed, rather gruffly. "In what particular is he her match? They
+talk of fortune! I am not an avaricious or interested man, but the
+world thinks of these things--and Polly will be rich."
+
+"Yes, that is known," said I: "all Villette knows her as an heiress."
+
+"Do they talk of my little girl in that light?"
+
+"They do, sir."
+
+He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, "Would you, sir, think
+any one Paulina's match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do
+you think higher rank or more wealth would make much difference in
+your feelings towards a future son-in-law?"
+
+"You touch me there," said he.
+
+"Look at the aristocracy of Villette--you would not like them, sir?"
+
+"I should not--never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot."
+
+"I am told many of these persons think about her, sir," I went on,
+gaining courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse.
+"Other suitors will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused.
+Wherever you go, I suppose, aspirants will not be wanting. Independent
+of heiress-ship, it appears to me that Paulina charms most of those
+who see her."
+
+"Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty."
+
+"Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful."
+
+"Nonsense!--begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too
+partial. I like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks--but then
+I am her father; and even I never thought about beauty. She is
+amusing, fairy-like, interesting to me;--you must be mistaken in
+supposing her handsome?"
+
+"She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your
+wealth and position."
+
+"My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought
+so----"
+
+"Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de
+Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would--as _you_
+would yourself, under the same circumstances--but they are not his
+baits. He loves your daughter very much; he feels her finest
+qualities, and they influence him worthily."
+
+"What! has my little pet 'fine qualities?'"
+
+"Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of
+eminence and learning dined here?"
+
+"I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day;
+its womanliness made me smile."
+
+"And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation--as one might amuse
+one's self with a pretty infant."
+
+"Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French
+gentlemen say she was 'petrie d'esprit et de graces.' Dr. Bretton
+thought the same."
+
+"She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I _do_ believe
+she has some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly
+nursed me; they thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once
+stronger and tenderer as I grew worse in health. And as I recovered,
+what a sunbeam she was in my sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair
+as noiselessly and as cheerful as light. And now she is sought in
+marriage! I don't want to part with her," said he, and he groaned.
+
+"You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long," I suggested, "it would
+be less like separation to give her to him than to another."
+
+He reflected rather gloomily.
+
+"True. I have long known Louisa Bretton," he murmured. "She and I are
+indeed old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was
+young. You talk of beauty, Miss Snowe! _she_ was handsome, if you
+will--tall, straight, and blooming--not the mere child or elf my Polly
+seems to me: at eighteen, Louisa had a carriage and stature fit for a
+princess. She is a comely and a good woman now. The lad is like her; I
+have always thought so, and favoured and wished him well. Now he
+repays me by this robbery! My little treasure used to love her old
+father dearly and truly. It is all over now, doubtless--I am an
+incumbrance."
+
+The door opened--his "little treasure" came in. She was dressed, so to
+speak, in evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with
+the close of day, warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson
+heightened her complexion; her curls fell full and long on her lily
+neck; her white dress suited the heat of June. Thinking me alone, she
+had brought in her hand the letter just written--brought it folded but
+unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her father, her tripping step
+faltered a little, paused a moment--the colour in her cheek flowed
+rosy over her whole face.
+
+"Polly," said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile,
+"do you blush at seeing papa? That is something new."
+
+"I don't blush--I never _do_ blush," affirmed she, while another
+eddy from the heart sent up its scarlet. "But I thought you were in
+the dining-room, and I wanted Lucy."
+
+"You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has
+just been called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your
+letter for you; it will save Matthieu a 'course,' as he calls it."
+
+"I don't post letters," said she, rather pettishly.
+
+"What do you do with them, then?--come here and tell me."
+
+Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second--to say "Shall I
+come?"--but she approached.
+
+"How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems
+yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely
+with both hands at the pen."
+
+"Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag;
+they are only notes, which I give now and then into the person's
+hands, just to satisfy."
+
+"The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?"
+
+"No, papa--not Lucy."
+
+"Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"No, papa--not Mrs. Bretton."
+
+"Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth."
+
+"Oh, papa!" she cried with earnestness, "I will--I _will_ tell
+you the truth--all the truth; I am glad to tell you--glad, though I
+tremble."
+
+She _did_ tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also
+gathering courage, shook her.
+
+"I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you
+above everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address."
+
+She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand
+shaking, his eyes glistening meantime.
+
+He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender,
+mournful amaze.
+
+"Can _she_ write so--the little thing that stood at my knee but
+yesterday? Can she feel so?"
+
+"Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?"
+
+"There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains
+me."
+
+"But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up
+everything--almost" (correcting herself); "I would die rather than
+make you unhappy; that would be too wicked!"
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It
+shall, for your sake, if you order it."
+
+"I order nothing."
+
+"Order something, papa; express your wish; only don't hurt, don't
+grieve Graham. I cannot, _cannot_ bear that. I love you, papa;
+but I love Graham too--because--because--it is impossible to help it."
+
+"This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly--that is my present
+notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do
+not love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye
+I never quite fathomed--something his mother has not--a depth which
+warned a man not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I
+find myself taken over the crown of the head."
+
+"Papa, you don't--you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank;
+you can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up
+in a convent, and break Graham's heart to-morrow, if you choose to be
+so cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?"
+
+"Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don't like
+him, Polly, and I wonder that you should."
+
+"Papa," said she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
+look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
+an expression in your face which does not belong to you."
+
+"Off with him!" pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely
+crossed and annoyed--even a little bitter; "but, I suppose, if he
+went, Polly would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly
+won--won, and weaned from her old father."
+
+"Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that
+way. I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal
+influence _can_ wean me."
+
+"Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
+go and be a wife!"
+
+"Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
+prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
+countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
+when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."
+
+"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."
+
+She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
+superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his
+few foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now
+transpiring; it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let
+it pass with dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in
+no stead. Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:
+--"I won't leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you!
+I'll never pain you!" was her cry.
+
+"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He
+said no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
+
+The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
+Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened,
+to prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall
+gentleman was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
+slowly--lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
+sign nor word; yet his eye said:--"Lucy, come here." And I went.
+
+Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
+save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
+which now fevered him.
+
+"M. de Bassompierre is there--is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the
+library.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?"
+
+"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
+"is talking to his daughter."
+
+"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
+
+He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
+to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living
+like him)--a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all
+this trouble his smile never faded.
+
+"Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?"
+
+"_She_ is very faithful, Graham."
+
+"What will be done unto me?"
+
+"Graham, your star must be fortunate."
+
+"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed
+to quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love
+them, and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_
+are true as steel. Are you not?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
+hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
+with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"
+
+He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"--which I did to please him:
+the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
+and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are
+born vanquished.
+
+"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home's presence.
+
+"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"
+
+The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
+
+"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of
+hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
+glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had.
+You spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me,
+but I am bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have
+won."
+
+"Sir, I cannot repent."
+
+"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
+partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
+in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
+The red--(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of
+guile, and brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."
+
+"Sir, I _feel_ honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English
+blush covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet,"
+he added, "I won't deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
+your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you.
+I did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
+world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
+now."
+
+"John, you ask much."
+
+"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
+your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."
+
+"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
+Answer this 'braw wooer;' send him away!"
+
+She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
+gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
+
+"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I
+need not send Graham away--he can live here; he will be no
+inconvenience," she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which
+at times was wont to make both her father and Graham smile. They
+smiled now.
+
+"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr.
+Home. "I don't want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
+him to march."
+
+"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
+first--like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I
+would rather not have him otherwise."
+
+"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
+should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
+that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."
+
+"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."
+
+"Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions
+and tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think,
+Polly, you and I will bid him good-by."
+
+"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."
+
+"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don't think to coax me
+between you."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your
+right hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don't be
+stiff; close your fingers; be pliant--there! But that is not a clasp--
+it is a grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham's hand to
+the bone; you hurt him!"
+
+He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
+brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham's flesh and drew
+blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him
+smile.
+
+"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor.
+They went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was
+conclusive. The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny
+on many things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and
+language or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I
+understood afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had
+managed his affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his
+fortunes were in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position
+to marry.
+
+Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
+Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
+
+"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with
+you as you deal with her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
+seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
+palace at Bois l'Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
+evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
+them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
+the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
+evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
+climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
+this group, was solitary.
+
+Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her
+little hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was
+binding a nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in
+her lap, she had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and
+was now occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden
+wave. The plait woven--no silk-thread being at hand to bind it--a
+tress of her own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like
+a knot, prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
+
+"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep
+you two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."
+
+An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
+impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
+mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
+borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
+
+"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the
+father, the daughter, the future husband, now united--all blessed and
+blessing.
+
+Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration
+of fancy, it is so. Some real lives do--for some certain days or
+years--actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
+such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
+never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
+follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
+precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
+the deep cloud.
+
+I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so
+born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late
+grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no
+tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are
+not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and
+benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind
+attributes.
+
+Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
+Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
+did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
+he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
+filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright,
+too, was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband's love,
+she aided in his progress--of his happiness she was the corner stone.
+
+This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
+prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
+Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these
+were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose
+face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to
+the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Bassompierre was
+taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a
+cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others
+sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw
+himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his
+disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these
+children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up
+according to inheritance and nurture.
+
+In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of
+Graham and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob's favoured son,
+with "blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies
+under." It was so, for God saw that it was good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CLOUD.
+
+
+But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it
+surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The
+impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and
+unseen, has its fulfilment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be
+given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that proof be written.
+In fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire
+and in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not
+through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy
+loins; look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join
+in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world
+stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be
+our cross our banner. For staff we have His promise, whose "word is
+tried, whose way perfect:" for present hope His providence, "who gives
+the shield of salvation, whose gentleness makes great;" for final home
+His bosom, who "dwells in the height of Heaven;" for crowning prize a
+glory, exceeding and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain: let us
+endure hardness as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep
+the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than conquerors: "Art
+thou not from everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE!"
+
+On a Thursday morning we were all assembled in classe, waiting for the
+lesson of literature. The hour was come; we expected the master.
+
+The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written
+compositions prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them,
+neatly tied with ribbon, waiting to be gathered by the hand of the
+Professor as he made his rapid round of the desks. The month was July,
+the morning fine, the glass-door stood ajar, through it played a fresh
+breeze, and plants, growing at the lintel, waved, bent, looked in,
+seeming to whisper tidings.
+
+M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his
+being a little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and,
+instead of him with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly
+upon us the cautious Madame Beck.
+
+She approached M. Paul's desk; she stood before it; she drew round her
+the light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet
+firm tones, and with a fixed gaze, she said, "This morning there will
+be no lesson of literature."
+
+The second paragraph of her address followed, after about two minutes'
+pause.
+
+"It is probable the lessons will be suspended for a week. I shall
+require at least that space of time to find an efficient substitute
+for M. Emanuel. Meanwhile, it shall be our study to fill the blanks
+usefully.
+
+"Your Professor, ladies," she went on, "intends, if possible, duly to
+take leave of you. At the present moment he has not leisure for that
+ceremony. He is preparing for a long voyage. A very sudden and urgent
+summons of duty calls him to a great distance. He has decided to leave
+Europe for an indefinite time. Perhaps he may tell you more himself.
+Ladies, instead of the usual lesson with M. Emanuel, you will, this
+morning, read English with Mademoiselle Lucy."
+
+She bent her head courteously, drew closer the folds of her shawl, and
+passed from the classe.
+
+A great silence fell: then a murmur went round the room: I believe
+some pupils wept.
+
+Some time elapsed. The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing
+increased. I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of
+growing disorder, as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn,
+and that surveillance had virtually left the classe. Habit and the
+sense of duty enabled me to rally quickly, to rise in my usual way, to
+speak in my usual tone, to enjoin, and finally to establish quiet. I
+made the English reading long and close. I kept them at it the whole
+morning. I remember feeling a sentiment of impatience towards the
+pupils who sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value: it was
+only an hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half
+ridiculed them. I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their
+tears, or that gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-
+minded, low-spirited pupil kept it up when the others had done;
+relentless necessity obliged and assisted me so to accost her, that
+she dared not carry on the demonstration, that she was forced to
+conquer the convulsion.
+
+That girl would have had a right to hate me, except that, when school
+was over and her companions departing, I ordered her to stay, and when
+they were gone, I did what I had never done to one among them before--
+pressed her to my heart and kissed her cheek. But, this impulse
+yielded to, I speedily put her out of the classe, for, upon that
+poignant strain, she wept more bitterly than ever.
+
+I filled with occupation every minute of that day, and should have
+liked to sit up all night if I might have kept a candle burning; the
+night, however, proved a bad time, and left bad effects, preparing me
+ill for the next day's ordeal of insufferable gossip. Of course this
+news fell under general discussion. Some little reserve had
+accompanied the first surprise: that soon wore off; every mouth
+opened; every tongue wagged; teachers, pupils, the very servants,
+mouthed the name of "Emanuel." He, whose connection with the school
+was contemporary with its commencement, thus suddenly to withdraw! All
+felt it strange.
+
+They talked so much, so long, so often, that, out of the very
+multitude of their words and rumours, grew at last some intelligence.
+About the third day I heard it said that he was to sail in a week;
+then--that he was bound for the West Indies. I looked at Madame Beck's
+face, and into her eyes, for disproof or confirmation of this report;
+I perused her all over for information, but no part of her disclosed
+more than what was unperturbed and commonplace.
+
+"This secession was an immense loss to her," she alleged. "She did not
+know how she should fill up the vacancy. She was so used to her
+kinsman, he had become her right hand; what should she do without him?
+She had opposed the step, but M. Paul had convinced her it was his
+duty."
+
+She said all this in public, in classe, at the dinner-table, speaking
+audibly to Zelie St. Pierre.
+
+"Why was it his duty?" I could have asked her that. I had impulses to
+take hold of her suddenly, as she calmly passed me in classe, to
+stretch out my hand and grasp her fast, and say, "Stop. Let us hear
+the conclusion of the whole matter. _Why_ is it his duty to go
+into banishment?" But Madame always addressed some other teacher, and
+never looked at me, never seemed conscious I could have a care in the
+question.
+
+The week wore on. Nothing more was said about M. Emanuel coming to bid
+us good-by; and none seemed anxious for his coming; none questioned
+whether or not he would come; none betrayed torment lest he should
+depart silent and unseen; incessantly did they talk, and never, in all
+their talk, touched on this vital point. As to Madame, she of course
+could see him, and say to him as much as she pleased. What should
+_she_ care whether or not he appeared in the schoolroom?
+
+The week consumed. We were told that he was going on such a day, that
+his destination was "Basseterre in Guadaloupe:" the business which
+called him abroad related to a friend's interests, not his own: I
+thought as much.
+
+"Basseterre in Guadaloupe." I had little sleep about this time, but
+whenever I _did_ slumber, it followed infallibly that I was
+quickly roused with a start, while the words "Basseterre,"
+"Guadaloupe," seemed pronounced over my pillow, or ran athwart the
+darkness round and before me, in zigzag characters of red or violet
+light.
+
+For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling? M.
+Emanuel had been very kind to me of late days; he had been growing
+hourly better and kinder. It was now a month since we had settled the
+theological difference, and in all that time there had been no
+quarrel. Nor had our peace been the cold daughter of divorce; we had
+not lived aloof; he had come oftener, he had talked with me more than
+before; he had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with eye
+content, with manner home-like and mild. Kind subjects of conversation
+had grown between us; he had inquired into my plans of life, and I had
+communicated them; the school project pleased him; he made me repeat
+it more than once, though he called it an Alnaschar dream. The jar was
+over; the mutual understanding was settling and fixing; feelings of
+union and hope made themselves profoundly felt in the heart; affection
+and deep esteem and dawning trust had each fastened its bond.
+
+What quiet lessons I had about this time! No more taunts on my
+"intellect," no more menaces of grating public shows! How sweetly, for
+the jealous gibe, and the more jealous, half-passionate eulogy, were
+substituted a mute, indulgent help, a fond guidance, and a tender
+forbearance which forgave but never praised. There were times when he
+would sit for many minutes and not speak at all; and when dusk or duty
+brought separation, he would leave with words like these, "Il est
+doux, le repos! Il est precieux le calme bonheur!"
+
+One evening, not ten short days since, he joined me whilst walking in
+my alley. He took my hand. I looked up in his face. I thought he meant
+to arrest my attention.
+
+"Bonne petite amie!" said he, softly; "douce consolatrice!" But
+through his touch, and with his words, a new feeling and a strange
+thought found a course. Could it be that he was becoming more than
+friend or brother? Did his look speak a kindness beyond fraternity or
+amity?
+
+His eloquent look had more to say, his hand drew me forward, his
+interpreting lips stirred. No. Not now. Here into the twilight alley
+broke an interruption: it came dual and ominous: we faced two bodeful
+forms--a woman's and a priest's--Madame Beck and Pere Silas.
+
+The aspect of the latter I shall never forget. On the first impulse it
+expressed a Jean-Jacques sensibility, stirred by the signs of
+affection just surprised; then, immediately, darkened over it the
+jaundice of ecclesiastical jealousy. He spoke to _me_ with
+unction. He looked on his pupil with sternness. As to Madame Beck,
+she, of course, saw nothing--nothing; though her kinsman retained in
+her presence the hand of the heretic foreigner, not suffering
+withdrawal, but clasping it close and fast.
+
+Following these incidents, that sudden announcement of departure had
+struck me at first as incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent
+repetition, and the credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me,
+which forced on me its full acceptance. As to that week of suspense,
+with its blank, yet burning days, which brought from him no word of
+explanation--I remember, but I cannot describe its passage.
+
+The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now he would come and speak
+his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore.
+
+This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living
+creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted
+as usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of their late
+Professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary
+duties.
+
+So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so
+inexpectant its aspect--I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere
+thus stagnant, thus smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no
+one a wish, no one a word, no one a prayer to which I could say--Amen?
+
+I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a treat, a
+holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they _would_ not
+now band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a
+Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some--loved as
+_they_ could love--but, oh! what _is_ the love of the multitude?
+
+I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
+communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone's-throw: had it
+been in the next room--unsummoned, I could make no use of my
+knowledge. To follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall--for these
+things I had no faculty.
+
+M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
+silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
+to go by.
+
+Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart
+trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was
+quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post--or do my work. Yet
+the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund,
+free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days
+since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared
+quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
+
+A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent
+for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter
+she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to
+this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her
+chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot
+day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
+indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce
+distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? what
+sound?
+
+I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening
+and winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off
+the traveller's tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the
+middle of the letter I heard--what checked my pen--a tread in the
+vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by orders--
+had anticipated such reveillee. Madame saw me halt. She coughed, made
+a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the classes.
+
+"Proceed," said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my
+thoughts were carried off captive.
+
+The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the
+dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden
+stir of numbers, a whole division rising at once.
+
+"They are putting away work," said Madame.
+
+It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush--
+that instant quell of the tumult?
+
+"Wait, Madame--I will see what it is."
+
+And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be
+left: powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my
+shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
+
+"Are you coming, too?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a look,
+clouded, yet resolute.
+
+We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.
+
+He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more
+appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep
+him away, but he was come.
+
+The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his
+farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This
+last ceremony, foreign custom permitted at such a parting--so solemn,
+to last so long.
+
+I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and
+watching me close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her
+breath; I became terribly goaded.
+
+He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came
+to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had
+stepped out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and
+amplify her drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness
+and deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis--the
+total default of self-assertion--with which, in a crisis, I could be
+struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she
+mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door--the glass-door
+opening on the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have
+caught his eye, courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling,
+and there would have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but
+already the room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups,
+my figure was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had her will;
+yes, she got him away, and he had not seen me; he thought me absent.
+Five o'clock struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, the school
+separated, the room emptied.
+
+There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in
+some certain minutes I then passed alone--a grief inexpressible over
+a loss unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do;
+when all my life's hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven,
+outraged heart?
+
+What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child--the
+least child in the school--broke with its simplicity and its
+unconsciousness into the raging yet silent centre of that inward
+conflict.
+
+"Mademoiselle," lisped the treble voice, "I am to give you that. M.
+Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to
+the cellar, and when I found you, to give you that."
+
+And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee,
+its olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only
+these words:--
+
+"It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
+the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
+interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
+leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
+numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
+business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate--
+even to you.--PAUL."
+
+"Be ready?" Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
+morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
+vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could
+that longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
+schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
+appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm--Apollyon straddled across
+it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
+reach me?
+
+Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
+seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
+whole throb of mine.
+
+I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
+think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
+its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
+which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades--stood,
+shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
+doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour
+unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and
+compass of his promise: spoke thus--then towering, became a star, and
+vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense--a worse boon
+than despair.
+
+All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet
+in the midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy.
+Cold and peculiar, I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied
+presentiment. The first hours seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung
+to the flying skirts of the last. They passed like drift cloud--like
+the wrack scudding before a storm.
+
+They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log;
+the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue
+shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
+
+Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I
+still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least
+disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
+
+How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot
+many hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had
+made for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there,
+when certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of
+hearing--there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in
+Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they
+heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could
+be sacred?
+
+Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue Fossette--the
+door unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp's flame invaded the
+moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if
+coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at
+once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to
+seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long.
+She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven
+beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted
+respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual
+circumstances, no yoke could now be borne--no curb obeyed.
+
+"It is more than time for retirement," said Madame; "the rule of the
+house has already been transgressed too long."
+
+Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my
+way, I put her out of it.
+
+"Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,"
+said she, trying to speak softly.
+
+"No!" I said; "neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me."
+
+"Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make
+you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative."
+
+"Madame," I broke out, "you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
+your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make
+your own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks
+spiced and sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
+disappointment--and, perhaps, you have--nay, I _know_ you have--
+seek your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me,
+however. _Leave me_, I say!"
+
+"I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton."
+
+"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
+troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and
+poison. You envenom and you paralyze."
+
+"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."
+
+"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
+had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at
+him for a "devot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
+might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I
+had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
+came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
+had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
+rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under
+the smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
+
+Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in
+my power, because in some moods, such as the present--in some
+stimulated states of perception, like that of this instant--her
+habitual disguise, her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network
+reticulated with holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-
+indulgent, and ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: meek and self-
+possessed, though very uneasy, she said, "If I would not be persuaded
+to take rest, she must reluctantly leave me." Which she did
+incontinent, perhaps even more glad to get away, than I was to see her
+vanish.
+
+This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which
+ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was
+never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not
+know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse
+for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret
+philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked
+her to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there
+occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.
+
+That night passed: all nights--even the starless night before
+dissolution--must wear away. About six o'clock, the hour which called
+up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its
+cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carre, a piece of mirror-
+glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was
+changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy,
+and my eyelids swollen and purple.
+
+On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me--my heart
+seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously
+certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess
+why and for whom I despaired.
+
+"Isabelle," the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached
+me. Would she, too, mock me!
+
+"Que vous etes pale! Vous etes donc bien malade, Mademoiselle!" said
+she, putting her finger in her mouth, and staring with a wistful
+stupidity which at the moment seemed to me more beautiful than the
+keenest intelligence.
+
+Isabelle did not long stand alone in the recommendation of ignorance:
+before the day was over, I gathered cause of gratitude towards the
+whole blind household. The multitude have something else to do than to
+read hearts and interpret dark sayings. Who wills, may keep his own
+counsel--be his own secret's sovereign. In the course of that day,
+proof met me on proof, not only that the cause of my present sorrow
+was unguessed, but that my whole inner life for the last six months,
+was still mine only. It was not known--it had not been noted--that I
+held in peculiar value one life among all lives. Gossip had passed me
+by; curiosity had looked me over; both subtle influences, hovering
+always round, had never become centred upon me. A given organization
+may live in a full fever-hospital, and escape typhus. M. Emanuel had
+come and gone: I had been taught and sought; in season and out of
+season he had called me, and I had obeyed him: "M. Paul wants Miss
+Lucy"--"Miss Lucy is with M. Paul"--such had been the perpetual
+bulletin; and nobody commented, far less condemned. Nobody hinted,
+nobody jested. Madame Beck read the riddle: none else resolved it.
+What I now suffered was called illness--a headache: I accepted the
+baptism.
+
+But what bodily illness was ever like this pain? This certainty that
+he was gone without a farewell--this cruel conviction that fate and
+pursuing furies--a woman's envy and a priest's bigotry--would suffer
+me to see him no more? What wonder that the second evening found me
+like the first--untamed, tortured, again pacing a solitary room in an
+unalterable passion of silent desolation?
+
+Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night--she did not
+come near me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe--a more efficient agent for
+the purpose she could not have employed. Ginevra's first words--"Is
+your headache very bad to-night?" (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought
+I had a headache--an intolerable headache which made me frightfully
+white in the face, and insanely restless in the foot)--her first
+words, I say, inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were
+only out of reach. And soon, what followed--plaints about her own
+headaches--completed the business.
+
+I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed--my miserable bed--haunted
+with quick scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when
+another emissary arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink.
+I was consumed with thirst--I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet,
+but I tasted a drug.
+
+"Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou," said Goton, as she
+received back the emptied cup.
+
+Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a
+strong opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night.
+
+The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory
+hushed. Sleep soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy
+supremacy: contented sovereign over heads and hearts which did not
+ache--he passed by the unquiet.
+
+The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or under-
+charged the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead of
+stupor, came excitement. I became alive to new thought--to reverie
+peculiar in colouring. A gathering call ran among the faculties, their
+bugles sang, their trumpets rang an untimely summons. Imagination was
+roused from her rest, and she came forth impetuous and venturous. With
+scorn she looked on Matter, her mate--"Rise!" she said. "Sluggard!
+this night I will have _my_ will; nor shalt thou prevail."
+
+"Look forth and view the night!" was her cry; and when I lifted the
+heavy blind from the casement close at hand--with her own royal
+gesture, she showed me a moon supreme, in an element deep and
+splendid.
+
+To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits,
+the oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to
+leave this den and follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory.
+
+She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight.
+Especially she showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys
+all silent, lone and safe; among these lay a huge stone basin--that
+basin I knew, and beside which I had often stood--deep-set in the
+tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, with a green, leafy,
+rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, locked,
+sentinelled: the place could not be entered.
+
+Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I
+mechanically dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying still--
+excited from head to foot--what could I do better than dress?
+
+The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no
+admission to the park?
+
+The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to
+the circumstance, a gap in the paling--one stake broken down: I now
+saw this gap again in recollection--saw it very plainly--the narrow,
+irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens, planted
+orderly as a colonnade. A man could not have made his way through that
+aperture, nor could a stout woman, perhaps not Madame Beck; but I
+thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, and once within, at
+this hour the whole park would be mine--the moonlight, midnight park!
+
+How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet
+breathing! How very still the whole large house! What was the time? I
+felt restless to know. There stood a clock in the classe below: what
+hindered me from venturing down to consult it? By such a moon, its
+large white face and jet black figures must be vividly distinct.
+
+As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking
+hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could
+not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the
+dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a
+board is loose, and will avoid it. The oak staircase creaks somewhat
+as I descend, but not much:--I am in the carre.
+
+The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other
+hand, the entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my
+thought, great dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and
+for me, filled with spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable
+amongst their straw and their manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful
+vista, leading to the high vestibule which opens direct upon the
+street.
+
+Hush!--the clock strikes. Ghostly deep as is the stillness of this
+convent, it is only eleven. While my ear follows to silence the hum of
+the last stroke, I catch faintly from the built-out capital, a sound
+like bells or like a band--a sound where sweetness, where victory,
+where mourning blend. Oh, to approach this music nearer, to listen to
+it alone by the rushy basin! Let me go--oh, let me go! What hinders,
+what does not aid freedom?
+
+There, in the corridor, hangs my garden-costume, my large hat, my
+shawl. There is no lock on the huge, heavy, porte-cochere; there is no
+key to seek: it fastens with a sort of spring-bolt, not to be opened
+from the outside, but which, from within, may be noiselessly
+withdrawn. Can I manage it? It yields to my hand, yields with
+propitious facility. I wonder as that portal seems almost
+spontaneously to unclose--I wonder as I cross the threshold and step
+on the paved street, wonder at the strange ease with which this prison
+has been forced. It seems as if I had been pioneered invisibly, as if
+some dissolving force had gone before me: for myself, I have scarce
+made an effort.
+
+Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing
+summer night of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew
+in the air. But here I cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so
+close under the dungeon, I can hear the prisoners moan. This solemn
+peace is not what I seek, it is not what I can bear: to me the face of
+that sky bears the aspect of a world's death. The park also will be
+calm--I know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere--yet let me seek
+the park.
+
+I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal
+Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was
+hushed now, but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell
+music came to meet me; another sound replaced it, a sound like a
+strong tide, a great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke,
+movement gathered, chimes pealed--to what was I coming? Entering on
+the level of a Grande Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of
+magic, plunged amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd.
+
+Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems
+abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own
+flambeaux, beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipages,
+fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even
+scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams. But
+where is the park?--I ought to be near it. In the midst of this glare
+the park must be shadowy and calm--_there_, at least, are neither
+torches, lamps, nor crowd?
+
+I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with
+known faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the
+spirited horses fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of
+that carriage well: me they could not see, or, at least, not know,
+folded close in my large shawl, screened with my straw hat (in that
+motley crowd no dress was noticeably strange). I saw the Count de
+Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely apparelled, comely and
+cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the triple halo of
+her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her
+countenance of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to
+note the gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery
+floating about her was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite
+to her I saw Graham Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect
+had caught its lustre--the light repeated in _her_ eyes beamed
+first out of his.
+
+It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I
+_did_ follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them
+alight (carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated
+splendours. Lo! the iron gateway, between the stone columns, was
+spanned by a flaming arch built of massed stars; and, following them
+cautiously beneath that arch, where were they, and where was I?
+
+In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled
+with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and
+golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow,
+but of strangest architectural wealth--of altar and of temple, of
+pyramid, obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the
+symbols of Egypt teemed throughout the park of Villette.
+
+No matter that in five minutes the secret was mine--the key of the
+mystery picked up, and its illusion unveiled--no matter that I quickly
+recognised the material of these solemn fragments--the timber, the
+paint, and the pasteboard--these inevitable discoveries failed to
+quite destroy the charm, or undermine the marvel of that night. No
+matter that I now seized the explanation of the whole great fete--a
+fete of which the conventual Rue Fossette had not tasted, though it
+had opened at dawn that morning, and was still in full vigour near
+midnight.
+
+In past days there had been, said history, an awful crisis in the fate
+of Labassecour, involving I know not what peril to the rights and
+liberties of her gallant citizens. Rumours of wars there had been, if
+not wars themselves; a kind of struggling in the streets--a bustle--a
+running to and fro, some rearing of barricades, some burgher-rioting,
+some calling out of troops, much interchange of brickbats, and even a
+little of shot. Tradition held that patriots had fallen: in the old
+Basse-Ville was shown an enclosure, solemnly built in and set apart,
+holding, it was said, the sacred bones of martyrs. Be this as it may,
+a certain day in the year was still kept as a festival in honour of
+the said patriots and martyrs of somewhat apocryphal memory--the
+morning being given to a solemn Te Deum in St. Jean Baptiste, the
+evening devoted to spectacles, decorations, and illuminations, such as
+these I now saw.
+
+While looking up at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column--
+while fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the
+close of which was couched a sphinx--I lost sight of the party which,
+from the middle of the great square, I had followed--or, rather, they
+vanished like a group of apparitions. On this whole scene was
+impressed a dream-like character: every shape was wavering, every
+movement floating, every voice echo-like--half-mocking, half-
+uncertain. Paulina and her friends being gone, I scarce could avouch
+that I had really seen them; nor did I miss them as guides through the
+chaos, far less regret them as protectors amidst the night.
+
+That festal night would have been safe for a very child. Half the
+peasantry had come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the
+decent burghers were all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My
+straw-hat passed amidst cap and jacket, short petticoat, and long
+calico mantle, without, perhaps, attracting a glance; I only took the
+precaution to bind down the broad leaf gipsy-wise, with a
+supplementary ribbon--and then I felt safe as if masked.
+
+Safe I passed down the avenues--safe I mixed with the crowd where it
+was deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe.
+I took a revel of the scene; I drank the elastic night-air--the swell
+of sound, the dubious light, now flashing, now fading. As to Happiness
+or Hope, they and I had shaken hands, but just now--I scorned Despair.
+
+My vague aim, as I went, was to find the stone-basin, with its clear
+depth and green lining: of that coolness and verdure I thought, with
+the passionate thirst of unconscious fever. Amidst the glare, and
+hurry, and throng, and noise, I still secretly and chiefly longed to
+come on that circular mirror of crystal, and surprise the moon
+glassing therein her pearly front.
+
+I knew my route, yet it seemed as if I was hindered from pursuing it
+direct: now a sight, and now a sound, called me aside, luring me down
+this alley and down that. Already I saw the thick-planted trees which
+framed this tremulous and rippled glass, when, choiring out of a glade
+to the right, broke such a sound as I thought might be heard if Heaven
+were to open--such a sound, perhaps, as _was_ heard above the
+plain of Bethlehem, on the night of glad tidings.
+
+The song, the sweet music, rose afar, but rushing swiftly on fast-
+strengthening pinions--there swept through these shades so full a
+storm of harmonies that, had no tree been near against which to lean,
+I think I must have dropped. Voices were there, it seemed to me,
+unnumbered; instruments varied and countless--bugle, horn, and trumpet
+I knew. The effect was as a sea breaking into song with all its waves.
+
+The swaying tide swept this way, and then it fell back, and I followed
+its retreat. It led me towards a Byzantine building--a sort of kiosk
+near the park's centre. Round about stood crowded thousands, gathered
+to a grand concert in the open air. What I had heard was, I think, a
+wild Jaeger chorus; the night, the space, the scene, and my own mood,
+had but enhanced the sounds and their impression.
+
+Here were assembled ladies, looking by this light most beautiful: some
+of their dresses were gauzy, and some had the sheen of satin, the
+flowers and the blond trembled, and the veils waved about their
+decorated bonnets, as that host-like chorus, with its greatly-
+gathering sound, sundered the air above them. Most of these ladies
+occupied the little light park-chairs, and behind and beside them
+stood guardian gentlemen. The outer ranks of the crowd were made up of
+citizens, plebeians and police.
+
+In this outer rank I took my place. I rather liked to find myself the
+silent, unknown, consequently unaccosted neighbour of the short
+petticoat and the sabot; and only the distant gazer at the silk robe,
+the velvet mantle, and the plumed chapeau. Amidst so much life and
+joy, too, it suited me to be alone--quite alone. Having neither wish
+nor power to force my way through a mass so close-packed, my station
+was on the farthest confines, where, indeed, I might hear, but could
+see little.
+
+"Mademoiselle is not well placed," said a voice at my elbow. Who dared
+accost _me_, a being in a mood so little social? I turned, rather
+to repel than to reply. I saw a man--a burgher--an entire stranger, as
+I deemed him for one moment, but the next, recognised in him a certain
+tradesman--a bookseller, whose shop furnished the Rue Fossette with
+its books and stationery; a man notorious in our pensionnat for the
+excessive brittleness of his temper, and frequent snappishness of his
+manner, even to us, his principal customers: but whom, for my solitary
+self, I had ever been disposed to like, and had always found civil,
+sometimes kind; once, in aiding me about some troublesome little
+exchange of foreign money, he had done me a service. He was an
+intelligent man; under his asperity, he was a good-hearted man; the
+thought had sometimes crossed me, that a part of his nature bore
+affinity to a part of M. Emanuel's (whom he knew well, and whom I had
+often seen sitting on Miret's counter, turning over the current
+month's publications); and it was in this affinity I read the
+explanation of that conciliatory feeling with which I instinctively
+regarded him.
+
+Strange to say, this man knew me under my straw-hat and closely-folded
+shawl; and, though I deprecated the effort, he insisted on making a
+way for me through the crowd, and finding me a better situation. He
+carried his disinterested civility further; and, from some quarter,
+procured me a chair. Once and again, I have found that the most cross-
+grained are by no means the worst of mankind; nor the humblest in
+station, the least polished in feeling. This man, in his courtesy,
+seemed to find nothing strange in my being here alone; only a reason
+for extending to me, as far as he could, a retiring, yet efficient
+attention. Having secured me a place and a seat, he withdrew without
+asking a question, without obtruding a remark, without adding a
+superfluous word. No wonder that Professor Emanuel liked to take his
+cigar and his lounge, and to read his feuilleton in M. Miret's shop--
+the two must have suited.
+
+I had not been seated five minutes, ere I became aware that chance and
+my worthy burgher friend had brought me once more within view of a
+familiar and domestic group. Right before me sat the Brettons and de
+Bassompierres. Within reach of my hand--had I chosen to extend it--sat
+a figure like a fairy-queen, whose array, lilies and their leaves
+seemed to have suggested; whatever was not spotless white, being
+forest-green. My godmother, too, sat so near, that, had I leaned
+forward, my breath might have stirred the ribbon of her bonnet. They
+were too near; having been just recognised by a comparative stranger,
+I felt uneasy at this close vicinage of intimate acquaintance.
+
+It made me quite start when Mrs. Bretton, turning to Mr. Home, and
+speaking out of a kind impulse of memory, said,--"I wonder what my
+steady little Lucy would say to all this if she were here? I wish we
+had brought her, she would have enjoyed it much."
+
+"So she would, so she would, in her grave sensible fashion; it is a
+pity but we had asked her," rejoined the kind gentleman; and added, "I
+like to see her so quietly pleased; so little moved, yet so content."
+
+Dear were they both to me, dear are they to this day in their
+remembered benevolence. Little knew they the rack of pain which had
+driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and
+reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy. I had half a mind
+to bend over the elders' shoulders, and answer their goodness with the
+thanks of my eyes. M. de Bassompierre did not well know _me_, but
+I knew _him_, and honoured and admired his nature, with all its
+plain sincerity, its warm affection, and unconscious enthusiasm.
+Possibly I might have spoken, but just then Graham turned; he turned
+with one of his stately firm movements, so different from those, of a
+sharp-tempered under-sized man: there was behind him a throng, a
+hundred ranks deep; there were thousands to meet his eye and divide
+its scrutiny--why then did he concentrate all on me--oppressing me
+with the whole force of that full, blue, steadfast orb? Why, if he
+_would_ look, did not one glance satisfy him? why did he turn on
+his chair, rest his elbow on its back, and study me leisurely? He
+could not see my face, I held it down; surely, he _could_ not
+recognise me: I stooped, I turned, I _would_ not be known. He
+rose, by some means he contrived to approach, in two minutes he would
+have had my secret: my identity would have been grasped between his,
+never tyrannous, but always powerful hands. There was but one way to
+evade or to check him. I implied, by a sort of supplicatory gesture,
+that it was my prayer to be let alone; after that, had he persisted,
+he would perhaps have seen the spectacle of Lucy incensed: not all
+that was grand, or good, or kind in him (and Lucy felt the full
+amount) should have kept her quite tame, or absolutely inoffensive and
+shadowlike. He looked, but he desisted. He shook his handsome head,
+but he was mute. He resumed his seat, nor did he again turn or disturb
+me by a glance, except indeed for one single instant, when a look,
+rather solicitous than curious, stole my way--speaking what somehow
+stilled my heart like "the south-wind quieting the earth." Graham's
+thoughts of me were not entirely those of a frozen indifference, after
+all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little
+place under the sky-lights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she
+chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged
+his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his
+philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still
+less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was
+splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he
+proved to me that he kept one little closet, over the door of which
+was written "Lucy's Room." I kept a place for him, too--a place of
+which I never took the measure, either by rule or compass: I think it
+was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I carried it folded
+in the hollow of my hand yet, released from that hold and
+constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might
+have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host.
+
+Forbearing as he was to-night, I could not stay in this proximity;
+this dangerous place and seat must be given up: I watched my
+opportunity, rose, and stole away. He might think, he might even
+believe that Lucy was contained within that shawl, and sheltered under
+that hat; he never could be certain, for he did not see my face.
+
+Surely the spirit of restlessness was by this time appeased? Had I not
+had enough of adventure? Did I not begin to flag, quail, and wish for
+safety under a roof? Not so. I still loathed my bed in the school
+dormitory more than words can express: I clung to whatever could
+distract thought. Somehow I felt, too, that the night's drama was but
+begun, that the prologue was scarce spoken: throughout this woody and
+turfy theatre reigned a shadow of mystery; actors and incidents
+unlooked-for, waited behind the scenes: I thought so foreboding told
+me as much.
+
+Straying at random, obeying the push of every chance elbow, I was
+brought to a quarter where trees planted in clusters, or towering
+singly, broke up somewhat the dense packing of the crowd, and gave it
+a more scattered character. These confines were far from the music,
+and somewhat aloof even from the lamps, but there was sound enough to
+soothe, and with that full, high moon, lamps were scarce needed. Here
+had chiefly settled family-groups, burgher-parents; some of them, late
+as was the hour, actually surrounded by their children, with whom it
+had not been thought advisable to venture into the closer throng.
+
+Three fine tall trees growing close, almost twined stem within stem,
+lifted a thick canopy of shade above a green knoll, crowned with a
+seat--a seat which might have held several, yet it seemed abandoned to
+one, the remaining members of the fortunate party in possession of
+this site standing dutifully round; yet, amongst this reverend circle
+was a lady, holding by the hand a little girl.
+
+When I caught sight of this little girl, she was twisting herself
+round on her heel, swinging from her conductress's hand, flinging
+herself from side to side with wanton and fantastic gyrations. These
+perverse movements arrested my attention, they struck me as of a
+character fearfully familiar. On close inspection, no less so appeared
+the child's equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, the small swansdown
+boa, the white bonnet--the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the
+gala garb of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Desiree
+Beck--and Desiree Beck it was--she, or an imp in her likeness.
+
+I might have taken this discovery as a thunder-clap, but such
+hyperbole would have been premature; discovery was destined to rise
+more than one degree, ere it reached its climax.
+
+On whose hand could the amiable Desiree swing thus selfishly, whose
+glove could she tear thus recklessly, whose arm thus strain with
+impunity, or on the borders of whose dress thus turn and trample
+insolently, if not the hand, glove, arm, and robe of her lady-mother?
+And there, in an Indian shawl and a pale-green crape bonnet--there,
+fresh, portly, blithe, and pleasant--there stood Madame Beck.
+
+Curious! I had certainly deemed Madame in her bed, and Desiree in her
+crib, at this blessed minute, sleeping, both of them, the sleep of the
+just, within the sacred walls, amidst the profound seclusion of the
+Rue Fossette. Most certainly also they did not picture "Meess Lucie"
+otherwise engaged; and here we all three were taking our "ebats" in
+the fete-blazing park at midnight!
+
+The fact was, Madame was only acting according to her quite
+justifiable wont. I remembered now I had heard it said among the
+teachers--though without at the time particularly noticing the gossip
+--that often, when we thought Madame in her chamber, sleeping, she
+was gone, full-dressed, to take her pleasure at operas, or plays, or
+balls. Madame had no sort of taste for a monastic life, and took care
+--largely, though discreetly--to season her existence with a relish of
+the world.
+
+Half a dozen gentlemen of her friends stood about her. Amongst these,
+I was not slow to recognise two or three. There was her brother, M.
+Victor Kint; there was another person, moustached and with long hair--
+a calm, taciturn man, but whose traits bore a stamp and a semblance I
+could not mark unmoved. Amidst reserve and phlegm, amidst contrasts of
+character and of countenance, something there still was which recalled
+a face--mobile, fervent, feeling--a face changeable, now clouded, and
+now alight--a face from my world taken away, for my eyes lost, but
+where my best spring-hours of life had alternated in shadow and in
+glow; that face, where I had often seen movements so near the signs of
+genius--that why there did not shine fully out the undoubted fire, the
+thing, the spirit, and the secret itself--I could never tell. Yes--
+this Josef Emanuel--this man of peace--reminded me of his ardent
+brother.
+
+Besides Messieurs Victor and Josef, I knew another of this party. This
+third person stood behind and in the shade, his attitude too was
+stooping, yet his dress and bald white head made him the most
+conspicuous figure of the group. He was an ecclesiastic: he was Pere
+Silas. Do not fancy, reader, that there was any inconsistency in the
+priest's presence at this fete. This was not considered a show of
+Vanity Fair, but a commemoration of patriotic sacrifice. The Church
+patronised it, even with ostentation. There were troops of priests in
+the park that night.
+
+Pere Silas stooped over the seat with its single occupant, the rustic
+bench and that which sat upon it: a strange mass it was--bearing no
+shape, yet magnificent. You saw, indeed, the outline of a face, and
+features, but these were so cadaverous and so strangely placed, you
+could almost have fancied a head severed from its trunk, and flung at
+random on a pile of rich merchandise. The distant lamp-rays glanced on
+clear pendants, on broad rings; neither the chasteness of moonlight,
+nor the distance of the torches, could quite subdue the gorgeous dyes
+of the drapery. Hail, Madame Walravens! I think you looked more witch-
+like than ever. And presently the good lady proved that she was indeed
+no corpse or ghost, but a harsh and hardy old woman; for, upon some
+aggravation in the clamorous petition of Desiree Beck to her mother,
+to go to the kiosk and take sweetmeats, the hunchback suddenly fetched
+her a resounding rap with her gold-knobbed cane.
+
+There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Pere Silas--the whole
+conjuration, the secret junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me
+good. I cannot say that I felt weak before them, or abashed, or
+dismayed. They outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet;
+but, as yet, I was not dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this
+clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of
+entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of
+protection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me an
+obscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let me now briefly tell the
+reader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have been silently
+gathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M.
+Emanuel's departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha is
+Mammon, and its omega Interest.
+
+If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also to
+possess, in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol's
+consequence. The fact was, she had been rich--very rich; and though,
+for the present, without the command of money, she was likely one day
+to be rich again. At Basseterre, in Guadaloupe, she possessed a large
+estate, received in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequestered
+since her husband's failure; but now, it was supposed, cleared of
+claim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of integrity,
+considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
+
+Pere Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for the
+sake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was a
+devout daughter. Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback and
+knowing her to be without family of her own, had long brooded over
+contingencies with a mother's calculating forethought, and, harshly
+treated as she was by Madame Walravens, never ceased to court her for
+interest's sake. Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for money
+reasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the West
+Indian estate.
+
+But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competent
+and upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man had
+Madame Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blighting
+his life, and then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man had
+Pere Silas trained, taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude,
+habit, and belief. Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in some
+measure influence. "My pupil," said Pere Silas, "if he remains in
+Europe, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become entangled with a
+heretic." Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred in
+her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The thing
+she could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would she
+destroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land,
+and knew Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfullest
+steward: so the three self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish.
+They reasoned, they appealed, they implored; on his mercy they cast
+themselves, into his hands they confidingly thrust their interests.
+They asked but two or three years of devotion--after that, he should
+live for himself: one of the number, perhaps, wished that in the
+meantime he might die.
+
+No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet,
+or confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust or
+repulsed the repository. What might be his private pain or inward
+reluctance to leave Europe--what his calculations for his own future--
+none asked, or knew, or reported. All this was a blank to me. His
+conferences with his confessor I might guess; the part duty and
+religion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might
+conjecture. He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge
+closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst
+grouped tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed
+amongst my neighbours, I might hear, if I would; I was near enough;
+but for some time, there was scarce motive to attend. They gossiped
+about the dresses, the music, the illuminations, the fine night. I
+listened to hear them say, "It is calm weather for _his_ voyage;
+the _Antigua_" (his ship) "will sail prosperously." No such
+remark fell; neither the _Antigua_, nor her course, nor her
+passenger were named.
+
+Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more
+than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this
+side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if
+expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. "Ou sont-ils? Pourquoi
+ne viennent-ils?" I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as
+if determined to have an answer to her question--which hitherto none
+seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase--a phrase brief enough,
+simple enough, but it sent a shock through me--"Messieurs et
+mesdames," said she, "ou donc est Justine Marie?"
+
+"Justine Marie!" What was this? Justine Marie--the dead nun--where was
+she? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens--what can you want with her?
+You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
+
+Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, but
+nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or
+at a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the dead-
+disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
+
+"Justine Marie," said one, "is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will
+be here presently."
+
+Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat--chat it
+still remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,
+comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on
+references to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, that
+listen as intently as I would--and I _did_ listen _now_ with
+a fated interest--I could make out no more than that some scheme was
+on foot, in which this ghostly Justine Marie--dead or alive--was
+concerned. This family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some
+reason; there seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune--for whom I
+could not quite make out-perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef
+Emanuel--both were bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests
+rained upon a young fair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they
+called Heinrich Muehler. Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens
+still obtruded from time to time, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her
+impatience being diverted only by an implacable surveillance of
+Desiree, who could not stir but the old woman menaced her with her
+staff.
+
+"La voila!" suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, "voila Justine Marie
+qui arrive!"
+
+This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured
+nun on the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in
+thought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the
+strange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,
+a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination once
+runs riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare and branchless--
+what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy, a passing
+cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in spirituality,
+and make of it a phantom?
+
+With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery
+breaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass
+darkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I
+looked.
+
+"She comes!" cried Josef Emanuel.
+
+The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At
+this instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the
+pale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection
+the denouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some
+little of the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the
+coolest must have "held his breath for a time!" As for me, my life
+stood still.
+
+It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the
+revelation are passed by.
+
+The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper's
+hand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the
+Expected--there--where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?
+What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
+
+There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,
+so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,
+that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is
+like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white head-
+clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that she is
+a risen ghost.
+
+All falsities--all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be
+honest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
+
+_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not
+precisely homely. A girl of Villette stands there--a girl fresh from
+her pensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this
+country. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks
+are round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomely
+dressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons--two
+being elderly; these she addresses as "Mon Oncle" and "Ma Tante." She
+laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
+all points, the bourgeoise belle.
+
+"So much for Justine Marie;" so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
+this last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
+the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
+
+We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
+respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
+third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? We
+ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do
+not now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and
+I drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
+ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
+stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my
+eyes by many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by
+the _Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered
+what was once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false.
+The _Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
+
+Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
+not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
+How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it
+might touch more nearly?
+
+After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
+stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
+Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is a
+relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
+name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
+her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
+Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
+
+The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their band
+--which is it? Vital question--which is it?
+
+I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
+had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber
+intolerable. I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to
+the real truth; I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling
+the veil, and daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the
+covered outline of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty,
+but define to us one trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful
+sincerity; we may gasp in untold terror, but with that gasp we drink
+in a breath of thy divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway
+like rivers lifted by earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To
+see and know the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage.
+
+The Walravens' party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The
+gentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the
+turf under the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed,
+they jested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured,
+half, I thought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck's part. I soon
+gathered that his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own
+will, without the concurrence, even against the advice, of his
+friends; he had let the _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in
+the _Paul et Virginie_, appointed to sail a fortnight later. It
+was his reason for this resolve which they teased him to assign, and
+which he would only vaguely indicate as "the settlement of a little
+piece of business which he had set his heart upon." What _was_
+this business? Nobody knew. Yes, there was one who seemed partly, at
+least, in his confidence; a meaning look passed between him and
+Justine Marie. "La petite va m'aider--n'est-ce pas?" said he. The
+answer was prompt enough, God knows?
+
+"Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon coeur. Vous ferez de moi tout
+ce que vous voudrez, mon parrain."
+
+And this dear "parrain" took her hand and lifted it to his grateful
+lips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young
+Teuton, Heinrich Muehler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He
+even grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his
+face, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drew
+his ward nearer to him.
+
+M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit
+subdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the true
+life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief
+in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving
+indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the
+pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his
+manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was
+his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he
+folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and
+cherished as the apple of his eye.
+
+Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while
+M. Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite
+ungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let
+him bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a
+young bride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration,
+the vow of constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming
+Present prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed
+buried.
+
+Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not
+been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which
+never _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated;
+not seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered
+of vision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
+
+I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated
+ere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises
+doubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would have
+incredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of a
+marriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthy
+ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far
+from me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from
+the dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble
+suspense of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and
+faltering resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering
+and to conquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
+
+No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took
+it all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and
+folded it round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his
+colours about his breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the
+certainty, abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest
+spikes her strongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had
+entered well my soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.
+
+In my infatuation, I said, "Truth, you are a good mistress to your
+faithful servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even when
+the Falsehood was still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warm
+to the feelings, it wasted me with hourly torment. The persuasion that
+affection was won could not be divorced from the dread that, by
+another turn of the wheel, it might be lost. Truth stripped away
+Falsehood, and Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand--free!"
+
+Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it
+with me to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was not
+yet, indeed, quite played out. I might have waited and watched longer
+that love-scene under the trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there been
+nothing of love in the demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was so
+generous, so creative, she could have modelled for it the most salient
+lineaments, and given it the deepest life and highest colour of
+passion. But I _would_ not look; I had fixed my resolve, but I
+would not violate my nature. And then--something tore me so cruelly
+under my shawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in
+beak and talon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never
+felt jealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of
+Dr. John and Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my
+ears, while I withdrew thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony still
+acknowledged in it a charm. This was an outrage. The love born of
+beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare
+to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life
+after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy,
+consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by
+intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own
+process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at
+Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in
+_this_ Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either
+to its culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly.
+
+I turned from the group of trees and the "merrie companie" in its
+shade. Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds were
+thinning. I followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-lit
+Haute-Ville (still well lit, this it seems was to be a "nuit blanche"
+in Villette), I sought the dim lower quarter.
+
+Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight--forgotten in the
+park--here once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and
+calm and stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fete,
+the fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her
+for an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The
+rival lamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum,
+trumpet, bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with
+pencil-ray she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives
+everlasting. She and those stars seemed to me at once the types and
+witnesses of truth all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its
+slow-wheeling progress, advanced her victory--that onward movement
+which has been, and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.
+
+These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their
+lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but
+these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.
+So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly
+would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my
+strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed
+in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.
+
+Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,
+for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of
+this quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds its
+rattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully
+to the causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or
+fancy I see, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from
+that window--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant
+for me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. de
+Bassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither the
+Hotel Crecy nor the chateau of La Terrasse lies in that direction.
+Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.
+
+Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was
+still; no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Desiree. I had left
+the great door ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some
+other accident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start
+the spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure
+must issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it
+yield?
+
+Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had
+waited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated
+breath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I
+sought the dormitory, and reached my couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next
+moment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!
+
+Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this
+hour the stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemed
+that none dreamed. Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms,
+at full-length and motionless. On mine--the twentieth couch--nothing
+_ought_ to have lain: I had left it void, and void should have
+found it. What, then; do I see between the half-drawn curtains? What
+dark, usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? Is it a robber who
+has made his way through the open street-door, and lies there in wait?
+It looks very black, I think it looks--not human. Can it be a
+wandering dog that has come in from the street and crept and nestled
+hither? Will it spring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I
+must. Courage! One step!--
+
+My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bed
+the old phantom--the NUN.
+
+A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what it
+might, I could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon.
+Besides, I was not overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nerves
+disdained hysteria. Warm from illuminations, and music, and thronging
+thousands, thoroughly lashed up by a new scourge, I defied spectra. In
+a moment, without exclamation, I had rushed on the haunted couch;
+nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the movement was mine,
+so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; as my
+instinct felt. I tore her up--the incubus! I held her on high--the
+goblin! I shook her loose--the mystery! And down she fell--down all
+around me--down in shreds and fragments--and I trode upon her.
+
+Here again--behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; the
+film of cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a long
+bolster dressed in a long black stole, and artfully invested with a
+white veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, were
+genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with a
+view to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived this
+artifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage was
+pinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words--
+
+"The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will
+be seen in the Rue Fossette no more."
+
+And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seen
+three times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that
+ghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the
+machination, for a moment, be attributed.
+
+Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,
+relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also
+to wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble
+riddle, I just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them
+beneath my pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of
+Madame's home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many
+nights' vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic,
+I deeply slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE HAPPY PAIR.
+
+
+The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
+day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
+on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
+storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
+a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
+lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
+blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
+their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
+azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
+unclouded course.
+
+In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
+doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
+cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
+all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
+meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
+entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
+mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
+left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
+or impression.
+
+Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
+the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
+house discussed.
+
+What subject?
+
+Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
+the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained
+a coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
+one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
+Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
+morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
+pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.
+
+High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
+the house ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so
+much as a scrap of a billet rewarded the search; the nymph was
+vanished, engulfed in the past night, like a shooting star swallowed
+up by darkness.
+
+Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the
+defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so
+appalled. Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side;
+here was damage done to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event
+happened? By what outlet had the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement
+was found unfastened, not a pane of glass broken; all the doors were
+bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction
+on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and
+excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a
+certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its
+lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering
+carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as
+that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief.
+
+From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but
+myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement.
+Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound
+embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction. Having alluded to
+M. de Hamal's suit, I found, as I expected, that Madame Beck was
+perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long since discussed it with
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in the business on
+that lady's shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de Bassompierre she
+now had recourse.
+
+We found that the Hotel Crecy was already alive to what had happened.
+Ginevra had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal
+intentions; communications had been received from the family of de
+Hamal; M. de Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He
+overtook them too late.
+
+In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well
+transcribe it; it contains explanation on more than one point:--
+
+'DEAR OLD TIM "(short for Timon),--" I am off you see--gone like a
+shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the
+first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other
+people; Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I--Dieu
+merci! Do you know, Alfred, who used to call you 'the dragon,' has
+seen so much of you during the last few months, that he begins to feel
+quite friendly towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he
+has gone; he begs to apologize for any little trouble he may have
+given you. He is afraid he rather inconvenienced you once when he came
+upon you in the grenier, just as you were reading a letter seemingly
+of the most special interest; but he could not resist the temptation
+to give you a start, you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your
+correspondent. En revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing
+in for a dress or a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when
+he had struck a light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his
+cigar, while waiting for me.
+
+"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
+the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
+will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entree of the
+Athenee, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
+sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
+Athenee is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
+allee defendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
+amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting,
+first the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the
+grand berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
+buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and
+the grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore
+down some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all,
+in running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
+people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
+From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
+of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know,
+is, day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
+Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
+suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think
+you must allow he has very cleverly carried out.
+
+"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been
+caught again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He
+thinks you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at
+is, rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure
+the visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying
+out, telling everybody, and rousing the whole house and neighbourhood?
+
+"Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? _I_ dressed
+her up: didn't I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should
+have gone mad; but then you have such nerves!--real iron and bend-
+leather! I believe you feel nothing. You haven't the same
+sensitiveness that a person of my constitution has. You seem to me
+insensible both to pain and fear and grief. You are a real old
+Diogenes.
+
+"Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my
+moonlight flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent
+fun, and I did it partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear,
+Dr. John: to show them that, with all their airs, I could get married
+as well as they. M. de Bassompierre was at first in a strange fume
+with Alfred; he threatened a prosecution for 'detournement de mineur,'
+and I know not what; he was so abominably in earnest, that I found
+myself forced to do a little bit of the melodramatic--go down on my
+knees, sob, cry, drench three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, 'mon
+oncle' soon gave in; indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am
+married, and that's all about it. He still says our marriage is not
+legal, because I am not of age, forsooth! As if that made any
+difference! I am just as much married as if I were a hundred. However,
+we are to be married again, and I am to have a trousseau, and Mrs.
+Cholmondeley is going to superintend it; and there are some hopes that
+M. de Bassompierre will give me a decent portion, which will be very
+convenient, as dear Alfred has nothing but his nobility, native and
+hereditary, and his pay. I only wish uncle would do things
+unconditionally, in a generous, gentleman-like fashion; he is so
+disagreeable as to make the dowry depend on Alfred's giving his
+written promise that he will never touch cards or dice from the day it
+is paid down. They accuse my angel of a tendency to play: I don't know
+anything about that, but I _do_ know he is a dear, adorable
+creature.
+
+"I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed
+our flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fete, when
+Madame (for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be
+absent at the concert in the park. I suppose _you_ must have gone
+with her. I watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven
+o'clock. How you returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture.
+That surely was _you_ we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did
+you see me wave my handkerchief from the carriage window?
+
+"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme
+happiness, and believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the
+best of health and spirits,
+
+GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL, nee FANSHAWE.
+
+"P.S.--Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at
+home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter the Countess!' 'My
+sister the Countess!' Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John
+Bretton, hein?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In winding up Mistress Fanshawe's memoirs, the reader will no doubt
+expect to hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her
+youthful levities. Of course, a large share of suffering lies in
+reserve for her future.
+
+A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her.
+
+I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame
+Beck, and sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms
+laughing. She looked very blooming and beautiful: her curls were
+longer, her cheeks rosier than ever: her white bonnet and her Flanders
+veil, her orange-flowers and her bride's dress, became her mightily.
+
+"I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the
+substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her
+composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de
+Bassompierre is quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred a
+'nincompoop'--that's only his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe
+Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is wild with jealousy--fit to blow his
+brains out--and I'm so happy! I really think I've hardly anything left
+to wish for--unless it be a carriage and an hotel, and, oh! I--must
+introduce you to 'mon mari.' Alfred, come here!"
+
+And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to
+Madame Beck, receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of
+that lady. I was presented under my various names: the Dragon,
+Diogenes, and Timon. The young Colonel was very polite. He made me a
+prettily-turned, neatly-worded apology, about the ghost-visits, &c.,
+concluding with saying that "the best excuse for all his iniquities
+stood there!" pointing to his bride.
+
+And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to
+herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained
+spirits, her girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring
+exultingly; she called herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked
+how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only
+the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing
+better--she knew me too well to look for compliments--my dry gibes
+pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien,
+the more merrily she laughed.
+
+Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army
+as the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates
+and habits; a post of attache was procured for him, and he and his
+young wife went abroad. I thought she would forget me now, but she did
+not. For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of
+correspondence. During the first year or two, it was only of herself
+and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself
+and a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de
+Bassompierre de Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were
+great boastings about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon
+miracles of precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the
+phlegmatic incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what
+it was to be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities
+of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me," and so on. In due
+course of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething,
+measles, hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me--the mamma's
+letters became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put
+upon by calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I
+was frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found
+out there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my
+natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered
+each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth "in articulo
+mortis," and five times did he miraculously revive.
+
+In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred
+the First; M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be
+paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called "debts of
+honour;" ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every
+cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out
+lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any
+distress single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she
+was pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on--fighting the
+battle of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any
+human being I have ever known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.
+
+
+Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and
+Renovation which I won on the fete-night? Must I tell how I and the
+two stalwart companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore
+the test of intimate acquaintance?
+
+I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly
+when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my
+demanding deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some
+experience of a relieved life--Freedom excused himself, as for the
+present impoverished and disabled to assist; and Renovation never
+spoke; he had died in the night suddenly.
+
+I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture
+might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive
+hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of
+jealousy. After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back
+captive to the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew.
+
+Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he
+purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour bring him? or must
+I again assay that corroding pain of long attent--that rude agony of
+rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once
+uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the
+violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her
+barrier!
+
+It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders
+and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long
+walk into the country to take their gouter, or afternoon meal, at some
+farm-house. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere
+the _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last
+chance, as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or
+cable.
+
+There was some joiners' work to do in the first classe, some bench or
+desk to repair; holidays were often turned to account for the
+performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the
+rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn
+to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my
+own intent, I heard the workmen coming.
+
+Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it
+would take two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying
+on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle
+hand, I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one
+"ouvrier." I noted, too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary
+leisure to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and not
+sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, coming to
+inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He
+advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little
+thrill--a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I
+turned, I stood in the supposed master-artisan's presence: looking
+towards the door-way, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes
+printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.
+
+Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the
+suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls
+prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, perfect from Fruition's
+mint.
+
+M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel--a
+surtout, guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant
+departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run
+before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind
+and benign: he came in with eagerness; he was close to me in one
+second; he was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus
+brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with
+cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in
+forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well--too well not to smite
+out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a
+kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his
+eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me;
+it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it--I
+would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.
+
+The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what
+he had said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my
+hand two minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first,
+last, only time--and then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting,
+then the wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
+him--across which, haply, he would not glance, to remember me.
+
+He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet;
+he looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips
+expressed something almost like the wordless language of a mother who
+finds a child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness,
+or worn out by want. A check supervened.
+
+"Paul, Paul!" said a woman's hurried voice behind, "Paul, come into
+the salon; I have yet a great many things to say to you--conversation
+for the whole day--and so has Victor; and Josef is here. Come Paul,
+come to your friends."
+
+Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable
+instinct, pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M.
+Emanuel.
+
+"Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray
+like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he
+receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure,
+made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried--
+
+"My heart will break!"
+
+What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another
+fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the
+whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep
+sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet
+with relief--I wept.
+
+"Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it
+will pass," said the calm Madame Beck.
+
+To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being
+left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply,
+harshly, and briefly--"Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music
+strange, strong, but life-giving.
+
+"Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial
+muscles all quivering as he spoke.
+
+"But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly
+rejoined her kinsman--
+
+"Sortez d'ici!"
+
+"I will send for Pere Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she
+threatened pertinaciously.
+
+"Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his
+highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez a l'instant!"
+
+He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what
+I had yet felt.
+
+"What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic
+of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive,
+injudicious, inconsistent--a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable
+in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."
+
+"You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but
+you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less
+fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face,
+and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends;
+in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of
+sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what
+I see; it _must_ have and give solace. _Leave me!_"
+
+This time, in the "_leave me_" there was an intonation so bitter
+and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for
+one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him
+dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was
+opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick
+rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement;
+it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his
+hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the
+room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second.
+
+The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me
+to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time
+to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more
+myself--re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless,
+not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death.
+
+"It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he.
+
+"It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said. "All these weary days
+I have not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the
+possibility, growing to certainty, that you would depart without
+saying farewell!"
+
+"Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not know me?
+Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_ have proof
+that I can be a firm friend? Without clear proof this hand will not
+lie still in mine, it will not trust my shoulder as a safe stay? Good.
+The proof is ready. I come to justify myself."
+
+"Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, Monsieur; I can listen
+now."
+
+"Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance
+into the town. I came on purpose to fetch you."
+
+Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the
+semblance of an objection, I re-tied my bonnet: I was ready.
+
+The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit
+down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I
+was tired, but looked, and drew his own conclusions.
+
+"All these weary days," said he, repeating my words, with a gentle,
+kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips,
+and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled,
+as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might _write_
+his language, I _spoke_ and always should speak it imperfectly
+and hesitatingly. "'All these weary days' I have not for one hour
+forgotten you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves
+the sole faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living
+truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any
+quarter; but----look at me.",
+
+I lifted my happy eyes: they _were_ happy now, or they would have
+been no interpreters of my heart.
+
+"Well," said he, after some seconds' scrutiny, "there is no denying
+that signature: Constancy wrote it: her pen is of iron. Was the record
+painful?"
+
+"Severely painful," I said, with truth. "Withdraw her hand, Monsieur;
+I can bear its inscribing force no more."
+
+"Elle est toute pale," said he, speaking to himself; "cette figure-la
+me fait mal."
+
+"Ah! I am not pleasant to look at----?"
+
+I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never
+remember the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the
+degree of my outward deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment
+with special force.
+
+A great softness passed upon his countenance; his violet eyes grew
+suffused and glistening under their deep Spanish lashes: he started
+up; "Let us walk on."
+
+"Do I displease your eyes _much_?" I took courage to urge: the
+point had its vital import for me.
+
+He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer; an answer which
+silenced, subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew
+what I was for _him_; and what I might be for the rest of the
+world, I ceased painfully to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress
+on an opinion about appearance? I fear it might be; I fear it was; but
+in that case I must avow no light share of weakness. I must own great
+fear of displeasing--a strong wish moderately to please M. Paul.
+
+Whither we rambled, I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed
+short; the path was pleasant, the day lovely. M. Emanuel talked of his
+voyage--he thought of staying away three years. On his return from
+Guadaloupe, he looked forward to release from liabilities and a clear
+course; and what did I purpose doing in the interval of his absence?
+he asked. I had talked once, he reminded me, of trying to be
+independent and keeping a little school of my own: had I dropped the
+idea?
+
+"Indeed, I had not: I was doing my best to save what would enable me
+to put it in practice."
+
+"He did not like leaving me in the Rue Fossette; he feared I should
+miss him there too much--I should feel desolate--I should grow sad--?"
+
+This was certain; but I promised to do my best to endure.
+
+"Still," said he, speaking low, "there is another objection to your
+present residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes: it would
+not be well to have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of
+letters; and in the Rue Fossette--in short, our Catholic discipline in
+certain matters--though justifiable and expedient--might possibly,
+under peculiar circumstances, become liable to misapplication--perhaps
+abuse."
+
+"But if you write," said I, "I _must_ have your letters; and I
+_will_ have them: ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not
+keep them from me. I am a Protestant: I will not bear that kind of
+discipline: Monsieur, I _will not_."
+
+"Doucement--doucement," rejoined he; "we will contrive a plan; we have
+our resources: soyez tranquille."
+
+So speaking, he paused.
+
+We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of
+a clean Faubourg, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It
+was before the white door-step of a very neat abode that M. Paul had
+halted.
+
+"I call here," said he.
+
+He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and
+entered at once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No
+servant appeared. The vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly
+and tastefully painted; its vista closed in a French window with vines
+trained about the panes, tendrils, and green leaves kissing the glass.
+Silence reigned in this dwelling.
+
+Opening an inner door, M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon--very
+tiny, but I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like
+a blush; its floor was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its
+centre; its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth;
+there was a little couch, a little chiffonniere, the half-open,
+crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on the shelves; there was
+a French clock, a lamp; there were ornaments in biscuit china; the
+recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand,
+bearing three green flower-pots, each filled with a fine plant glowing
+in bloom; in one corner appeared a gueridon with a marble top, and
+upon it a work-box, and a glass filled with violets in water. The
+lattice of this room was open; the outer air breathing through, gave
+freshness, the sweet violets lent fragrance.
+
+"Pretty, pretty place!" said I. M. Paul smiled to see me so pleased.
+
+"Must we sit down here and wait?" I asked in a whisper, half awed by
+the deep pervading hush.
+
+"We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell," he
+replied.
+
+"Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes, I dare," said he, quietly.
+
+He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and
+oven, with few but bright brasses, two chairs and a table. A small
+cupboard held a diminutive but commodious set of earthenware.
+
+"There is a coffee service of china in the salon," said M. Paul, as I
+looked at the six green and white dinner-plates; the four dishes, the
+cups and jugs to match.
+
+Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse
+of two pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms; finally, I was once more led
+below, and we halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than
+had yet been opened.
+
+Producing a second key, M. Emanuel adjusted it to the lock of this
+door. He opened, put me in before him.
+
+"Voici!" he cried.
+
+I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though
+bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards
+were carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks,
+with an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher's
+chair and table; behind them a tableau, On the walls hung two maps; in
+the windows flowered a few hardy plants; in short, here was a
+miniature classe--complete, neat, pleasant.
+
+"It is a school then?" said I. "Who keeps it? I never heard of an
+establishment in this faubourg."
+
+"Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for
+distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?" asked he, taking from his
+surtout-pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into
+my hand. I looked, I read--printed in fair characters:--
+
+"Externat de demoiselles. Numero 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice,
+Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel?
+
+Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to
+memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and
+amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and
+whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun.
+
+I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes
+succeeding this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my
+earliest year of life: and yet the first thing distinct to me is the
+consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over
+again:--
+
+"Did you do this, M. Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did
+you get these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is
+there another Lucy Snowe? Tell me: say something."
+
+But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down-look,
+his attitude, are visible to me now.
+
+"How is it? I must know all--_all_," I cried.
+
+The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and
+I had fastened thereon, oblivious of all else.
+
+"Ah! you said I had forgotten you all these weary days," said he.
+"Poor old Emanuel! These are the thanks he gets for trudging about
+three mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-
+maker to charwoman. Lucy and Lucy's cot, the sole thoughts in his
+head!"
+
+I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his
+cuff, and then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his
+foresight, his goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that
+overpowered me by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his
+sleepless interest which broke on me like a light from heaven; it was
+his--I will dare to say it--his fond, tender look, which now shook me
+indescribably. In the midst of all I forced myself to look at the
+practical.
+
+"The trouble!" I cried, "and the cost! Had you money, M. Paul?"
+
+"Plenty of money!" said he heartily. "The disposal of my large
+teaching connection put me in possession of a handsome sum with part
+of it I determined to give myself the richest treat that I _have_
+known or _shall_ know. I like this. I have reckoned on this hour
+day and night lately. I would not come near you, because I would not
+forestall it. Reserve is neither my virtue nor my vice. If I had put
+myself into your power, and you had begun with your questions of look
+and lip--Where have you been, M. Paul? What have you been doing? What
+is your mystery?--my solitary first and last secret would presently
+have unravelled itself in your lap. Now," he pursued, "you shall live
+here and have a school; you shall employ yourself while I am away; you
+shall think of me sometimes; you shall mind your health and happiness
+for my sake, and when I come back--"
+
+There he left a blank.
+
+I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and
+willingly. "I will be your faithful steward," I said; "I trust at your
+coming the account will be ready. Monsieur, monsieur, you are
+_too_ good!"
+
+In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression: they
+could not get it; speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice,
+dissolved or shivered in the effort. He watched me, still; he gently
+raised his hand to stroke my hair; it touched my lips in passing; I
+pressed it close, I paid it tribute. He was my king; royal for me had
+been that hand's bounty; to offer homage was both a joy and a duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded
+the quiet faubourg. M. Paul claimed my hospitality; occupied and afoot
+since morning, he needed refreshment; he said I should offer him
+chocolate in my pretty gold and white china service. He went out and
+ordered what was needful from the restaurant; he placed the small
+gueridon and two chairs in the balcony outside the French window under
+the screening vines. With what shy joy i accepted my part as hostess,
+arranged the salver, served the benefactor-guest.
+
+This balcony was in the rear of the house, the gardens of the faubourg
+were round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and
+fresh. Above the poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses,
+looked up a moon so lovely and so halcyon, the heart trembled under
+her smile; a star shone subject beside her, with the unemulous ray of
+pure love. In a large garden near us, a jet rose from a well, and a
+pale statue leaned over the play of waters.
+
+M. Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed
+harmonious with the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in
+which light breeze, fountain and foliage intoned their lulling vesper:
+
+Happy hour--stay one moment! droop those plumes, rest those wings;
+incline to mine that brow of Heaven! White Angel! let thy light
+linger; leave its reflection on succeeding clouds; bequeath its cheer
+to that time which needs a ray in retrospect!
+
+Our meal was simple: the chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh
+summer fruit, cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves formed
+the whole: but it was what we both liked better than a feast, and I
+took a delight inexpressible in tending M. Paul. I asked him whether
+his friends, Pere Silas and Madame Beck, knew what he had done--
+whether they had seen my house?
+
+"Mon amie," said he, "none knows what I have done save you and myself:
+the pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To
+speak truth, there has been to me in this matter a refinement of
+enjoyment I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides" (smiling)
+"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret.
+How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and
+needful caution! How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my
+affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!"
+
+This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps
+on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted,
+dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had
+it.
+
+Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my
+landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these
+particulars in writing; he had foreseen and prepared all things.
+
+The house was not M. Paul's--that I guessed: he was hardly the man to
+become a proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence
+of the saving faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a
+treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the Basse-
+Ville--a man of substance, M. Paul said; he startled me by adding: "a
+friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most respectful regard
+for you." And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the landlord was none
+other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and kind-hearted bookseller,
+who had so kindly found me a seat that eventful night in the park. It
+seems M. Miret was, in his station, rich, as well as much respected,
+and possessed several houses in this faubourg; the rent was moderate,
+scarce half of what it would have been for a house of equal size
+nearer the centre of Villette.
+
+"And then," observed M. Paul, "should fortune not favour you, though I
+think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good
+hands; M. Miret will not be extortionate: the first year's rent you
+have already in your savings; afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and
+herself. But now, what will you do for pupils?"
+
+"I must distribute my prospectuses."
+
+"Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday.
+Should you object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the
+Demoiselles Miret? They are at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would
+become me indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to
+number aristocrats in my little day-school; I care not if they never
+come. I shall be proud to receive M. Miret's daughters."
+
+"Besides these," pursued he, "another pupil offers, who will come
+daily to take lessons in English; and as she is rich, she will pay
+handsomely. I mean my god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur."
+
+What is in a name?--what in three words? Till this moment I had
+listened with living joy--I had answered with gleeful quickness; a
+name froze me; three words struck me mute. The effect could not be
+hidden, and indeed I scarce tried to hide it.
+
+"What now?" said M. Paul.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Your countenance changes: your colour and your very eyes
+fade. Nothing! You must be ill; you have some suffering; tell me
+what."
+
+I had nothing to tell.
+
+He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued
+silent and icy. He tried to win a word; he entreated with
+perseverance, he waited with patience.
+
+"Justine Marie is a good girl," said he, "docile and amiable; not
+quick--but you will like her."
+
+"I think not. I think she must not come here."
+
+Such was my speech.
+
+"Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But, in truth, there
+_is_ something. Again you are pale as that statue. Rely on Paul
+Carlos; tell him the grief."
+
+His chair touched mine; his hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards
+him.
+
+"Do you know Marie Justine?" said he again.
+
+The name re-pronounced by his lips overcame me unaccountably. It did
+not prostrate--no, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat
+through my veins--recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and
+nights of heart-sickness. Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely
+as he had long twined his life in mine--far as had progressed, and
+near as was achieved our minds' and affections' assimilation--the very
+suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be heard only
+with a fermenting excitement, an impetuous throe, a disdainful
+resolve, an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could
+hide the flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry.
+
+"I want to tell you something," I said: "I want to tell you all."
+
+"Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is
+your friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!"
+
+I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I
+narrated; fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back
+to the night in the park; I mentioned the medicated draught--why it
+was given--its goading effect--how it had torn rest from under my
+head, shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a
+vivid yet solemn fancy--a summer-night solitude on turf, under trees,
+near a deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene realized; the crowd, the
+masques, the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar,
+the bells sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I
+had recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched himself:
+how I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history,
+in brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful,
+literal, ardent, bitter.
+
+Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed he
+spurred me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half
+done, he held both my hands, he consulted my eyes with a most piercing
+glance: there was something in his face which tended neither to calm
+nor to put me down; he forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own
+system of repression when I most challenged its exercise. I think I
+deserved strong reproof; but when have we our deserts? I merited
+severity; he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed imperious and
+unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof; he smiled,
+betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now
+that my nature had such a mood: he gathered me near his heart. I was
+full of faults; he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost
+mutiny, he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed
+my ear:--
+
+"Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on
+earth."
+
+We walked back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight--such moonlight as
+fell on Eden--shining through the shades of the Great Garden, and
+haply gilding a path glorious for a step divine--a Presence nameless.
+Once in their lives some men and women go back to these first fresh
+days of our great Sire and Mother--taste that grand morning's dew--
+bathe in its sunrise.
+
+In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had
+always been regarded with the affection proper to a daughter--how,
+with M. Paul's consent, she had been affianced for months to one
+Heinrich Muehler, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be
+married in the course of a year. Some of M. Emanuel's relations and
+connections would, indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with
+a view to securing her fortune in the family; but to himself the
+scheme was repugnant, and the idea totally inadmissible.
+
+We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean Baptiste's clock tolled nine. At
+this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my
+side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my
+destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed.
+How different the look--how far otherwise the fate!
+
+He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its
+beam like a banner. Once--unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and
+strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the
+manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living
+by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by
+heart--I preferred him before all humanity.
+
+We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted:
+the next day--he sailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a
+vain thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
+anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
+the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as
+it went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing
+him draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil--I, the
+prostrate votary--felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.
+
+Strange to say--strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life's
+experience--that anticipatory craunch proved all--yes--nearly
+_all_ the torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot,
+drew on lofty, loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow
+sweeping the sky, at noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or
+felt. I looked up. Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the
+votary still lived.
+
+M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
+years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
+school; I worked--I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
+property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account.
+Pupils came--burghers at first--a higher class ere long. About the
+middle of the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an
+additional hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter
+containing that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir
+of my dear and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous
+illness; the money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching
+him in the matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after
+his kinswoman's death--naming or recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett
+had given him my address. How far his conscience had been sinned
+against, I never inquired. I asked no questions, but took the cash and
+made it useful.
+
+With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine.
+I would not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left,
+and where he expected again to find me. My externat became a
+pensionnat; that also prospered.
+
+The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any
+endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a
+wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart. The spring which moved my
+energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. At parting, I
+had been left a legacy; such a thought for the present, such a hope
+for the future, such a motive for a persevering, a laborious, an
+enterprising, a patient and a brave course--I _could_ not flag.
+Few things shook me now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate,
+or depress me: most things pleased--mere trifles had a charm.
+
+Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly
+on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider
+supplied bounteous fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not
+suffered to fear penury; I was not tried with suspense. By every
+vessel he wrote; he wrote as he gave and as he loved, in full-handed,
+full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked to write; he did not
+abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and
+paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he
+was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was
+no sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never
+dropped her slippery oil on his lips--never proffered, by his pen, her
+coward feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor
+an excuse--neither a scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were
+real food that nourished, living water that refreshed.
+
+And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so
+remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable
+and noble, could be otherwise than grateful to the death.
+
+Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is
+made the facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not
+tease nor tempt. He said:--
+
+"Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism
+in you. I own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I
+cannot receive myself, but it is the sole creed for 'Lucy.'"
+
+All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself
+make him a real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false--artless,
+and not cunning--a freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had
+rendered him ductile in a priest's hands, his affection, his
+devotedness, his sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes
+sometimes, made him abandon justice to himself to do the work of
+craft, and serve the ends of selfishness; but these are faults so rare
+to find, so costly to their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether
+they will not one day be reckoned amongst the jewels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel's return is fixed. It is
+Autumn; he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school
+flourishes, my house is ready: I have made him a little library,
+filled its shelves with the books he left in my care: I have
+cultivated out of love for him (I was naturally no florist) the plants
+he preferred, and some of them are yet in bloom. I thought I loved him
+when he went away; I love him now in another degree: he is more my
+own.
+
+The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
+but---he is coming.
+
+Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the
+wind takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming.
+
+The skies hang full and dark--a wrack sails from the west; the clouds
+cast themselves into strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there
+rise resplendent mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his
+state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle
+at its thickest--so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know
+some signs of the sky; I have noted them ever since childhood. God
+watch that sail! Oh! guard it!
+
+The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--"keening" at every
+window! It will rise--it will swell--it shrieks out long: wander as I
+may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The
+advancing hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers
+hear and fear a wild south-west storm. That storm roared frenzied, for
+seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks:
+it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full of sustenance.
+Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect
+work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder--the tremor of
+whose plumes was storm.
+
+Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting
+shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered
+till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun
+returned, his light was night to some!
+
+Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet,
+kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to
+conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the
+rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the
+fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding
+life.
+
+Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Pere Silas;
+Madame Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died.
+Farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+This file should be named 7vill10.txt or 7vill10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7vill11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7vill10a.txt
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/7vill10.zip b/old/7vill10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f3b3eb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7vill10.zip
diff --git a/old/8vill10.txt b/old/8vill10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d0162a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8vill10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21956 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+#4 in our series by Charlotte Bronte
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Villette
+
+Author: Charlotte Bronte
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9182]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 12, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+BY
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.       BRETTON
+
+II.      PAULINA
+
+III.     THE PLAYMATES
+
+IV.      MISS MARCHMONT
+
+V.       TURNING A NEW LEAF
+
+VI.      LONDON
+
+VII.     VILLETTE
+
+VIII.    MADAME BECK
+
+IX.      ISIDORE
+
+X.       DR. JOHN
+
+XI.      THE PORTRESS'S CABINET
+
+XII.     THE CASKET
+
+XIII.    A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON
+
+XIV.     THE FÊTE
+
+XV.      THE LONG VACATION
+
+XVI.     AULD LANG SYNE
+
+XVII.    LA TERRASSE
+
+XVIII.   WE QUARREL
+
+XIX.     THE CLEOPATRA
+
+XX.      THE CONCERT
+
+XXI.     REACTION
+
+XXII.    THE LETTER
+
+XXIII.   VASHTI
+
+XXIV.    M. DE BASSOMPIERRE
+
+XXV.     THE LITTLE COUNTESS
+
+XXVI.    A BURIAL
+
+XXVII.   THE HÔTEL CRÉCY
+
+XXVIII.  THE WATCHGUARD
+
+XXIX.    MONSIEUR'S FÊTE
+
+XXX.     M. PAUL
+
+XXXI.    THE DRYAD
+
+XXXII.   THE FIRST LETTER
+
+XXXIII.  M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE
+
+XXXIV.   MALEVOLA
+
+XXXV.    FRATERNITY
+
+XXXVI.   THE APPLE OF DISCORD
+
+XXXVII.  SUNSHINE
+
+XXXVIII. CLOUD
+
+XXXIX.   OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XL.      THE HAPPY PAIR
+
+XLI.     FAUBOURG CLOTILDE
+
+XLII.    FINIS
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRETTON.
+
+
+My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town
+of Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for
+generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace--Bretton
+of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor
+had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his
+neighbourhood, I know not.
+
+When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I
+liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The
+large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide
+windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street,
+where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide--so quiet was its
+atmosphere, so clean its pavement--these things pleased me well.
+
+One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of,
+and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton,
+who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her
+husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and
+handsome woman.
+
+She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome,
+tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing
+always the clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity
+in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous
+pity that she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes
+were blue--though, even in boyhood, very piercing--and the colour of
+his long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as
+the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the
+lines of his mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her
+stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-
+grown), and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits
+of that tone and equality which are better than a fortune to the
+possessor.
+
+In the autumn of the year ---- I was staying at Bretton; my godmother
+having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at
+that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw
+events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the
+faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad
+to change scene and society.
+
+Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with
+tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river
+through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian
+and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on
+each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The
+charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I
+liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the
+latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had
+still held aloof.
+
+One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused
+Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from
+home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous
+communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud
+seemed to pass.
+
+The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my
+bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in
+its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with
+white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny
+rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
+
+"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer
+was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other
+visitors."
+
+On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was
+told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and
+distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was
+added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere
+long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear.
+Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a
+giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed
+and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union
+proved, that separation at last ensued--separation by mutual consent,
+not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having
+over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died
+after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very
+sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden
+communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded
+but that some over-severity on his part--some deficiency in patience
+and indulgence--had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over
+this idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men
+insisted on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs.
+Bretton had offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope,"
+added my godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her
+mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was
+weak enough to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home _is_ a sensible
+man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and
+lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments--a thing his
+butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed"
+confessed my godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
+
+In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late
+husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a
+maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed
+French and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France,
+of whom more than one wrote _de_ before his name, and called
+himself noble.
+
+That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet
+the coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I
+sat alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton
+being absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the
+country. My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I
+sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind
+sounded angry and restless.
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for
+her journey! I wish she were safe here."
+
+A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner
+was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk
+and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and
+at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his
+arms.
+
+"Is that the child?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face,
+but it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
+
+"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the
+drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker,
+extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious
+haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared
+made a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too
+heavy and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms.
+"Give it to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put
+it away." This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you
+are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
+
+The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared
+exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure,
+light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she
+looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky
+curls, increased, I thought, the resemblance.
+
+Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's
+hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze,
+but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a
+caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was
+rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger
+smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
+
+"Missy."
+
+"But besides Missy?"
+
+"Polly, papa calls her."
+
+"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
+
+"Not _always_; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She
+shook her head expressively.
+
+"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
+
+"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
+
+Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a
+movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said--
+"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
+
+She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool,
+she carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated
+herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even
+a peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the
+child her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did
+take notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee,
+her head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of
+pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I
+heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without
+shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff
+testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was
+quite as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded--
+"May the bell be rung for Harriet!"
+
+I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
+
+"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must
+ask where my bed is."
+
+Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
+
+"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
+
+"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's
+room," designating me.
+
+Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some
+minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
+
+"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she
+passed me mute.
+
+"Good-night, Polly," I said.
+
+"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was
+the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard
+Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her
+answer--"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the
+staircase.
+
+On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She
+had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a
+sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested
+quietly on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I
+abstained from speaking to her for some time, but just before
+extinguishing the light, I recommended her to lie down.
+
+"By and by," was the answer.
+
+"But you will take cold, Missy."
+
+She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side,
+and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she
+pleased. Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still
+wept,--wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
+
+On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold!
+there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with
+pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so
+as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as
+she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she
+was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons,
+strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered
+with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she
+smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a
+corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became
+still. I half rose, and advanced my, head to see how she was occupied.
+On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that
+she was praying.
+
+Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
+
+"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do
+not feel neat. Make me neat!"
+
+"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
+
+"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking _the girl_"
+(meaning me, who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to
+learn, against the time you leave me."
+
+"Do you want me to go?"
+
+"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
+Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
+
+"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
+
+"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
+
+"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress
+you."
+
+"On no account."
+
+"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave
+prettily to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
+
+"She shall dress me on no account."
+
+"Comical little thing!"
+
+"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the
+line will be crooked."
+
+"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
+
+"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
+
+"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
+
+"Come, then."
+
+They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
+
+"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these
+people."
+
+"Be a good child, Missy."
+
+"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and
+moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
+
+I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet
+within bounds.
+
+"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said,
+"Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet
+temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but
+her full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs.
+Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread
+filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not
+eating.
+
+"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to
+me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not
+slept."
+
+I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
+
+"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon
+settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PAULINA.
+
+
+Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of
+a fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or
+wilful: she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to
+comfort--to tranquillity even--than she presented, it was scarcely
+possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could
+have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of
+adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more
+legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She
+seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of
+that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever,
+opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in
+her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
+
+And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure,
+white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and
+praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast--some precocious
+fanatic or untimely saint--I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but
+they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that
+child's mind must have been.
+
+I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low:
+sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up
+unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the
+burden, "Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd
+nature; betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the
+most unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
+
+What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued
+unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden
+turn.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station
+in a corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of
+occupying her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count
+how many ladies should go down the street in a given time. She
+had sat listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when--my eye
+being fixed on hers--I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling
+transfiguration. These sudden, dangerous natures--_sensitive_ as
+they are called--offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler
+temperament has secured from participation in their angular vagaries.
+The fixed and heavy gaze swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the
+small, overcast brow cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit
+up; the sad countenance vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden
+eagerness, an intense expectancy. "It _is_!" were her words.
+
+Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from
+the room, How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it
+might be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest,
+which would be impetuous enough. I--watching calmly from the window--
+saw her, in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she
+had an antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was
+on the point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that
+the child was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw
+her caught up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the
+wondering stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good
+turn, and now, covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to
+the house whence he had seen her issue.
+
+I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but
+he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
+
+His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton.
+She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered,
+surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even
+expostulatory; and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,
+--"I could not help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the
+country without seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
+
+"But you will unsettle her."
+
+"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
+
+This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her
+gently on the ground before him.
+
+"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and
+gazed up into his face.
+
+It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it
+was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not
+foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On
+all occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain
+or ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever
+felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own
+will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
+
+Mr. Home was a stern-featured--perhaps I should rather say, a hard-
+featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were marked
+and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but there
+was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated countenance.
+His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his physiognomy. He
+was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid his hand on the
+child's uplifted head. She said--"Kiss Polly."
+
+He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I
+might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise:
+she seemed to have got what she wanted--_all_ she wanted, and to
+be in a trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this
+creature like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had
+been filled from his, as the cup from the flagon.
+
+Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might
+secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his
+little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying
+on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-
+handkerchief there; bring it to me."
+
+She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to
+Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief
+in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny
+stature, and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he
+continued to talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his
+hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the
+handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not
+to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she
+nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the
+other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
+
+During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual,
+full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed
+the chairs.
+
+"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
+Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea."
+
+She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
+
+"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
+
+And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the
+sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home;
+papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
+
+Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they
+were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had
+to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the
+bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her
+insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand
+that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly
+speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like
+other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and
+even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
+
+"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That
+lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and,
+for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
+
+This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening.
+I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.
+Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated
+round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should
+rather say, broke it up--for, of course, his arrival made a bustle;
+and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be
+provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl
+he took no notice for a time.
+
+His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he
+turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed
+himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say
+_child_ I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term--a term
+suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in
+a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a
+good-sized doll--perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon
+was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands
+a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at
+which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers
+seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the
+cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when
+the perverse weapon--swerving from her control--inflicted a deeper
+stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
+
+Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of
+sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very
+perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper
+to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks;
+his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent,
+and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad
+sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
+
+"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in
+silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from
+the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was
+all he knew of timidity---"Mother, I see a young lady in the present
+society to whom I have not been introduced."
+
+"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the
+least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in
+venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
+
+"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter
+yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
+
+"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance,
+"might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems
+willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham
+Bretton."
+
+She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately
+put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her
+perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you
+do?"
+
+"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued
+with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
+
+"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and
+she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could
+not be done without some climbing and straining--a sacrifice of
+decorum not to be thought of--and being utterly disdainful of aid in
+the presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high
+chair for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his
+chair.
+
+"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to
+you a convenient place of abode?"
+
+"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
+
+"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
+I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
+a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
+Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
+
+"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your
+mother's."
+
+"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which
+you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
+
+"Are _you_ going to live here now?"
+
+"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I think you queer."
+
+"My face, ma'am?"
+
+"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
+
+"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so
+do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his
+mane with a sort of triumph--tawny he himself well knew that it was,
+and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer
+than is your ladyship."
+
+"You call me queer?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
+
+"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since;
+but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I
+was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
+
+"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
+
+"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before
+papa soon, I daresay."
+
+She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating
+whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he
+caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised
+aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the
+glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect
+of the action were too much.
+
+"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and
+when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were
+to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that
+mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
+
+So saying, she departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PLAYMATES.
+
+
+Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed
+on to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent,
+sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton's chat, which was just
+of the proper sort for a man in his morbid mood--not over-sympathetic,
+yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of the
+motherly--she was sufficiently his senior to be permitted this touch.
+
+As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and
+watchful. Her father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit
+there till she felt or fancied he grew restless; then it was--"Papa,
+put me down; I shall tire you with my weight."
+
+And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on
+carpet or stool just at "papa's" feet, the white work-box and the
+scarlet-speckled handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it
+seems, was intended as a keepsake for "papa," and must be finished
+before his departure; consequently the demand on the sempstress's
+industry (she accomplished about a score of stitches in half-an-hour)
+was stringent.
+
+The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were
+passed at school), brought us an accession of animation--a quality not
+diminished by the nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted
+between him and Miss Paulina.
+
+A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity
+put upon her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when
+he addressed her, was--"I can't attend to you; I have other things to
+think about." Being implored to state _what_ things:
+
+"Business."
+
+Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and
+displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax,
+pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings--some of them gaily
+coloured--which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this
+powerful temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from
+her work, cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in
+scattered pictures. An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim
+spaniel happened to flutter to the floor.
+
+"Pretty little dog!" said she, delighted.
+
+Graham prudently took no notice. Ere long, stealing from her corner,
+she approached to examine the treasure more closely. The dog's great
+eyes and long ears, and the child's hat and feathers, were
+irresistible.
+
+"Nice picture!" was her favourable criticism.
+
+"Well--you may have it," said Graham.
+
+She seemed to hesitate. The wish to possess was strong, but to accept
+would be a compromise of dignity. No. She put it down and turned away.
+
+"You won't have it, then, Polly?"
+
+"I would rather not, thank you."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?"
+
+She half turned to listen.
+
+"Cut it into strips for lighting the taper."
+
+"No!"
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Please--don't."
+
+Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the
+scissors from his mother's work-basket.
+
+"Here goes!" said he, making a menacing flourish. "Right through
+Fido's head, and splitting little Harry's nose."
+
+"No! _No!_ NO!"
+
+"Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done."
+
+She hesitated, lingered, but complied.
+
+"Now, will you have it?" he asked, as she stood before him.
+
+"Please."
+
+"But I shall want payment."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A kiss."
+
+"Give the picture first into my hand."
+
+Polly, as she said this, looked rather faithless in her turn. Graham
+gave it. She absconded a debtor, darted to her father, and took refuge
+on his knee. Graham rose in mimic wrath and followed. She buried her
+face in Mr. Home's waistcoat.
+
+"Papa--papa--send him away!"
+
+"I'll not be sent away," said Graham.
+
+With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off
+
+"Then, I shall kiss the hand," said he; but that moment it became a
+miniature fist, and dealt him payment in a small coin that was not
+kisses.
+
+Graham--not failing in his way to be as wily as his little playmate--
+retreated apparently quite discomfited; he flung himself on a sofa,
+and resting his head against the cushion, lay like one in pain. Polly,
+finding him silent, presently peeped at him. His eyes and face were
+covered with his hands. She turned on her father's knee, and gazed at
+her foe anxiously and long. Graham groaned.
+
+"Papa, what is the matter?" she whispered.
+
+"You had better ask him, Polly."
+
+"Is he hurt?" (groan second.)
+
+"He makes a noise as if he were," said Mr. Home.
+
+"Mother," suggested Graham, feebly, "I think you had better send for
+the doctor. Oh my eye!" (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from
+Graham.)
+
+"If I were to become blind----?" suggested this last.
+
+His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him
+directly.
+
+"Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and
+I did not think I hit so _very_ hard."
+
+Silence answered her. Her features worked,--"I am sorry; I am sorry!"
+
+Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping.
+
+"Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"It is all nonsense, my pet," cried Mr. Home.
+
+And Graham once more snatched her aloft, and she again punished him;
+and while she pulled his lion's locks, termed him--"The naughtiest,
+rudest, worst, untruest person that ever was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of Mr. Home's departure, he and his daughter had some
+conversation in a window-recess by themselves; I heard part of it.
+
+"Couldn't I pack my box and go with you, papa?" she whispered
+earnestly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Should I be a trouble to you?"
+
+"Yes, Polly."
+
+"Because I am little?"
+
+"Because you are little and tender. It is only great, strong people
+that should travel. But don't look sad, my little girl; it breaks my
+heart. Papa, will soon come back to his Polly."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all."
+
+"Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?"
+
+"Sorrier than sorry."
+
+"Then Polly must be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards.
+She must look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy meanwhile.
+Can she do this?"
+
+"She will try."
+
+"I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go."
+
+"_Now_?--just _now_?
+
+"Just now."
+
+She held up quivering lips. Her father sobbed, but she, I remarked,
+did not. Having put her down, he shook hands with the rest present,
+and departed.
+
+When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with
+a cry--"Papa!"
+
+It was low and long; a sort of "Why hast thou forsaken me?" During an
+ensuing space of some minutes, I perceived she endured agony. She went
+through, in that brief interval of her infant life, emotions such as
+some never feel; it was in her constitution: she would have more of
+such instants if she lived. Nobody spoke. Mrs. Bretton, being a
+mother, shed a tear or two. Graham, who was writing, lifted up his
+eyes and gazed at her. I, Lucy Snowe, was calm.
+
+The little creature, thus left unharassed, did for herself what none
+other could do--contended with an intolerable feeling; and, ere long,
+in some degree, repressed it. That day she would accept solace from
+none; nor the next day: she grew more passive afterwards.
+
+On the third evening, as she sat on the floor, worn and quiet, Graham,
+coming in, took her up gently, without a word. She did not resist: she
+rather nestled in his arms, as if weary. When he sat down, she laid
+her head against him; in a few minutes she slept; he carried her
+upstairs to bed. I was not surprised that, the next morning, the first
+thing she demanded was, "Where is Mr. Graham?"
+
+It happened that Graham was not coming to the breakfast-table; he had
+some exercises to write for that morning's class, and had requested
+his mother to send a cup of tea into the study. Polly volunteered to
+carry it: she must be busy about something, look after somebody. The
+cup was entrusted to her; for, if restless, she was also careful. As
+the study was opposite the breakfast-room, the doors facing across the
+passage, my eye followed her.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing on the threshold.
+
+"Writing," said Graham.
+
+"Why don't you come to take breakfast with your mamma?"
+
+"Too busy."
+
+"Do you want any breakfast?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"There, then."
+
+And she deposited the cup on the carpet, like a jailor putting a
+prisoner's pitcher of water through his cell-door, and retreated.
+Presently she returned.
+
+"What will you have besides tea--what to eat?"
+
+"Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that's a kind
+little woman."
+
+She came back to Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Please, ma'am, send your boy something good."
+
+"You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?"
+
+She selected a portion of whatever was best on the table; and, ere
+long, came back with a whispered request for some marmalade, which was
+not there. Having got it, however, (for Mrs. Bretton refused the pair
+nothing), Graham was shortly after heard lauding her to the skies;
+promising that, when he had a house of his own, she should be his
+housekeeper, and perhaps--if she showed any culinary genius--his cook;
+and, as she did not return, and I went to look after her, I found
+Graham and her breakfasting _tête-à-tête_--she standing at his
+elbow, and sharing his fare: excepting the marmalade, which she
+delicately refused to touch, lest, I suppose, it should appear that
+she had procured it as much on her own account as his. She constantly
+evinced these nice perceptions and delicate instincts.
+
+The league of acquaintanceship thus struck up was not hastily
+dissolved; on the contrary, it appeared that time and circumstances
+served rather to cement than loosen it. Ill-assimilated as the two
+were in age, sex, pursuits, &c., they somehow found a great deal to
+say to each other. As to Paulina, I observed that her little character
+never properly came out, except with young Bretton. As she got
+settled, and accustomed to the house, she proved tractable enough with
+Mrs. Bretton; but she would sit on a stool at that lady's feet all day
+long, learning her task, or sewing, or drawing figures with a pencil
+on a slate, and never kindling once to originality, or showing a
+single gleam of the peculiarities of her nature. I ceased to watch her
+under such circumstances: she was not interesting. But the moment
+Graham's knock sounded of an evening, a change occurred; she was
+instantly at the head of the staircase. Usually her welcome was a
+reprimand or a threat.
+
+"You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your
+mamma."
+
+"Little busybody! Are you there?"
+
+"Yes--and you can't reach me: I am higher up than you" (peeping
+between the rails of the banister; she could not look over them).
+
+"Polly!"
+
+"My dear boy!" (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in
+imitation of his mother.)
+
+"I am fit to faint with fatigue," declared Graham, leaning against the
+passage-wall in seeming exhaustion. "Dr. Digby" (the headmaster) "has
+quite knocked me up with overwork. Just come down and help me to carry
+up my books."
+
+"Ah! you're cunning!"
+
+"Not at all, Polly--it is positive fact. I'm as weak as a rush. Come
+down."
+
+"Your eyes are quiet like the cat's, but you'll spring."
+
+"Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn't in me. Come down."
+
+"Perhaps I may--if you'll promise not to touch--not to snatch me up,
+and not to whirl me round."
+
+"I? I couldn't do it!" (sinking into a chair.)
+
+"Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off"
+
+This being done, she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from
+the feeble Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new
+and spasmodic life: the game of romps was sure to be exacted.
+Sometimes she would be angry; sometimes the matter was allowed to pass
+smoothly, and we could hear her say as she led him up-stairs: "Now, my
+dear boy, come and take your tea--I am sure you must want something."
+
+It was sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham,
+while he took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but
+with him the most officious, fidgety little body possible. I often
+wished she would mind herself and be tranquil; but no--herself was
+forgotten in him: he could not be sufficiently well waited on, nor
+carefully enough looked after; he was more than the Grand Turk in her
+estimation. She would gradually assemble the various plates before
+him, and, when one would suppose all he could possibly desire was
+within his reach, she would find out something else: "Ma'am," she
+would whisper to Mrs. Bretton,--"perhaps your son would like a little
+cake--sweet cake, you know--there is some in there" (pointing to the
+sideboard cupboard). Mrs. Bretton, as a rule, disapproved of sweet
+cake at tea, but still the request was urged,--"One little piece--only
+for him--as he goes to school: girls--such as me and Miss Snowe--don't
+need treats, but _he_ would like it."
+
+Graham did like it very well, and almost always got it. To do him
+justice, he would have shared his prize with her to whom he owed it;
+but that was never allowed: to insist, was to ruffle her for the
+evening. To stand by his knee, and monopolize his talk and notice, was
+the reward she wanted--not a share of the cake.
+
+With curious readiness did she adapt herself to such themes as
+interested him. One would have thought the child had no mind or life
+of her own, but must necessarily live, move, and have her being in
+another: now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to
+Graham, and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence.
+She learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a trice: she got by
+heart their characters as given from his lips: a single description of
+an individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused
+identities: she would talk with him the whole evening about people she
+had never seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect,
+manners, and dispositions. Some she learned to mimic: an under-master,
+who was an aversion of young Bretton's, had, it seems, some
+peculiarities, which she caught up in a moment from Graham's
+representation, and rehearsed for his amusement; this, however, Mrs.
+Bretton disapproved and forbade.
+
+The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her
+feelings received a severe shock.
+
+One day Graham, on the occasion of his birthday, had some friends--
+lads of his own age--to dine with him. Paulina took much interest in
+the coming of these friends; she had frequently heard of them; they
+were amongst those of whom Graham oftenest spoke. After dinner, the
+young gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, where they
+soon became very merry and made a good deal of noise. Chancing to pass
+through the hall, I found Paulina sitting alone on the lowest step of
+the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels of the dining-room
+door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her little
+brow knit in anxious, meditation.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Polly?"
+
+"Nothing particular; only I wish that door was clear glass--that I
+might see through it. The boys seem very cheerful, and I want to go to
+them: I want to be with Graham, and watch his friends."
+
+"What hinders you from going?"
+
+"I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door,
+and ask to be let in?"
+
+I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and
+therefore encouraged the attempt.
+
+She knocked--too faintly at first to be heard, but on a second essay
+the door unclosed; Graham's head appeared; he looked in high spirits,
+but impatient.
+
+"What do you want, you little monkey?"
+
+"To come to you."
+
+"Do you indeed? As if I would be troubled with you! Away to mamma and
+Mistress Snowe, and tell them to put you to bed." The auburn head and
+bright flushed face vanished,--the door shut peremptorily. She was
+stunned.
+
+"Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before," she said in
+consternation. "What have I done?"
+
+"Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends."
+
+"And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are
+here!"
+
+I had some thoughts of consoling her, and of improving the occasion by
+inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a
+tolerable stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by
+putting her fingers in her ears at the first words I uttered, and then
+lying down on the mat with her face against the flags; nor could
+either Warren or the cook root her from that position: she was allowed
+to lie, therefore, till she chose to rise of her own accord.
+
+Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted
+her as usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from
+his hand; her eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she
+would not look in his face. The next day he treated her with
+indifference, and she grew like a bit of marble. The day after, he
+teased her to know what was the matter; her lips would not unclose. Of
+course he could not feel real anger on his side: the match was too
+unequal in every way; he tried soothing and coaxing. "Why was she so
+angry? What had he done?" By-and-by tears answered him; he petted her,
+and they were friends. But she was one on whom such incidents were not
+lost: I remarked that never after this rebuff did she seek him, or
+follow him, or in any way solicit his notice. I told her once to carry
+a book or some other article to Graham when he was shut up in his
+study.
+
+"I shall wait till he comes out," said she, proudly; "I don't choose
+to give him the trouble of rising to open the door."
+
+Young Bretton had a favourite pony on which he often rode out; from
+the window she always watched his departure and return. It was her
+ambition to be permitted to have a ride round the courtyard on this
+pony; but far be it from her to ask such a favour. One day she
+descended to the yard to watch him dismount; as she leaned against the
+gate, the longing wish for the indulgence of a ride glittered in her
+eye.
+
+"Come, Polly, will you have a canter?" asked Graham, half carelessly.
+
+I suppose she thought he was _too_ careless.
+
+"No, thank you," said she, turning away with the utmost coolness.
+
+"You'd better," pursued he. "You will like it, I am sure."
+
+"Don't think I should care a fig about it," was the response.
+
+"That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride."
+
+"Lucy Snowe is a _tatter_-box," I heard her say (her imperfect
+articulation was the least precocious thing she had about her); and
+with this; she walked into the house.
+
+Graham, coming in soon after, observed to his mother,--"Mamma, I
+believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of
+oddities; but I should be dull without her: she amuses me a great deal
+more than you or Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Miss Snowe," said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of
+occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at
+night), "do you know on what day in the week I like Graham best?"
+
+"How can I possibly know anything so strange? Is there one day out of
+the seven when he is otherwise than on the other six?"
+
+"To be sure! Can't you see? Don't you know? I find him the most
+excellent on a Sunday; then we have him the whole day, and he is
+quiet, and, in the evening, _so_ kind."
+
+This observation was not altogether groundless: going to church, &c.,
+kept Graham quiet on the Sunday, and the evening he generally
+dedicated to a serene, though rather indolent sort of enjoyment by the
+parlour fireside. He would take possession of the couch, and then he
+would call Polly.
+
+Graham was a boy not quite as other boys are; all his delight did not
+lie in action: he was capable of some intervals of contemplation; he
+could take a pleasure too in reading, nor was his selection of books
+wholly indiscriminate: there were glimmerings of characteristic
+preference, and even of instinctive taste in the choice. He rarely, it
+is true, remarked on what he read, but I have seen him sit and think
+of it.
+
+Polly, being near him, kneeling on a little cushion or the carpet, a
+conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I
+caught a snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some
+influence better and finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe
+Graham at such times into no ungentle mood.
+
+"Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?"
+
+"I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?"
+
+"Speak nicely, then: don't be in a hurry."
+
+The hymn being rehearsed, or rather half-chanted, in a little singing
+voice, Graham would take exceptions at the manner, and proceed to give
+a lesson in recitation. She was quick in learning, apt in imitating;
+and, besides, her pleasure was to please Graham: she proved a ready
+scholar. To the hymn would succeed some reading--perhaps a chapter in
+the Bible; correction was seldom required here, for the child could
+read any simple narrative chapter very well; and, when the subject was
+such as she could understand and take an interest in, her expression
+and emphasis were something remarkable. Joseph cast into the pit; the
+calling of Samuel; Daniel in the lions' den;--these were favourite
+passages: of the first especially she seemed perfectly to feel the
+pathos.
+
+"Poor Jacob!" she would sometimes say, with quivering lips. "How he
+loved his son Joseph! As much," she once added--"as much, Graham, as I
+love you: if you were to die" (and she re-opened the book, sought the
+verse, and read), "I should refuse to be comforted, and go down into
+the grave to you mourning."
+
+With these words she gathered Graham in her little arms, drawing his
+long-tressed head towards her. The action, I remember, struck me as
+strangely rash; exciting the feeling one might experience on seeing an
+animal dangerous by nature, and but half-tamed by art, too heedlessly
+fondled. Not that I feared Graham would hurt, or very roughly check
+her; but I thought she ran risk of incurring such a careless,
+impatient repulse, as would be worse almost to her than a blow. On:
+the whole, however, these demonstrations were borne passively:
+sometimes even a sort of complacent wonder at her earnest partiality
+would smile not unkindly in his eyes. Once he said:--"You like me
+almost as well as if you were my little sister, Polly."
+
+"Oh! I _do_ like you," said she; "I _do_ like you very
+much."
+
+I was not long allowed the amusement of this study of character. She
+had scarcely been at Bretton two months, when a letter came from Mr.
+Home, signifying that he was now settled amongst his maternal kinsfolk
+on the Continent; that, as England was become wholly distasteful to
+him, he had no thoughts of returning hither, perhaps, for years; and
+that he wished his little girl to join him immediately.
+
+"I wonder how she will take this news?" said Mrs. Bretton, when she
+had read the letter. _I_ wondered, too, and I took upon myself to
+communicate it.
+
+Repairing to the drawing-room--in which calm and decorated apartment
+she was fond of being alone, and where she could be implicitly
+trusted, for she fingered nothing, or rather soiled nothing she
+fingered--I found her seated, like a little Odalisque, on a couch,
+half shaded by the drooping draperies of the window near. She seemed
+happy; all her appliances for occupation were about her; the white
+wood workbox, a shred or two of muslin, an end or two of ribbon
+collected for conversion into doll-millinery. The doll, duly night-
+capped and night-gowned, lay in its cradle; she was rocking it to
+sleep, with an air of the most perfect faith in its possession of
+sentient and somnolent faculties; her eyes, at the same time, being
+engaged with a picture-book, which lay open on her lap.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said she in a whisper, "this is a wonderful book.
+Candace" (the doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed
+complexion gave it much of an Ethiopian aspect)--"Candace is asleep
+now, and I may tell you about it; only we must both speak low, lest
+she should waken. This book was given me by Graham; it tells about
+distant countries, a long, long way from England, which no traveller
+can reach without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild men
+live in these countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from
+ours: indeed, some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of
+being cool, you know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a
+picture of thousands gathered in a desolate place--a plain, spread
+with sand--round a man in black,--a good, _good_ Englishman--a
+missionary, who is preaching to them under a palm-tree." (She showed
+a little coloured cut to that effect.) "And here are pictures" (she
+went on) "more stranger" (grammar was occasionally forgotten) "than
+that. There is the wonderful Great Wall of China; here is a Chinese
+lady, with a foot littler than mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary;
+and here, most strange of all--is a land of ice and snow, without
+green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land, they found some mammoth
+bones: there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I
+can tell you, because Graham told me. A mighty, goblin creature, as
+high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not a fierce, flesh-
+eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I met one in a forest, it
+would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would
+trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread on a grasshopper
+in a hayfield without knowing it."
+
+Thus she rambled on.
+
+"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
+
+"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps in twenty years,
+when I am grown a woman, as tall as Mrs. Bretton, I may travel with
+Graham. We intend going to Switzerland, and climbing Mount Blanck; and
+some day we shall sail over to South America, and walk to the top of
+Kim-kim-borazo."
+
+"But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?"
+
+Her reply--not given till after a pause--evinced one of those
+unexpected turns of temper peculiar to her.
+
+"Where is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "Why do
+you mention papa? What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be
+happy, and not think about him so much; and there it will be all to do
+over again!"
+
+Her lip trembled. I hastened to disclose the fact of a letter having
+been received, and to mention the directions given that she and
+Harriet should immediately rejoin this dear papa. "Now, Polly, are you
+not glad?" I added.
+
+She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll;
+she gazed at me with gravity and earnestness.
+
+"Shall not you like to go to papa?"
+
+"Of course," she said at last in that trenchant manner she usually
+employed in speaking to me; and which was quite different from that
+she used with Mrs. Bretton, and different again from the one dedicated
+to Graham. I wished to ascertain more of what she thought but no: she
+would converse no more. Hastening to Mrs. Bretton, she questioned her,
+and received the confirmation of my news. The weight and importance of
+these tidings kept her perfectly serious the whole day. In the
+evening, at the moment Graham's entrance was heard below, I found her
+at my side. She began to arrange a locket-ribbon about my neck, she
+displaced and replaced the comb in my hair; while thus busied, Graham
+entered.
+
+"Tell him by-and-by," she whispered; "tell him I am going."
+
+In the course of tea-time I made the desired communication. Graham, it
+chanced, was at that time greatly preoccupied about some school-prize,
+for which he was competing. The news had to be told twice before it
+took proper hold of his attention, and even then he dwelt on it but
+momently.
+
+"Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to
+lose her: she must come to us again, mamma."
+
+And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to
+himself and his books, and was soon buried in study.
+
+"Little Mousie" crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at his
+feet, her face to the floor; mute and motionless she kept that post
+and position till bed-time. Once I saw Graham--wholly unconscious of
+her proximity--push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or
+two. A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face,
+to which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot.
+When summoned by her nurse she rose and departed very obediently,
+having bid us all a subdued good-night.
+
+I will not say that I dreaded going to bed, an hour later; yet I
+certainly went with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that
+child in no peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but
+fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like
+a white bird on the outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost
+her; she was not to be managed like another child. She, however,
+accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the dressing-
+table, she turned tome with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_
+sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!"
+
+I asked what ailed her.
+
+"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
+
+"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I
+well knew that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she
+would have nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst
+lavishing her eccentricities regardlessly before me--for whom she
+professed scarcely the semblance of affection--she never showed my
+godmother one glimpse of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but
+a docile, somewhat quaint little maiden. I examined her; her cheek was
+crimson; her dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and painfully
+restless: in this state it was obvious she must not be left till
+morning. I guessed how the case stood.
+
+"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not
+gone to his room yet."
+
+She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a
+shawl round her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was
+just coming out.
+
+"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I
+said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
+
+"I've spoilt her," said he, taking her from me with good humour, and
+kissing her little hot face and burning lips. "Polly, you care for me
+more than for papa, now--"
+
+"I _do_ care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her
+whisper.
+
+She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I
+carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
+
+When I thought she could listen to me, I said--"Paulina, you should
+not grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for
+him. It must be so."
+
+Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
+
+"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are
+only six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
+
+"But I love him so much; he _should_ love me a little."
+
+"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
+
+"Am I Graham's favourite?"
+
+"Yes, more than any little child I know."
+
+The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
+
+"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or
+else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over."
+
+"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be
+good, Lucy Snowe."
+
+I put her to bed.
+
+"Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself.
+I assured her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated;
+that she had only to be careful for the future.
+
+"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever--ever--see
+him again, after I leave England?"
+
+I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a
+still half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white
+shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice asked--
+"Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"
+
+"Like him! Yes, a little."
+
+"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
+
+"I think not. No: not as you do."
+
+"Do you like him much?"
+
+"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him
+so very much: he is full of faults."
+
+"Is he?"
+
+"All boys are."
+
+"More than girls?"
+
+"Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect;
+and as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and
+worship none."
+
+"Are you a wise person?"
+
+"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
+
+"I _cannot_ go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her
+elfish hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think _you_ shall
+have to leave Graham; for _your_ home is not here?"
+
+"Surely, Polly," said I, "you should not feel so much pain when you
+are very soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do
+you no longer wish to be his little companion?"
+
+Dead silence succeeded this question.
+
+"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
+
+"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
+
+I saw the little thing shiver. "Come to me," I said, wishing, yet
+scarcely hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange,
+capricious, little creature, and especially whimsical with me. She
+came, however, instantly, like a small ghost gliding over the carpet.
+I took her in. She was chill: I warmed her in my arms. She trembled
+nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and cherished she at last
+slumbered.
+
+"A very unique child," thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance
+by the fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her
+glittering eyelids and her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. "How will
+she get through this world, or battle with this life? How will she
+bear the shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which
+books, and my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?"
+
+She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave,
+but exercising self-command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MISS MARCHMONT.
+
+
+On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina's
+departure--little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never
+more to tread its calm old streets--I betook myself home, having been
+absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to
+return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does
+no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from
+saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the
+next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a
+harbour still as glass--the steersman stretched on the little deck,
+his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long
+prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives
+something in that fashion; why not I with the rest?
+
+Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a
+cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes
+indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I
+must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck
+at last. I too well remember a time--a long time--of cold, of danger,
+of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the
+rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure
+on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour
+nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;
+we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy
+tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In
+fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.
+
+As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.
+Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost
+sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way
+of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes
+for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for
+her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock
+undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original
+amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a
+profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were
+understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of
+dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I
+was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion
+were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands
+besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,
+sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me
+some task I could undertake.
+
+Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome
+residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,
+and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her
+drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss
+Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being
+very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a
+furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long
+affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a
+maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was
+about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for
+me, with the idea that I might supply this person's place. She made
+the proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.
+
+"It will not be an easy life;" said she candidly, "for I require a
+good deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,
+contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear
+tolerable."
+
+I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued
+inwardly; but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live
+here, in this close room, the watcher of suffering--sometimes,
+perhaps, the butt of temper--through all that was to come of my youth;
+while all that was gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully!
+My heart sunk one moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself
+to _realise_ evils, I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_,
+and consequently to exaggerate them.
+
+"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
+observed.
+
+"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out
+creature."
+
+So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,
+hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The
+blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life's
+sources.
+
+"What else have you in view--anything?"
+
+"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."
+
+"So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and
+if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be
+left open to you for three months."
+
+This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was
+speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the
+necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time
+she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I,
+for my part, had learned from the manner in which she bore this
+attack, that she was a firm, patient woman (patient under physical
+pain, though sometimes perhaps excitable under long mental canker);
+and she, from the good-will with which I succoured her, discovered
+that she could influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent
+for me the next day; for five or six successive days she claimed my
+company. Closer acquaintance, while it developed both faults and
+eccentricities, opened, at the same time, a view of a character I
+could respect. Stern and even morose as she sometimes was, I could
+wait on her and sit beside her with that calm which always blesses us
+when we are sensible that our manners, presence, contact, please and
+soothe the persons we serve. Even when she scolded me--which she did,
+now and then, very tartly--it was in such a way as did not humiliate,
+and left no sting; it was rather like an irascible mother rating her
+daughter, than a harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture,
+indeed, she could not, though she could occasionally storm. Moreover,
+a vein of reason ever ran through her passion: she was logical even
+when fierce. Ere long a growing sense of attachment began to present
+the thought of staying with her as companion in quite a new light; in
+another week I had agreed to remain.
+
+Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman,
+my mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty--her pain, my
+suffering--her relief, my hope--her anger, my punishment--her regard,
+my reward. I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an
+ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick
+chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became
+narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I
+demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than
+the tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the
+originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues,
+I will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her
+feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these things I
+clung to her.
+
+For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if
+for twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But
+another decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into
+action. I must be goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little
+morsel of human affection, which I prized as if it were a solid pearl,
+must melt in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone.
+My small adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented
+conscience. I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional
+great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small
+pains. Fate would not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction
+this shrinking sloth and cowardly indolence.
+
+One February night--I remember it well--there came a voice near Miss
+Marchmont's house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps,
+only by one. After a calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring.
+I had put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The
+wind was wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night
+deepened, it took a new tone--an accent keen, piercing, almost
+articulate to the ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the
+nerves, trilled in every gust.
+
+"Oh, hush! hush!" I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and
+making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching
+cry. I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation
+had forced on me a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the
+course of my life, events had taught me that these strange accents in
+the storm--this restless, hopeless cry--denote a coming state of the
+atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I believed, were
+often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting east
+wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied,
+too, I had noticed--but was not philosopher enough to know whether
+there was any connection between the circumstances--that we often at
+the same time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of
+the world; of rivers suddenly rushing above their banks; and of
+strange high tides flowing furiously in on low sea-coasts. "Our
+globe," I had said to myself, "seems at such periods torn and
+disordered; the feeble amongst us wither in her distempered breath,
+rushing hot from steaming volcanoes."
+
+I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.
+
+About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The
+fire, which had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air
+change, and become keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and
+saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost.
+
+Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,
+lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
+earnestness.
+
+"Is it a fine night?" she asked.
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"I thought so," she said; "for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I
+feel young to-night," she continued: "young, light-hearted, and happy.
+What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to
+enjoy health? It would be a miracle!"
+
+"And these are not the days of miracles," I thought to myself, and
+wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation
+to the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and
+personages, with singular vividness."
+
+"I love Memory to-night," she said: "I prize her as my best friend.
+She is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my
+heart, in warm and beautiful life, realities--not mere empty ideas,
+but what were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed,
+dissolved, mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours,
+the thoughts, the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life--its
+only love--almost its only affection; for I am not a particularly good
+woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and
+concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its
+single self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are
+all the unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While
+I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a
+glorious year I can recall--how bright it comes back to me! What a
+living spring--what a warm, glad summer--what soft moonlight,
+silvering the autumn evenings--what strength of hope under the ice-
+bound waters and frost-hoar fields of that year's winter! Through that
+year my heart lived with Frank's heart. O my noble Frank--my faithful
+Frank--my _good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard
+in all things so much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women
+have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his
+love. It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts
+about it or him: it was such a love as honoured, protected, and
+elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me
+now ask, just at this moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let
+me reflect why it was taken from me? For what crime was I condemned,
+after twelve months of bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?
+
+"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_
+see the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I
+never tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at
+this moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank. I never
+believed it till now."
+
+"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.
+
+"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and
+decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband,
+would come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see
+that moment--I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over
+which the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up
+the white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing
+on my silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a
+glass. I see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and
+cold, over the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my
+grounds. I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my
+breast. The flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet;
+the moon was mounting high, but she was still visible from the
+lattice; the clock neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but
+once or twice he had been delayed so long.
+
+"Would he for once fail me? No--not even for once; and now he was
+coming--and coming fast-to atone for lost time. 'Frank! you furious
+rider,' I said inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his
+approaching gallop, 'you shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it
+is _my_ neck you are putting in peril; for whatever is yours is,
+in a dearer and tenderer sense, mine.' There he was: I saw him; but I
+think tears were in my eyes, my sight was so confused. I saw the
+horse; I heard it stamp--I saw at least a mass; I heard a clamour.
+_Was_ it a horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing,
+strangely dark, the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight
+before me? or how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul?
+
+"I could only run out. A great animal--truly, Frank's black horse--
+stood trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held it
+Frank, as I thought.
+
+"'What is the matter?' I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by
+saying sharply, 'Go into the house, madam.' And then calling to
+another servant, who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by
+some instinct, 'Ruth, take missis into the house directly.' But I was
+kneeling down in the snow, beside something that lay there--something
+that I had seen dragged along the ground--something that sighed, that
+groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew it to ms. He was not dead;
+he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; I refused to be
+ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected enough, not
+only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had begun
+by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people
+struck by God's hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and
+when he had done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He
+had strength to fold me in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he
+heard me as I prayed over him very softly; he felt me as I tenderly
+and fondly comforted him.
+
+"'Maria,' he said, 'I am dying in Paradise.' He spent his last breath
+in faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my
+Frank was with God.
+
+"And that," she went on, "happened thirty years ago. I have suffered
+since. I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft,
+amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong,
+evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been
+a woe-struck and selfish woman."
+
+"You have done much good," I said; for she was noted for her liberal
+almsgiving.
+
+"I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage
+affliction. What of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I
+think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind, to
+prepare myself for reunion with Frank. You see I still think of Frank
+more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the
+creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least
+blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. What do you
+think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me."
+
+This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she
+thought I _had_ answered it.
+
+"Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not
+always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever
+it be, and try to render happy that of others. Should we not? Well,
+to-morrow I will begin by trying to make you happy. I will endeavour
+to do something for you, Lucy: something that will benefit you when I
+am dead. My head aches now with talking too much; still I am happy. Go
+to bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit up; or rather how late
+I, in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no more anxiety
+for me; I feel I shall rest well."
+
+She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a
+closet within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her
+doom must at last have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning
+she was found without life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed.
+Her previous excitement of spirits and change of mood had been the
+prelude of a fit; one stroke sufficed to sever the thread of an
+existence so long fretted by affliction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TURNING A NEW LEAF.
+
+
+My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for
+a new place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--
+shaken in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the
+contrary, thin, haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night,
+like an overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt,
+however, I was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not
+had time to benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended,
+yet, after the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin,
+the heir, an avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow
+temples, who, indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough
+miser: a direct contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her
+memory, blessed to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor,
+then, of fifteen pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a
+spirit in similar condition; I might still; in comparison with many
+people, be regarded as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing
+one it was, however, at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness
+on a certain day, of which the corresponding one in the next week was
+to see my departure from my present abode, while with another I was
+not provided.
+
+In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and
+consult an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper
+at a grand mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours
+with her; she comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all
+inward darkness, I left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay
+before me; it was a clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my
+poverty, and my perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the
+vigour of a youth that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat
+light and not feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled
+in that lonely walk, which lay through still fields, and passed
+neither village nor farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in
+the absence of moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I
+traced the dim path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted
+presence of that which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--
+the Aurora Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise
+than through my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in
+energy with the keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought
+was sent to my mind; my mind was made strong to receive it.
+
+"Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence."
+
+"Where?" was the query.
+
+I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that
+flat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I had
+never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London.
+
+The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the
+housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
+
+Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more
+of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did
+not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid
+manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and
+hood of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to
+achieve with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted
+with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me
+as a dreamer and zealot.
+
+The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she
+prepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window
+and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it
+danced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed,
+was its mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I
+took it on my knee.
+
+Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and I
+had been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady
+of sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower
+class than mine.
+
+I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young
+Mrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the
+good-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and
+maternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change
+others even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was
+changed too, though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to
+recall myself to her memory; why should I? She came for her son to
+accompany her in a walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an
+infant. I only mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse,
+Mrs. Leigh spoke French (very bad French, by the way, and with an
+incorrigibly bad accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-
+days): and I found the woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered
+volubly in French too. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs.
+Barrett remarked that her young lady had brought that foreign nurse
+home with her two years ago, on her return from a Continental
+excursion; that she was treated almost as well as a governess, and had
+nothing to do but walk out with the baby and chatter French with
+Master Charles; "and," added Mrs. Barrett, "she says there are many
+Englishwomen in foreign families as well placed as she."
+
+I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives
+store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their
+prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my
+old friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn
+in the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former
+days.
+
+In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than
+the reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My
+means would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and
+also to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it
+as a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, rather
+than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking
+all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil;
+whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever.
+
+Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by:
+my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies
+now, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About
+nine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London.
+
+My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate
+reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as
+I had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late,
+on a dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of
+which the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers
+of clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence
+of more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.
+
+When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others
+waiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never
+before heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I
+managed to understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself
+and trunk safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address.
+How difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In
+London for the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with
+travelling; confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished
+with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to
+act obliged.
+
+Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense,
+however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and
+it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she
+spasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter:
+considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she was
+hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously called
+for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being wholly
+overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young
+lady, when she appeared.
+
+I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and
+smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how they
+had all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its
+mincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce
+attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and
+the circumstances; I shall gain good."
+
+Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and
+subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking, black-
+coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere long. I
+believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a little while
+they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state between
+patronage and politeness.
+
+I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself
+by a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by
+the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible
+oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a
+ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was I
+doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What
+prospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did I
+come? Whither should I go? What should I do?
+
+I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark
+interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not
+regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it A strong, vague
+persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I
+_could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult,
+would in time open--predominated over other feelings: its influence
+hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be
+able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my
+candle and lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the
+night. At first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at
+the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: "I lie in the
+shadow of St. Paul's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LONDON.
+
+
+The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and
+opened my curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above
+my head, above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I
+saw a solemn, orbed mass, dark blue and dim--THE DOME. While I looked,
+my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half
+loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were
+at last about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as
+Jonah's gourd.
+
+"I did well to come," I said, proceeding to dress with speed and care.
+"I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who
+but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever
+abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?"
+
+Being dressed, I went down; not travel-worn and exhausted, but tidy
+and refreshed. When the waiter came in with my breakfast, I managed to
+accost him sedately, yet cheerfully; we had ten minutes' discourse, in
+the course of which we became usefully known to each other.
+
+He was a grey-haired, elderly man; and, it seemed, had lived in his
+present place twenty years. Having ascertained this, I was sure he
+must remember my two uncles, Charles and Wilmot, who, fifteen, years
+ago, were frequent visitors here. I mentioned their names; he recalled
+them perfectly, and with respect. Having intimated my connection, my
+position in his eyes was henceforth clear, and on a right footing. He
+said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke truth, because
+Mrs. Barrett was accustomed to say the same thing. A ready and
+obliging courtesy now replaced his former uncomfortably doubtful
+manner; henceforth I need no longer be at a loss for a civil answer to
+a sensible question.
+
+The street on which my little sitting-room window looked was narrow,
+perfectly quiet, and not dirty: the few passengers were just such as
+one sees in provincial towns: here was nothing formidable; I felt sure
+I might venture out alone.
+
+Having breakfasted, out I went. Elation and pleasure were in my heart:
+to walk alone in London seemed of itself an adventure. Presently I
+found myself in Paternoster Row--classic ground this. I entered a
+bookseller's shop, kept by one Jones: I bought a little book--a piece
+of extravagance I could ill afford; but I thought I would one day give
+or send it to Mrs. Barrett. Mr. Jones, a dried-in man of business,
+stood behind his desk: he seemed one of the greatest, and I one of the
+happiest of beings.
+
+Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself
+before St. Paul's, I went in; I mounted to the dome: I saw thence
+London, with its river, and its bridges, and its churches; I saw
+antique Westminster, and the green Temple Gardens, with sun upon them,
+and a glad, blue sky, of early spring above; and between them and it,
+not too dense, a cloud of haze.
+
+Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still
+ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got--I know not how--I got
+into the heart of city life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into
+the Strand; I went up Cornhill; I mixed with the life passing along; I
+dared the perils of crossings. To do this, and to do it utterly alone,
+gave me, perhaps an irrational, but a real pleasure. Since those days,
+I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the
+city far better. The city seems so much more in earnest: its business,
+its rush, its roar, are such serious things, sights, and sounds. The
+city is getting its living--the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At
+the West End you may be amused, but in the city you are deeply
+excited.
+
+Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy
+hunger), I returned, about two o'clock, to my dark, old, and quiet
+inn. I dined on two dishes--a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed
+excellent: how much better than the small, dainty messes Miss
+Marchmont's cook used to send up to my kind, dead mistress and me, and
+to the discussion of which we could not bring half an appetite between
+us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an hour (the
+room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two
+hours.
+
+My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now
+such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and daring--
+perhaps desperate--line of action. I had nothing to lose. Unutterable
+loathing of a desolate existence past, forbade return. If I failed in
+what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would suffer? If I
+died far away from--home, I was going to say, but I had no home--from
+England, then, who would weep?
+
+I might suffer; I was inured to suffering: death itself had not, I
+thought, those terrors for me which it has for the softly reared. I
+had, ere this, looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye.
+Prepared, then, for any consequences, I formed a project.
+
+That same evening I obtained from my friend, the waiter, information
+respecting, the sailing of vessels for a certain continental port,
+Boue-Marine. No time, I found, was to be lost: that very night I must
+take my berth. I might, indeed, have waited till the morning before
+going on board, but would not run the risk of being too late.
+
+"Better take your berth at once, ma'am," counselled the waiter. I
+agreed with him, and having discharged my bill, and acknowledged my
+friend's services at a rate which I now know was princely, and which
+in his eyes must have seemed absurd--and indeed, while pocketing the
+cash, he smiled a faint smile which intimated his opinion of the
+donor's _savoir-faire_--he proceeded to call a coach. To the
+driver he also recommended me, giving at the same time an injunction
+about taking me, I think, to the wharf, and not leaving me to the
+watermen; which that functionary promised to observe, but failed in
+keeping his promise: on the contrary, he offered me up as an oblation,
+served me as a dripping roast, making me alight in the midst of a
+throng of watermen.
+
+This was an uncomfortable crisis. It was a dark night. The coachman
+instantly drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen
+commenced a struggle for me and my trunk. Their oaths I hear at this
+moment: they shook my philosophy more than did the night, or the
+isolation, or the strangeness of the scene. One laid hands on my
+trunk. I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid hands on
+me, I spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat,
+desired austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me--"Just
+there,"--which was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had
+chosen became now an ally: I was rowed off.
+
+Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the
+piles of building round, ships rocked on its bosom. They rowed me up
+to several vessels; I read by lantern-light their names painted in
+great white letters on a dark ground. "The Ocean," "The Phoenix," "The
+Consort," "The Dolphin," were passed in turns; but "The Vivid" was my
+ship, and it seemed she lay further down.
+
+Down the sable flood we glided, I thought of the Styx, and of Charon
+rowing some solitary soul to the Land of Shades. Amidst the strange
+scene, with a chilly wind blowing in my face and midnight clouds
+dropping rain above my head; with two rude rowers for companions,
+whose insane oaths still tortured my ear, I asked myself if I was
+wretched or terrified. I was neither. Often in my life have I been far
+more so under comparatively safe circumstances. "How is this?" said I.
+"Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and
+apprehensive?" I could not tell how it was.
+
+"THE VIVID" started out, white and glaring, from the black night at
+last.--"Here you are!" said the waterman, and instantly demanded six
+shillings.
+
+"You ask too much," I said. He drew off from the vessel and swore he
+would not embark me till I paid it. A young man, the steward as I
+found afterwards, was looking over the ship's side; he grinned a smile
+in anticipation of the coming contest; to disappoint him, I paid the
+money. Three times that afternoon I had given crowns where I should
+have given shillings; but I consoled myself with the reflection, "It
+is the price of experience."
+
+"They've cheated you!" said the steward exultingly when I got on
+board. I answered phlegmatically that "I knew it," and went below.
+
+A stout, handsome, and showy woman was in the ladies' cabin. I asked
+to be shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about
+its being unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and
+seemed disposed to be less than civil. What a face she had--so comely
+--so insolent and so selfish!
+
+"Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here," was my answer.
+"I will trouble you to show me my berth."
+
+She complied, but sullenly. I took off my bonnet, arranged my things,
+and lay down. Some difficulties had been passed through; a sort of
+victory was won: my homeless, anchorless, unsupported mind had again
+leisure for a brief repose. Till the "Vivid" arrived in harbour, no
+further action would be required of me; but then.... Oh! I could not
+look forward. Harassed, exhausted, I lay in a half-trance.
+
+The stewardess talked all night; not to me but to the young steward,
+her son and her very picture. He passed in and out of the cabin
+continually: they disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again
+twenty times in the course of the night. She professed to be writing a
+letter home--she said to her father; she read passages of it aloud,
+heeding me no more than a stock--perhaps she believed me asleep.
+Several of these passages appeared to comprise family secrets, and
+bore special reference to one "Charlotte," a younger sister who, from
+the bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating
+a romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder
+lady against the distasteful union. The dutiful son laughed his
+mother's correspondence to scorn. She defended it, and raved at him.
+They were a strange pair. She might be thirty-nine or forty, and was
+buxom and blooming as a girl of twenty. Hard, loud, vain and vulgar,
+her mind and body alike seemed brazen and imperishable. I should
+think, from her childhood, she must have lived in public stations; and
+in her youth might very likely have been a barmaid.
+
+Towards morning her discourse ran on a new theme: "the Watsons," a
+certain expected family-party of passengers, known to her, it
+appeared, and by her much esteemed on account of the handsome profit
+realized in their fees. She said, "It was as good as a little fortune
+to her whenever this family crossed."
+
+At dawn all were astir, and by sunrise the passengers came on board.
+Boisterous was the welcome given by the stewardess to the "Watsons,"
+and great was the bustle made in their honour. They were four in
+number, two males and two females. Besides them, there was but one
+other passenger--a young lady, whom a gentlemanly, though languid-
+looking man escorted. The two groups offered a marked contrast. The
+Watsons were doubtless rich people, for they had the confidence of
+conscious wealth in their bearing; the women--youthful both of them,
+and one perfectly handsome, as far as physical beauty went--were
+dressed richly, gaily, and absurdly out of character for the
+circumstances. Their bonnets with bright flowers, their velvet cloaks
+and silk dresses, seemed better suited for park or promenade than for
+a damp packet deck. The men were of low stature, plain, fat, and
+vulgar; the oldest, plainest, greasiest, broadest, I soon found was
+the husband--the bridegroom I suppose, for she was very young--of the
+beautiful girl. Deep was my amazement at this discovery; and deeper
+still when I perceived that, instead of being desperately wretched in
+such a union, she was gay even to giddiness. "Her laughter," I
+reflected, "must be the mere frenzy of despair." And even while this
+thought was crossing my mind, as I stood leaning quiet and solitary
+against the ship's side, she came tripping up to me, an utter
+stranger, with a camp-stool in her hand, and smiling a smile of which
+the levity puzzled and startled me, though it showed a perfect set of
+perfect teeth, she offered me the accommodation of this piece of
+furniture. I declined it of course, with all the courtesy I could put
+into my manner; she danced off heedless and lightsome. She must have
+been good-natured; but what had made her marry that individual, who
+was at least as much like an oil-barrel as a man?
+
+The other lady passenger, with the gentleman-companion, was quite a
+girl, pretty and fair: her simple print dress, untrimmed straw-bonnet
+and large shawl, gracefully worn, formed a costume plain to quakerism:
+yet, for her, becoming enough. Before the gentleman quitted her, I
+observed him throwing a glance of scrutiny over all the passengers, as
+if to ascertain in what company his charge would be left. With a most
+dissatisfied air did his eye turn from the ladies with the gay
+flowers; he looked at me, and then he spoke to his daughter, niece, or
+whatever she was: she also glanced in my direction, and slightly
+curled her short, pretty lip. It might be myself, or it might be my
+homely mourning habit, that elicited this mark of contempt; more
+likely, both. A bell rang; her father (I afterwards knew that it was
+her father) kissed her, and returned to land. The packet sailed.
+
+Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted
+to travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of
+English parents and guardians. As for the "jeunes Meess," by some
+their intrepidity is pronounced masculine and "inconvenant," others
+regard them as the passive victims of an educational and theological
+system which wantonly dispenses with proper "surveillance." Whether
+this particular young lady was of the sort that can the most safely be
+left unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not _then_ know;
+but it soon appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her
+taste. She paced the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she
+looked with a little sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and
+velvets, and the bears which thereon danced attendance, and eventually
+she approached me and spoke.
+
+"Are you fond of a sea-voyage?" was her question.
+
+I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to
+undergo the test of experience; I had never made one.
+
+"Oh, how charming!" cried she. "I quite envy you the novelty: first
+impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I
+quite forget the first: I am quite _blasée_ about the sea and all
+that."
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+"Why do you laugh at me?" she inquired, with a frank testiness that
+pleased me better than her other talk.
+
+"Because you are so young to be _blasée_ about anything."
+
+"I am seventeen" (a little piqued).
+
+"You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?"
+
+"Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times,
+alone; but then I take care never to be long alone: I always make
+friends."
+
+"You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think" (glancing
+at the Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of
+noise on deck).
+
+"Not of those odious men and women," said she: "such people should be
+steerage passengers. Are you going to school?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have not the least idea--beyond, at least, the port of Boue-
+Marine."
+
+She stared, then carelessly ran on:
+
+"I am going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been
+at in my life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing--
+nothing in the world--I assure you; except that I play and dance
+beautifully,--and French and German of course I know, to speak; but I
+can't read or write them very well. Do you know they wanted me to
+translate a page of an easy German book into English the other day,
+and I couldn't do it. Papa was so mortified: he says it looks as if M.
+de Bassompierre--my godpapa, who pays all my school-bills--had thrown
+away all his money. And then, in matters of information--in history,
+geography, arithmetic, and so on, I am quite a baby; and I write
+English so badly--such spelling and grammar, they tell me. Into the
+bargain I have quite forgotten my religion; they call me a Protestant,
+you know, but really I am not sure whether I am one or not: I don't
+well know the difference between Romanism and Protestantism. However,
+I don't in the least care for that. I was a Lutheran once at Bonn--
+dear Bonn!--charming Bonn!--where there were so many handsome
+students. Every nice girl in our school had an admirer; they knew our
+hours for walking out, and almost always passed us on the promenade:
+'Schönes Mädchen,' we used to hear them say. I was excessively happy
+at Bonn!"
+
+"And where are you now?" I inquired.
+
+"Oh! at--_chose_," said she.
+
+Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person's name) only
+substituted this word "_chose_" in temporary oblivion of the real
+name. It was a habit she had: "_chose_" came in at every turn in
+her conversation--the convenient substitute for any missing word in
+any language she might chance at the time to be speaking. French girls
+often do the like; from them she had caught the custom.
+"_Chose_," however, I found in this instance, stood for Villette--the
+great capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour.
+
+"Do you like Villette?" I asked.
+
+"Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar;
+but there are some nice English families."
+
+"Are you in a school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A good one?"
+
+"Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the
+_maîtresses_ or the _professeurs_, or the _élèves_, and send lessons
+_au diable_ (one daren't say that in English, you know, but it sounds
+quite right in French); and thus I get on charmingly.... You are laughing
+at me again?"
+
+"No--I am only smiling at my own thoughts."
+
+"What are they?" (Without waiting for an answer)--"Now, _do_ tell
+me where you are going."
+
+"Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can
+find it."
+
+"To earn!" (in consternation) "are you poor, then?"
+
+"As poor as Job."
+
+(After a pause)--"Bah! how unpleasant! But _I_ know what it is to
+be poor: they are poor enough at home--papa and mamma, and all of
+them. Papa is called Captain Fanshawe; he is an officer on half-pay,
+but well-descended, and some of our connections are great enough; but
+my uncle and godpapa De Bassompierre, who lives in France, is the only
+one that helps us: he educates us girls. I have five sisters and three
+brothers. By-and-by we are to marry--rather elderly gentlemen, I
+suppose, with cash: papa and mamma manage that. My sister Augusta is
+married now to a man much older-looking than papa. Augusta is very
+beautiful--not in my style--but dark; her husband, Mr. Davies, had the
+yellow fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but
+then he is rich, and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and
+we all think she has done perfectly well. Now, this is better than
+'earning a living,' as you say. By the way, are you clever?"
+
+"No--not at all."
+
+"You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"Still I think you are clever" (a pause and a yawn).
+
+"Shall you be sea-sick?"
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"Oh, immensely! as soon as ever we get in sight of the sea: I begin,
+indeed, to feel it already. I shall go below; and won't I order about
+that fat odious stewardess! Heureusement je sais faire aller mon
+monde."
+
+Down she went.
+
+It was not long before the other passengers followed her: throughout
+the afternoon I remained on deck alone. When I recall the tranquil,
+and even happy mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at
+the same time, the position in which I was placed; its hazardous--some
+would have said its hopeless--character; I feel that, as--
+
+  Stone walls do not a prison make,
+  Nor iron bars--a cage,
+
+so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils,
+so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so
+long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by
+her star.
+
+I was not sick till long after we passed Margate, and deep was the
+pleasure I drank in with the sea-breeze; divine the delight I drew
+from the heaving Channel waves, from the sea-birds on their ridges,
+from the white sails on their dark distance, from the quiet yet
+beclouded sky, overhanging all. In my reverie, methought I saw the
+continent of Europe, like a wide dream-land, far away. Sunshine lay on
+it, making the long coast one line of gold; tiniest tracery of
+clustered town and snow-gleaming tower, of woods deep massed, of
+heights serrated, of smooth pasturage and veiny stream, embossed the
+metal-bright prospect. For background, spread a sky, solemn and dark
+blue, and--grand with imperial promise, soft with tints of
+enchantment--strode from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of
+hope.
+
+Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader--or rather let it
+stand, and draw thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy--
+
+  Day-dreams are delusions of the demon.
+
+Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin.
+
+Miss Fanshawe's berth chanced to be next mine; and, I am sorry to say,
+she tormented me with an unsparing selfishness during the whole time
+of our mutual distress. Nothing could exceed her impatience and
+fretfulness. The Watsons, who were very sick too, and on whom the
+stewardess attended with shameless partiality, were stoics compared
+with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra
+Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of
+beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in
+adversity, like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman
+for his wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all
+sunshine. Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly
+requested her "to hold her tongue." The rebuff did her good, and it
+was observable that she liked me no worse for it.
+
+As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong
+against the vessel's side. It was strange to reflect that blackness
+and water were round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on
+her pathless way, despite noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of
+furniture began to fall about, and it became needful to lash them to
+their places; the passengers grew sicker than ever; Miss Fanshawe
+declared, with groans, that she must die.
+
+"Not just yet, honey," said the stewardess. "We're just in port."
+Accordingly, in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all;
+and about midnight the voyage ended.
+
+I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my
+difficulties--my stringent difficulties--recommenced. When I went on
+deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me
+for my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign
+sea-port town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like
+unnumbered threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the
+Watsons; a whole family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss
+Fanshawe; I--but I dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of
+positions.
+
+Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be
+nice. As I gave the stewardess her fee--and she seemed surprised at
+receiving a coin of more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse
+calculations had probably reckoned on--I said, "Be kind enough to
+direct me to some quiet, respectable inn, where I can go for the
+night."
+
+She not only gave me the required direction, but called a
+commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and--_not_ my
+trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
+
+I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful
+gleam of moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence,
+which he refused to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a
+shilling; but this also he declined, speaking rather sharply, in a
+language to me unknown. A waiter, coming forward into the lamp-lit
+inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, that my money was foreign
+money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to change. This little
+matter settled, I asked for a bedroom; supper I could not take: I was
+still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply glad I
+was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and
+my exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be
+as thick to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent,
+the peril (of destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more
+severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed:
+physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt
+and clear.
+
+Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: I said, "Come
+in," expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and
+said,--
+
+"Gif me your keys, Meess."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Gif!" said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand,
+he added, "All right! haf your tronc soon."
+
+Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house.
+Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded,
+not without hesitation, to descend.
+
+I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last
+night, viz. that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly
+descended the broad staircase, halting on each step (for I was in
+wonderfully little haste to get down), I gazed at the high ceiling
+above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which
+filled the house with light, at the veined marble I trod (for the
+steps were all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and
+contrasting all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me
+as a chamber, with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell
+into a philosophizing mood.
+
+Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chamber-maids
+in proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inn-
+servants and ship-stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for
+instance, was an individual of no social significance, and little
+burdened by cash? They _did_ know it evidently: I saw quite well
+that they all, in a moment's calculation, estimated me at about the
+same fractional value. The fact seemed to me curious and pregnant: I
+would not disguise from myself what it indicated, yet managed to keep
+up my spirits pretty well under its pressure.
+
+Having at last landed in a great hall, full of skylight glare, I made
+my way somehow to what proved to be the coffee-room. It cannot be
+denied that on entering this room I trembled somewhat; felt uncertain,
+solitary, wretched; wished to Heaven I knew whether I was doing right
+or wrong; felt convinced that it was the last, but could not help
+myself. Acting in the spirit and with the calm of a fatalist, I sat
+down at a small table, to which a waiter presently brought me some
+breakfast; and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not greatly
+calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people
+breakfasting at other tables in the room; I should have felt rather
+more happy if amongst them all I could have seen any women; however,
+there was not one--all present were men. But nobody seemed to think I
+was doing anything strange; one or two gentlemen glanced at me
+occasionally, but none stared obtrusively: I suppose if there was
+anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it by this word
+"Anglaise!"
+
+Breakfast over, I must again move--in what direction? "Go to
+Villette," said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the
+recollection of this slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random
+by Miss Fanshawe, as she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to
+Madame Beck's; she has some marmots whom you might look after; she
+wants an English gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago."
+
+Who Madame Beck was, where she lived, I knew not; I had asked, but the
+question passed unheard: Miss Fanshawe, hurried away by her friends,
+left it unanswered. I presumed Villette to be her residence--to
+Villette I would go. The distance was forty miles. I knew I was
+catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found
+myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Having inquired about the
+means of travelling to Villette, and secured a seat in the diligence,
+I departed on the strength of this outline--this shadow of a project.
+Before you pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look
+back to the point whence I started; consider the desert I had left,
+note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot
+lose and may win.
+
+Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess
+something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present
+pleasure: that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I
+enjoyed that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold,
+though it rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route
+along which our journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid
+green snakes, beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level
+fields, tilled like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was
+monotonously gray; the atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst
+all these deadening influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart
+basked in sunshine. These feelings, however, were well kept in check
+by the secret but ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on
+enjoyment, like a tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that
+beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce heart panted close
+against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he
+waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous from his ambush.
+
+I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I
+might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw
+round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow
+progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense
+rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by
+the time we gained its suburbs.
+
+I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much
+I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry
+Chaussée, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty
+surface. At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers
+alighted. My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter
+enough, but important to me. Understanding that it was best not to be
+importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly
+the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim
+and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle
+in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon
+which piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one,
+I saw these removed, lowered, and seized on.
+
+I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had
+tied on the direction-card with a piece of green ribbon, that I might
+know it at a glance: not a fringe or fragment of green was
+perceptible. Every package was removed; every tin-case and brown-paper
+parcel; the oilcloth cover was lifted; I saw with distinct vision that
+not an umbrella, cloak, cane, hat-box or band-box remained.
+
+And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book
+enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?
+
+I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say nothing
+whatever; not possessing a phrase of _speaking_ French: and it was
+French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around
+me. _What_ should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my
+hand on his arm, pointed to a trunk, thence to the  diligence-roof, and
+tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized
+the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle.
+
+"Let that alone--will you?" said a voice in good English; then, in
+correction, "Qu'est-ce que vous faîtes donc? Cette malle est à moi."
+
+But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I
+turned: "Sir," said I, appealing to the stranger, without, in my
+distress, noticing what he was like, "I cannot speak French. May I
+entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk?"
+
+Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to
+which my eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its
+expression half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of
+interference.
+
+"_Do_ ask him; I would do as much for you," said I.
+
+I don't know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone--
+that is to say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,--"What sort of trunk
+was yours?"
+
+I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And
+forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all
+the storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed
+your trunk after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-
+Marine with other parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it
+to-morrow; the day after, therefore, you will find it safe at this
+bureau."
+
+"Thank you," said I: but my heart sank.
+
+Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the
+failure of courage in my face; he inquired kindly, "Have you any
+friends in this city?"
+
+"No, and I don't know where to go."
+
+There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more
+fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young,
+distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I
+knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His
+face was very pleasant; he looked high but not arrogant, manly but not
+overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep consciousness of all
+absence of claim to look for further help from such a one as he.
+
+"Was all your money in your trunk?" he asked, stopping me.
+
+How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth--"No. I have enough
+in my purse" (for I had near twenty francs) "to keep me at a quiet inn
+till the day after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette,
+and don't know the streets and the inns."
+
+"I can give you the address of such an inn as you want," said he; "and
+it is not far off: with my direction you will easily find it."
+
+He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to
+me. I _did_ think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his
+advice, or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of
+distrusting the Bible. There was goodness in his countenance, and
+honour in his bright eyes.
+
+"Your shortest way will be to follow the Boulevard and cross the
+park," he continued; "but it is too late and too dark for a woman to
+go through the park alone; I will step with you thus far."
+
+He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small
+soaking rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water
+dripping from its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double
+gloom of trees and fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow
+his tread. Not the least fear had I: I believe I would have followed
+that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end.
+
+"Now," said he, when the park was traversed, "you will go along this
+broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where
+they are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below;
+following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak
+English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, sir," said I: "accept my sincerest thanks." And we
+parted.
+
+The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not
+unbenignant to the friendless--the sound in my ear of his voice, which
+spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the
+youthful and fair--were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a
+true young English gentleman.
+
+On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with
+the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more
+than one overbearing pile; which might be palace or church--I could
+not tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came
+suddenly from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars: their
+dress implied pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things!
+they were very plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast
+as I walked, they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort
+of patrol, and my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but
+they had driven me beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my
+faculties, I no longer knew where I was; the staircase I must long
+since have passed. Puzzled, out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in
+inevitable agitation, I knew not where to turn. It was terrible to
+think of again encountering those bearded, sneering simpletons; yet
+the ground must be retraced, and the steps sought out.
+
+I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted
+that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into
+which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I
+wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved
+street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house,
+loftier by a story than those round it. _This_ might be the inn
+at last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting
+quite exhausted.
+
+No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochère:
+"Pensionnat de Demoiselles" was the inscription; and beneath, a name,
+"Madame Beck."
+
+I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a
+moment. Yet I planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time.
+Providence said, "Stop here; this is _your_ inn." Fate took me in
+her strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rang the
+door-bell.
+
+While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the street-
+stones, where the door-lamp shone, and counted them and noted their
+shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again. They
+opened at last. A bonne in a smart cap stood before me.
+
+"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired.
+
+I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but,
+as I spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on
+business connected with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour,
+she let me in, without a word of reluctance, or a moment of
+hesitation.
+
+The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain
+stove, unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on
+the mantel-piece struck nine o'clock.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame!
+How I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the
+door--a great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to
+see a leaf move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred;
+the white doors were closed and motionless.
+
+"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
+unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
+
+No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a
+motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a
+clean, trim nightcap.
+
+I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we
+fell to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck
+it was--she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod
+with the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor
+approach)--Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech
+when she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away
+volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood
+me, but as I did not at all understand her--though we made together an
+awful clamour (anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not
+hitherto heard or imagined)--we achieved little progress. She rang,
+ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maîtresse," who
+had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a
+perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this
+maîtresse was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did
+slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale,
+which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent
+on extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to
+turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or
+degrading; how I would be a child's-nurse, or a lady's-maid, and would
+not refuse even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this;
+and, questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her
+ear:
+
+"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
+"sont-elles donc intrépides ces femmes là!"
+
+She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me--not pityingly,
+not with interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of
+compassion, crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she
+was not one to be led an inch by her feelings: grave and considerate,
+she gazed, consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell
+rang.
+
+"Voilà pour la prière du soir!" said she, and rose. Through her
+interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the
+morrow; but this did not suit me: I could not bear to return to the
+perils of darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected
+and controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally, and not
+the maîtresse: "Be assured, madame, that by instantly securing my
+services, your interests will be served and not injured: you will find
+me one who will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her
+wages; and if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here
+this night: having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the
+language of the country, how can I secure a lodging?"
+
+"It is true," said she; "but at least you can give a reference?"
+
+"None."
+
+She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She
+mused. At that moment a man's step was heard in the vestibule, hastily
+proceeding to the outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale
+as if I had understood all that passed; for though it was then scarce
+intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards).
+
+"Who goes out now?" demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.
+
+"M. Paul," replied the teacher. "He came this evening to give a
+reading to the first class."
+
+"The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him."
+
+The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a
+small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.
+
+"Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill
+in physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance."
+
+The little man fixed on me his spectacles: A resolute compression of
+the lips, and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to
+see through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him.
+
+"I read it," he pronounced.
+
+"Et qu'en dites vous?"
+
+"Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer.
+
+"Bad or good?"
+
+"Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner.
+
+"May one trust her word?"
+
+"Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"
+
+"She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale
+full of integrity, but gives no reference."
+
+"She is a stranger?"
+
+"An Englishwoman, as one may see."
+
+"She speaks French?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"She understands it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"One may then speak plainly in her presence?"
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He gazed steadily. "Do you need her services?"
+
+"I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini."
+
+Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as
+indefinite as what had gone before it.
+
+"Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will
+bring its own reward; if evil--eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours
+une bonne oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," this vague arbiter
+of my destiny vanished.
+
+And Madame did engage me that very night--by God's blessing I was
+spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary,
+hostile street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MADAME BECK.
+
+
+Being delivered into the charge of the maîtresse, I was led through a
+long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very
+strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking--neither fireplace
+nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which
+filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride
+was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense
+of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half
+anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a
+"cabinet." A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought
+my supper: to wit--some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and
+acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I
+know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of
+bread and butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was
+grateful.
+
+After the "prière du soir," Madame herself came to have another look
+at me. She desired me to follow her up-stairs. Through a series of the
+queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been
+nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and
+through the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung,
+pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils--she conducted
+me to an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny
+beds. A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to
+mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than
+delicate: a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected
+under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some
+spirituous essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.
+
+Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to
+waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad
+striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast
+asleep. To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of
+matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's
+elbow.
+
+Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she
+neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise,
+ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the
+woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to
+be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a
+night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the
+entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was
+discernible through the aperture.
+
+My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been
+led since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely
+could I believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left
+London, under no other guardianship than that which protects the
+passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of
+hope.
+
+I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke. All was
+hushed, but a white figure stood in the room--Madame in her night-
+dress. Moving without perceptible sound, she visited the three
+children in the three beds; she approached me: I feigned sleep, and
+she studied me long. A small pantomime ensued, curious enough. I
+daresay she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of my bed, gazing at
+my face. She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly raised my
+cap, and turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked at
+my hand lying on the bedclothes. This done, she turned to the chair
+where my clothes lay: it was at the foot of the bed. Hearing her touch
+and lift them, I opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt
+curious to see how far her taste for research would lead her. It led
+her a good way: every article did she inspect. I divined her motive
+for this proceeding, viz. the wish to form from the garments a
+judgment respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, &c. The
+end was not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In my
+dress was a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out: she counted the
+money in my purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused
+its contents, and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of
+Miss Marchmont's grey hair. To a bunch of three keys, being those of
+my trunk, desk, and work-box, she accorded special attention: with
+these, indeed, she withdrew a moment to her own room. I softly rose in
+my bed and followed her with my eye: these keys, reader, were not
+brought back till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining room
+the impress of their wards in wax. All being thus done decently and in
+order, my property was returned to its place, my clothes were
+carefully refolded. Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from
+this scrutiny? Were they favourable or otherwise? Vain question.
+Madame's face of stone (for of stone in its present night aspect it
+looked: it had been human, and, as I said before, motherly, in the
+salon) betrayed no response.
+
+Her duty done--I felt that in her eyes this business was a duty--she
+rose, noiseless as a shadow: she moved towards her own chamber; at the
+door, she turned, fixing her eye on the heroine of the bottle, who
+still slept and loudly snored. Mrs. Svini (I presume this was Mrs.
+Svini, Anglicé or Hibernicé, Sweeny)--Mrs. Sweeny's doom was in Madame
+Beck's eye--an immutable purpose that eye spoke: Madame's visitations
+for shortcomings might be slow, but they were sure. All this was very
+un-English: truly I was in a foreign land.
+
+The morrow made me further acquainted with Mrs. Sweeny. It seems she
+had introduced herself to her present employer as an English lady in
+reduced circumstances: a native, indeed, of Middlesex, professing to
+speak the English tongue with the purest metropolitan accent. Madame--
+reliant on her own infallible expedients for finding out the truth in
+time--had a singular intrepidity in hiring service off-hand (as indeed
+seemed abundantly proved in my own case). She received Mrs. Sweeny as
+nursery-governess to her three children. I need hardly explain to the
+reader that this lady was in effect a native of Ireland; her station I
+do not pretend to fix: she boldly declared that she had "had the
+bringing-up of the son and daughter of a marquis." I think myself, she
+might possibly have been a hanger-on, nurse, fosterer, or washerwoman,
+in some Irish family: she spoke a smothered tongue, curiously overlaid
+with mincing cockney inflections. By some means or other she had
+acquired, and now held in possession, a wardrobe of rather suspicious
+splendour--gowns of stiff and costly silk, fitting her indifferently,
+and apparently made for other proportions than those they now adorned;
+caps with real lace borders, and--the chief item in the inventory, the
+spell by which she struck a certain awe through the household,
+quelling the otherwise scornfully disposed teachers and servants, and,
+so long as her broad shoulders _wore_ the folds of that majestic
+drapery, even influencing Madame herself--_a real Indian shawl_--
+"un véritable cachemire," as Madame Beck said, with unmixed reverence
+and amaze. I feel quite sure that without this "cachemire" she would
+not have kept her footing in the pensionnat for two days: by virtue of
+it, and it only, she maintained the same a month.
+
+But when Mrs. Sweeny knew that I was come to fill her shoes, then it
+was that she declared herself--then did she rise on Madame Beck in her
+full power--then come down on me with her concentrated weight. Madame
+bore this revelation and visitation so well, so stoically, that I for
+very shame could not support it otherwise than with composure. For one
+little moment Madame Beck absented herself from the room; ten minutes
+after, an agent of the police stood in the midst of us. Mrs. Sweeny
+and her effects were removed. Madame's brow had not been ruffled
+during the scene--her lips had not dropped one sharply-accented word.
+
+This brisk little affair of the dismissal was all settled before
+breakfast: order to march given, policeman called, mutineer expelled;
+"chambre d'enfans" fumigated and cleansed, windows thrown open, and
+every trace of the accomplished Mrs. Sweeny--even to the fine essence
+and spiritual fragrance which gave token so subtle and so fatal of the
+head and front of her offending--was annihilated from the Rue
+Fossette: all this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame
+Beck's issuing like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she
+coolly sat down to pour out her first cup of coffee.
+
+About noon, I was summoned to dress Madame. (It appeared my place was
+to be a hybrid between gouvernante and lady's-maid.) Till noon, she
+haunted the house in her wrapping-gown, shawl, and soundless slippers.
+How would the lady-chief of an English school approve this custom?
+
+The dressing of her hair puzzled me; she had plenty of it: auburn,
+unmixed with grey: though she was forty years old. Seeing my
+embarrassment, she said, "You have not been a femme-de-chambre in your
+own country?" And taking the brush from my hand, and setting me aside,
+not ungently or disrespectfully, she arranged it herself. In
+performing other offices of the toilet, she half-directed, half-aided
+me, without the least display of temper or impatience. N.B.--That was
+the first and last time I was required to dress her. Henceforth, on
+Rosine, the portress, devolved that duty.
+
+When attired, Madame Beck appeared a personage of a figure rather
+short and stout, yet still graceful in its own peculiar way; that is,
+with the grace resulting from proportion of parts. Her complexion was
+fresh and sanguine, not too rubicund; her eye, blue and serene; her
+dark silk dress fitted her as a French sempstress alone can make a
+dress fit; she looked well, though a little bourgeoise; as bourgeoise,
+indeed, she was. I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person;
+and yet her face offered contrast, too: its features were by no means
+such as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such
+blended freshness and repose: their outline was stern: her forehead
+was high but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but
+no expanse; nor did her peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire
+which is kindled in the heart or the softness which flows thence. Her
+mouth was hard: it could be a little grim; her lips were thin. For
+sensibility and genius, with all their tenderness and temerity, I felt
+somehow that Madame would be the right sort of Minos in petticoats.
+
+In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her
+name was Modeste Maria Beck, née Kint: it ought to have been Ignacia.
+She was a charitable woman, and did a great deal of good. There never
+was a mistress whose rule was milder. I was told that she never once
+remonstrated with the intolerable Mrs. Sweeny, despite her tipsiness,
+disorder, and general neglect; yet Mrs. Sweeny had to go the moment
+her departure became convenient. I was told, too, that neither masters
+nor teachers were found fault with in that establishment; yet both
+masters and teachers were often changed: they vanished and others
+filled their places, none could well explain how.
+
+The establishment was both a pensionnat and an externat: the externes
+or day-pupils exceeded one hundred in number; the boarders were about
+a score. Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she
+ruled all these, together with four teachers, eight masters, six
+servants, and three children, managing at the same time to perfection
+the pupils' parents and friends; and that without apparent effort;
+without bustle, fatigue, fever, or any symptom of undue, excitement:
+occupied she always was--busy, rarely. It is true that Madame had her
+own system for managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a
+very pretty system it was: the reader has seen a specimen of it, in
+that small affair of turning my pocket inside out, and reading my
+private memoranda. "Surveillance," "espionage,"--these were her
+watchwords.
+
+Still, Madame knew what honesty was, and liked it--that is, when it
+did not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and
+interest. She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les
+Anglaises," she would have the women of no other country about her own
+children, if she could help it.
+
+Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-
+plotting, spying and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would
+come up to my room--a trace of real weariness on her brow--and she
+would sit down and listen while the children said their little prayers
+to me in English: the Lord's Prayer, and the hymn beginning "Gentle
+Jesus," these little Catholics were permitted to repeat at my knee;
+and, when I had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon gained
+enough French to be able to understand, and even answer her) about
+England and Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to
+term their superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity.
+Very good sense she often showed; very sound opinions she often
+broached: she seemed to know that keeping girls in distrustful
+restraint, in blind ignorance, and under a surveillance that left them
+no moment and no corner for retirement, was not the best way to make
+them grow up honest and modest women; but she averred that ruinous
+consequences would ensue if any other method were tried with
+continental children: they were so accustomed to restraint, that
+relaxation, however guarded, would be misunderstood and fatally
+presumed on. She was sick, she would declare, of the means she had to
+use, but use them she must; and after discoursing, often with dignity
+and delicacy, to me, she would move away on her "souliers de silence,"
+and glide ghost-like through the house, watching and spying
+everywhere, peering through every keyhole, listening behind every
+door.
+
+After all, Madame's system was not bad--let me do her justice. Nothing
+could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being
+of her scholars. No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well
+distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a
+liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the
+girls healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny
+faces were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. She never grudged
+a holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing,
+eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary,
+and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly
+well to imitate her--and I believe many would be glad to do so, if
+exacting English parents would let them.
+
+As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of
+spies: she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while
+she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty occasion--
+flinging this sort from her like refuse rind, after the orange has
+been duly squeezed--I have known her fastidious in seeking pure metal
+for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless instrument was
+found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk and cotton-
+wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one inch
+beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy: interest
+was the master-key of Madame's nature--the mainspring of her motives--
+the alpha and omega of her life. I have seen her _feelings_
+appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the
+appellants. None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed
+her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to touch her
+heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a
+secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it
+reminded her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the
+distinction between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her.
+While devoid of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational
+benevolence: she would give in the readiest manner to people she had
+never seen--rather, however, to classes than to individuals. "Pour les
+pauvres," she opened her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as
+a rule, she kept it closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit
+of society at large she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow
+touched her: no force or mass of suffering concentrated in one heart
+had power to pierce hers. Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death
+on Calvary, could have wrung from her eyes one tear.
+
+I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That
+school offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to
+have swayed a nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent
+legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated
+her nerves, exhausted her patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In
+her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first
+minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless;
+secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and
+insensate--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?
+
+The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge
+here condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No!
+what I saw at first was the thriving outside of a large and
+flourishing educational establishment. Here was a great house, full of
+healthy, lively girls, all well-dressed and many of them handsome,
+gaining knowledge by a marvellously easy method, without painful
+exertion or useless waste of spirits; not, perhaps, making very rapid
+progress in anything; taking it easy, but still always employed, and
+never oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, more
+stringently tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by
+them, in order to save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged
+that they relieved each other in quick succession whenever the work
+was severe: here, in short, was a foreign school; of which the life,
+movement, and variety made it a complete and most charming contrast to
+many English institutions of the same kind.
+
+Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost
+lived out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under
+the vast and vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer
+afternoons, and send for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and
+sew and read. Meantime, masters came and went, delivering short and
+lively lectures, rather than lessons, and the pupils made notes of
+their instructions, or did _not_ make them--just as inclination
+prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes
+of their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de
+sortie_, the Catholic fête-days brought a succession of holidays
+all the year round; and sometimes on a bright summer morning, or soft
+summer evening; the boarders were taken out for a long walk into the
+country, regaled with _gaufres_ and _vin blanc_, or new milk
+and _pain bis_, or _pistolets au beurre_ (rolls) and coffee.
+All this seemed very pleasant, and Madame appeared goodness itself;
+and the teachers not so bad but they might be worse; and the pupils,
+perhaps, a little noisy and rough, but types of health and glee.
+
+Thus did the view appear, seen through the enchantment of distance;
+but there came a time when distance was to melt for me--when I was to
+be called down from my watch-tower of the nursery, whence I had
+hitherto made my observations, and was to be compelled into closer
+intercourse with this little world of the Rue Fossette.
+
+I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their
+English lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame,
+when she came sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow
+of hard thought she sometimes wore, and which made her look so little
+genial. Dropping into a seat opposite mine, she remained some minutes
+silent. Désirée, the eldest girl, was reading to me some little essay
+of Mrs. Barbauld's, and I was making her translate currently from
+English to French as she proceeded, by way of ascertaining that she
+comprehended what she read: Madame listened.
+
+Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of
+one making an accusation, "Meess, in England you were a governess?"
+
+"No, Madame," said I smiling, "you are mistaken."
+
+"Is this your first essay at teaching--this attempt with my children?"
+
+I assured her it was. Again she became silent; but looking up, as I
+took a pin from the cushion, I found myself an object of study: she
+held me under her eye; she seemed turning me round in her thoughts--
+measuring my fitness for a purpose, weighing my value in a plan.
+Madame had, ere this, scrutinized all I had, and I believe she
+esteemed herself cognizant of much that I was; but from that day, for
+the space of about a fortnight, she tried me by new tests. She
+listened at the nursery door when I was shut in with the children; she
+followed me at a cautious distance when I walked out with them,
+stealing within ear-shot whenever the trees of park or boulevard
+afforded a sufficient screen: a strict preliminary process having thus
+been observed, she made a move forward.
+
+One morning, coming on me abruptly, and with the semblance of hurry,
+she said she found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the
+English master, had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill;
+the pupils were waiting in classe; there was no one to give a lesson;
+should I, for once, object to giving a short dictation exercise, just
+that the pupils might not have it to say they had missed their English
+lesson?
+
+"In classe, Madame?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, in classe: in the second division."
+
+"Where there are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and
+with my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a
+snail into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a
+pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have
+let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of
+practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching
+infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's
+frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated
+resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my
+interest; but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy
+anxiety, and relieved from intimate trial: the negation of severe
+suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know.
+Besides, I seemed to hold two lives--the life of thought, and that of
+reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of
+the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter
+might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of
+shelter.
+
+"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
+cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."
+
+"But Fifine wants it, Madame."
+
+"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."
+
+And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me--as she
+had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his
+shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition--as,
+too, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity,
+whether _I_ lacked them or not--she, without more ado, made me
+relinquish thimble and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was
+conducted down-stairs. When we reached the carré, a large square hall
+between the dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, dropped my
+hand, faced, and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from
+head to foot: tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact,
+the difficulties before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some
+of them were real enough; and not the least substantial lay in my want
+of mastery over the medium through which I should be obliged to teach.
+I had, indeed, studied French closely since my arrival in Villette;
+learning its practice by day, and its theory in every leisure moment
+at night, to as late an hour as the rule of the house would allow
+candle-light; but I was far from yet being able to trust my powers of
+correct oral expression.
+
+"Dîtes donc," said Madame sternly, "vous sentez vous réellement trop
+faible?"
+
+I might have said "Yes," and gone back to nursery obscurity, and
+there, perhaps, mouldered for the rest of my life; but looking up at
+Madame, I saw in her countenance a something that made me think twice
+ere I decided. At that instant she did not wear a woman's aspect, but
+rather a man's. Power of a particular kind strongly limned itself in
+all her traits, and that power was not my kind of power: neither
+sympathy, nor congeniality, nor submission, were the emotions it
+awakened. I stood--not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It seemed as
+if a challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I
+suddenly felt all the dishonour of my diffidence--all the
+pusillanimity of my slackness to aspire.
+
+"Will you," she said, "go backward or forward?" indicating with her
+hand, first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house,
+and then the great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms.
+
+"En avant," I said.
+
+"But," pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look,
+from very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, "can
+you face the classes, or are you over-excited?"
+
+She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much
+to Madame's taste.
+
+"I am no more excited than this stone," I said, tapping the flag with
+my toe: "or than you," I added, returning her look.
+
+"Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls
+you are going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes,
+franches, brusques, et tant soit peu rebelles."
+
+I said: "I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French
+hard since I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much
+hesitation--too little accuracy to be able to command their respect I
+shall make blunders that will lay me open to the scorn of the most
+ignorant. Still I mean to give the lesson."
+
+"They always throw over timid teachers," said she.
+
+"I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and
+persecuted Miss Turner"--a poor friendless English teacher, whom
+Madame had employed, and lightly discarded; and to whose piteous
+history I was no stranger.
+
+"C'est vrai," said she, coolly. "Miss Turner had no more command over
+them than a servant from the kitchen would have had. She was weak and
+wavering; she had neither tact nor intelligence, decision nor dignity.
+Miss Turner would not do for these girls at all."
+
+I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door.
+
+"You will not expect aid from me, or from any one," said Madame. "That
+would at once set you down as incompetent for your office."
+
+I opened the door, let her pass with courtesy, and followed her. There
+were three schoolrooms, all large. That dedicated to the second
+division, where I was to figure, was considerably the largest, and
+accommodated an assemblage more numerous, more turbulent, and
+infinitely more unmanageable than the other two. In after days, when I
+knew the ground better, I used to think sometimes (if such a
+comparison may be permitted), that the quiet, polished, tame first
+division was to the robust, riotous, demonstrative second division,
+what the English House of Lords is to the House of Commons.
+
+The first glance informed me that many of the pupils were more than
+girls--quite young women; I knew that some of them were of noble
+family (as nobility goes in Labassecour), and I was well convinced
+that not one amongst them was ignorant of my position in Madame's
+household. As I mounted the estràde (a low platform, raised a step
+above the flooring), where stood the teacher's chair and desk, I
+beheld opposite to me a row of eyes and brows that threatened stormy
+weather--eyes full of an insolent light, and brows hard and unblushing
+as marble. The continental "female" is quite a different being to the
+insular "female" of the same age and class: I never saw such eyes and
+brows in England. Madame Beck introduced me in one cool phrase, sailed
+from the room, and left me alone in my glory.
+
+I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the under-current of
+life and character it opened up to me. Then first did I begin rightly
+to see the wide difference that lies between the novelist's and poet's
+ideal "jeune fille" and the said "jeune fille" as she really is.
+
+It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down
+predetermined that a _bonne d'enfants_ should not give them
+lessons in English. They knew they had succeeded in expelling
+obnoxious teachers before now; they knew that Madame would at any time
+throw overboard a professeur or maitresse who became unpopular with
+the school--that she never assisted a weak official to retain his
+place--that if he had not strength to fight, or tact to win his way,
+down he went: looking at "Miss Snowe," they promised themselves an
+easy victory.
+
+Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angélique opened the campaign by
+a series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into
+murmurs and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and
+echoed more loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon
+became oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and
+exercised under such cruel constraint.
+
+Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have
+gained a hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a
+poor creature, and in many respects actually was so, yet nature had
+given me a voice that could make itself heard, if lifted in excitement
+or deepened by emotion. In the second place, while I had no flow, only
+a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary circumstances, yet--
+under stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous mass--I
+could, in English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their
+proceedings as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then
+with some sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the
+ringleaders, and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less
+knavish followers, it seemed to me that one might possibly get command
+over this wild herd, and bring them into training, at least. All I
+could now do was to walk up to Blanche--Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young
+baronne--the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious--stand
+before her desk, take from under her hand her exercise-book, remount
+the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I found very
+stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school,
+tear the blotted page in two.
+
+This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone,
+quite in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished
+energy. I looked at her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like
+night, broad strong eyebrows, decided features, and a dark, mutinous,
+sinister eye: I noted that she sat close by a little door, which door,
+I was well aware, opened into a small closet where books were kept.
+She was standing up for the purpose of conducting her clamour with
+freer energies. I measured her stature and calculated her strength She
+seemed both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and the
+attack unexpected, I thought I might manage her.
+
+Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly
+could, in short, _ayant l'air de rien_, I slightly pushed the
+door and found it was ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had
+turned on her. In another instant she occupied the closet, the door
+was shut, and the key in my pocket.
+
+It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name, and a Catalonian by
+race, was the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her
+associates; the act of summary justice above noted proved popular:
+there was not one present but, in her heart, liked to see it done.
+They were stilled for a moment; then a smile--not a laugh--passed from
+desk to desk: then--when I had gravely and tranquilly returned to the
+estrade, courteously requested silence, and commenced a dictation as
+if nothing at all had happened--the pens travelled peacefully over the
+pages, and the remainder of the lesson passed in order and industry.
+
+"C'est bien," said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a
+little exhausted. "Ca ira."
+
+She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time.
+
+From that day I ceased to be nursery governess, and became English
+teacher. Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of
+me she had extracted from Mr. Wilson, at half the expense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ISIDORE.
+
+
+My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching
+others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It
+was pleasant. I felt I was getting, on; not lying the stagnant prey of
+mould and rust, but polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen
+edge with constant use. Experience of a certain kind lay before me, on
+no narrow scale. Villette is a cosmopolitan city, and in this school
+were girls of almost every European nation, and likewise of very
+varied rank in life. Equality is much practised in Labassecour; though
+not republican in form, it is nearly so in substance, and at the desks
+of Madame Beck's establishment the young countess and the young
+bourgeoise sat side by side. Nor could you always by outward
+indications decide which was noble and which plebeian; except that,
+indeed, the latter had often franker and more courteous manners, while
+the former bore away the bell for a delicately-balanced combination of
+insolence and deceit. In the former there was often quick French blood
+mixed with the marsh-phlegm: I regret to say that the effect of this
+vivacious fluid chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with which
+flattery and fiction ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and
+livelier, but quite heartless and insincere.
+
+To do all parties justice, the honest aboriginal Labassecouriennes had
+an hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as
+could deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions,
+they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether
+untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck's
+house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above
+being ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it: to invent might
+not be precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of faults. "J'ai
+menti plusieurs fois," formed an item of every girl's and woman's
+monthly confession: the priest heard unshocked, and absolved
+unreluctant. If they had missed going to mass, or read a chapter of a
+novel, that was another thing: these were crimes whereof rebuke and
+penance were the unfailing weed.
+
+While yet but half-conscious of this state of things, and unlearned in
+its results, I got on in my new sphere very well. After the first few
+difficult lessons, given amidst peril and on the edge of a moral
+volcano that rumbled under my feet and sent sparks and hot fumes into
+my eyes, the eruptive spirit seemed to subside, as far as I was
+concerned. My mind was a good deal bent on success: I could not bear
+the thought of being baffled by mere undisciplined disaffection and
+wanton indocility, in this first attempt to get on in life. Many hours
+of the night I used to lie awake, thinking what plan I had best adopt
+to get a reliable hold on these mutineers, to bring this stiff-necked
+tribe under permanent influence. In, the first place, I saw plainly
+that aid in no shape was to be expected from Madame: her righteous
+plan was to maintain an unbroken popularity with the pupils, at any
+and every cost of justice or comfort to the teachers. For a teacher to
+seek her alliance in any crisis of insubordination was equivalent to
+securing her own expulsion. In intercourse with her pupils, Madame
+only took to herself what was pleasant, amiable, and recommendatory;
+rigidly requiring of her lieutenants sufficiency for every annoying
+crisis, where to act with adequate promptitude was to be unpopular.
+Thus, I must look only to myself.
+
+Imprimis--it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not
+to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very
+patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very
+rare flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental
+application they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the
+memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an
+English girl of not more than average capacity and docility would
+quietly take a theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and
+mastery, a Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it
+back to you with the phrase,--"Dieu, que c'est difficile! Je n'en veux
+pas. Cela m'ennuie trop."
+
+A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once,
+without hesitation, contest, or expostulation--proceed with even
+exaggerated care to smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the
+level of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and
+lay on the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the
+sting, perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice
+against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not _sour_,
+but _hearty_, and that it held well up to them, in a clear,
+light, and bold type, so that she who ran might read, their
+incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They would riot for three additional
+lines to a lesson; but I never knew them rebel against a wound given
+to their self-respect: the little they had of that quality was trained
+to be crushed, and it rather liked the pressure of a firm heel than
+otherwise.
+
+By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and
+could make such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their
+case, the elder and more intelligent girls began rather to like me in
+their way: I noticed that whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in
+her soul the stirring of worthy emulation, or the quickening of honest
+shame, from that date she was won. If I could but once make their
+(usually large) ears burn under their thick glossy hair, all was
+comparatively well. By-and-by bouquets began to be laid on my desk in
+the morning; by way of acknowledgment for this little foreign
+attention, I used sometimes to walk with a select few during
+recreation. In the course of conversation it befel once or twice that
+I made an unpremeditated attempt to rectify some of their singularly
+distorted notions of principle; especially I expressed my ideas of the
+evil and baseness of a lie. In an unguarded moment, I chanced to say
+that, of the two errors; I considered falsehood worse than an
+occasional lapse in church-attendance. The poor girls were tutored to
+report in Catholic ears whatever the Protestant teacher said. An
+edifying consequence ensued. Something--an unseen, an indefinite, a
+nameless--something stole between myself and these my best pupils: the
+bouquets continued to be offered, but conversation thenceforth became
+impracticable. As I paced the alleys or sat in the berceau, a girl
+never came to my right hand but a teacher, as if by magic, appeared at
+my left. Also, wonderful to relate, Madame's shoes of silence brought
+her continually to my back, as quick, as noiseless and unexpected, as
+some wandering zephyr.
+
+The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual
+prospects was somewhat naïvely expressed to me on one occasion. A
+pensionnaire, to whom I had rendered some little service, exclaimed
+one day as she sat beside me: "Mademoiselle, what a pity you are a
+Protestant!"
+
+"Why, Isabelle?"
+
+"Parceque, quand vous serez morte--vous brûlerez tout de suite dans
+l'Enfer."
+
+"Croyez-vous?"
+
+"Certainement que j'y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d'ailleurs le
+prêtre me l'a dit."
+
+Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, _sotto
+voce_: "Pour assurer votre salut là-haut, on ferait bien de vous
+brûler toute vive ici-bas."
+
+I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Has the reader forgotten Miss Ginevra Fanshawe? If so, I must be
+allowed to re-introduce that young lady as a thriving pupil of Madame
+Beck's; for such she was. On her arrival in the Rue Fossette, two or
+three days after my sudden settlement there, she encountered me with
+very little surprise. She must have had good blood in her veins, for
+never was any duchess more perfectly, radically, unaffectedly
+_nonchalante_ than she: a weak, transient amaze was all she knew
+of the sensation of wonder. Most of her other faculties seemed to be
+in the same flimsy condition: her liking and disliking, her love and
+hate, were mere cobweb and gossamer; but she had one thing about her
+that seemed strong and durable enough, and that was--her selfishness.
+
+She was not proud; and--_bonne d'enfants_ as I was--she would
+forthwith have made of me a sort of friend and confidant. She teased
+me with a thousand vapid complaints about school-quarrels and
+household economy: the cookery was not to her taste; the people about
+her, teachers and pupils, she held to be despicable, because they were
+foreigners. I bore with her abuse of the Friday's salt fish and hard
+eggs--with her invective against the soup, the bread, the coffee--with
+some patience for a time; but at last, wearied by iteration, I turned
+crusty, and put her to rights: a thing I ought to have done in the
+very beginning, for a salutary setting down always agreed with her.
+
+Much longer had I to endure her demands on me in the way of work. Her
+wardrobe, so far as concerned articles of external wear, was well and
+elegantly supplied; but there were other habiliments not so carefully
+provided: what she had, needed frequent repair. She hated needle-
+drudgery herself, and she would bring her hose, &c. to me in heaps, to
+be mended. A compliance of some weeks threatening to result in the
+establishment of an intolerable bore--I at last distinctly told her
+she must make up her mind to mend her own garments. She cried on
+receiving this information, and accused me of having ceased to be her
+friend; but I held by my decision, and let the hysterics pass as they
+could.
+
+Notwithstanding these foibles, and various others needless to mention
+--but by no means of a refined or elevating character--how pretty she
+was! How charming she looked, when she came down on a sunny Sunday
+morning, well-dressed and well-humoured, robed in pale lilac silk, and
+with her fair long curls reposing on her white shoulders. Sunday was a
+holiday which she always passed with friends resident in town; and
+amongst these friends she speedily gave me to understand was one who
+would fain become something more. By glimpses and hints it was shown
+me, and by the general buoyancy of her look and manner it was ere long
+proved, that ardent admiration--perhaps genuine love--was at her
+command. She called her suitor "Isidore:" this, however, she intimated
+was not his real name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize him
+--his own, she hinted, not being "very pretty." Once, when she had been
+bragging about the vehemence of "Isidore's" attachment, I asked if she
+loved him in return.
+
+"Comme cela," said she: "he is handsome, and he loves me to
+distraction, so that I am well amused. Ca suffit."
+
+Finding that she carried the thing on longer than, from her very
+fickle tastes, I had anticipated, I one day took it upon me to make
+serious inquiries as to whether the gentleman was such as her parents,
+and especially her uncle--on whom, it appeared, she was dependent--
+would be likely to approve. She allowed that this was very doubtful,
+as she did not believe "Isidore" had much money.
+
+"Do you encourage him?" I asked.
+
+"Furieusement sometimes," said she.
+
+"Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?"
+
+"Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don't want to be married. I am too
+young."
+
+"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing
+in the end, he will be made miserable."
+
+"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and,
+disappointed if he didn't."
+
+"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?" said I.
+
+"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, à ce qu'on dit. Mrs.
+Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push
+his way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh
+in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger."
+
+Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore;
+whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to
+favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she
+had neither words nor the power of putting them together so as to make
+graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him:
+nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched
+her heart or dwelt in her memory--that he was "beau, mais plutôt bel
+homme que joli garçon," was all she could assert. My patience would
+often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but
+for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave,
+went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage
+was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very
+plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with
+equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She
+laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had
+paid her a compliment.
+
+Miss Ginevra's school-studies were little better than nominal; there
+were but three things she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing,
+and dancing; also embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs which
+she could not afford to buy ready worked: such mere trifles as lessons
+in history, geography, grammar, and arithmetic, she left undone, or
+got others to do for her. Very much of her time was spent in visiting.
+Madame, aware that her stay at school was now limited to a certain
+period, which would not be extended whether she made progress or not,
+allowed her great licence in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley--her
+_chaperon_--a gay, fashionable lady, invited her whenever she had
+company at her own house, and sometimes took her to evening-parties at
+the houses of her acquaintance. Ginevra perfectly approved this mode
+of procedure: it had but one inconvenience; she was obliged to be well
+dressed, and she had not money to buy variety of dresses. All her
+thoughts turned on this difficulty; her whole soul was occupied with
+expedients for effecting its solution. It was wonderful to witness the
+activity of her otherwise indolent mind on this point, and to see the
+much-daring intrepidity to which she was spurred by a sense of
+necessity, and the wish to shine.
+
+She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley--boldly, I say: not with an air
+of reluctant shame, but in this strain:--
+
+"My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your
+party next week; you _must_ give me a book-muslin dress, and then
+a _ceinture bleu celeste_: _do_--there's an angel! will you?"
+
+The "darling Mrs. C." yielded at first; but finding that applications
+increased as they were complied with, she was soon obliged, like all
+Miss Fanshawe's friends, to oppose resistance to encroachment. After a
+while I heard no more of Mrs. Cholmondeley's presents; but still,
+visiting went on, and the absolutely necessary dresses continued
+to be supplied: also many little expensive _etcetera_--gloves,
+bouquets, even trinkets. These things, contrary to her custom, and
+even nature--for she was not secretive--were most sedulously kept out
+of sight for a time; but one evening, when she was going to a large
+party for which particular care and elegance of costume were demanded,
+she could not resist coming to my chamber to show herself in all her
+splendour.
+
+Beautiful she looked: so young, so fresh, and with a delicacy of skin
+and flexibility of shape altogether English, and not found in the list
+of continental female charms. Her dress was new, costly, and perfect.
+I saw at a glance that it lacked none of those finishing details which
+cost so much, and give to the general effect such an air of tasteful
+completeness.
+
+I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might
+survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best
+humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going
+to bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her
+delights but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what we are
+about, and find out the meaning of our magnificence"--and so put her
+off at arm's length, to undergo cooler inspection.
+
+"Shall I do?" was her question.
+
+"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I
+don't understand yours."
+
+"But how do I look?"
+
+"You look well dressed."
+
+She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct
+attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at
+this _parure_," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the
+bracelets: no one in the school has such a set--not Madame herself"
+
+"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those
+jewels?"
+
+"My uncle knows nothing about them."
+
+"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
+
+"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she
+never gives me anything now."
+
+I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly
+away.
+
+"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me
+when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
+
+"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your
+_parure_."
+
+For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
+
+"What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it--that is,
+not for the jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is
+certainly not paid for, but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the
+bill: he never notices items, but just looks at the total; and he is
+so rich, one need not care about a few guineas more or less."
+
+"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you
+you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in _my_ eyes, you
+will never look so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain
+straw bonnet you wore when I first saw you."
+
+"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply.
+"And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
+
+"Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to
+come flourishing and fluttering into my chamber--a mere jay in
+borrowed plumes. I have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss
+Fanshawe; and especially the peacock's eyes you call a _parure_:
+very pretty things, if you had bought them with money which was your
+own, and which you could well spare, but not at all pretty under
+present circumstances."
+
+"On est là pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!" was announced by the portress,
+and away she tripped.
+
+This semi-mystery of the _parure_ was not solved till two or
+three days afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession.
+
+"You need not be sulky with me," she began, "in the idea that I am
+running somebody, papa or M. de Bassompierre, deeply into debt. I
+assure you nothing remains unpaid for, but the few dresses I have
+lately had: all the rest is settled."
+
+"There," I thought, "lies the mystery; considering that they were not
+given you by Mrs. Cholmondeley, and that your own means are limited to
+a few shillings, of which I know you to be excessively careful."
+
+"Ecoutez!" she went on, drawing near and speaking in her most
+confidential and coaxing tone; for my "sulkiness" was inconvenient to
+her: she liked me to be in a talking and listening mood, even if I
+only talked to chide and listened to rail. "Ecoutez, chère grogneuse!
+I will tell you all how and about it; and you will then see, not only
+how right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. In the first
+place, I _must_ go out. Papa himself said that he wished me to
+see something of the world; he particularly remarked to Mrs.
+Cholmondeley, that, though I was a sweet creature enough, I had rather
+a bread-and-butter-eating, school-girl air; of which it was his
+special desire that I should get rid, by an introduction to society
+here, before I make my regular début in England. Well, then, if I go
+out, I _must_ dress. Mrs. Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will
+give nothing more; it would be too hard upon uncle to make him pay for
+_all_ the things I need: _that_ you can't deny--_that_ agrees
+with your own preachments. Well, but SOMEBODY who heard me
+(quite by chance, I assure you) complaining to Mrs. Cholmondeley of my
+distressed circumstances, and what straits I was put to for an
+ornament or two--_somebody_, far from grudging one a present, was
+quite delighted at the idea of being permitted to offer some trifle.
+You should have seen what a _blanc-bec_ he looked when he first
+spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and positively trembled
+from fear of a repulse."
+
+"That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M.
+Isidore is the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that
+costly _parure_; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?"
+
+"You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows
+how to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow
+Isidore the pleasure and honour of expressing his homage by the offer
+of a trifle."
+
+"It comes to the same thing.... Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain
+truth, I don't very well understand these matters; but I believe you
+are doing very wrong--seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel
+certain that you will be able to marry M. Isidore; your parents and
+uncle have given their consent, and, for your part, you love him
+entirely?"
+
+"Mais pas du tout!" (she always had recourse to French when about to
+say something specially heartless and perverse). "Je suis sa reine,
+mais il n'est pas mon roi."
+
+"Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and
+coquetry. There is nothing great about you, yet you are above
+profiting by the good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel
+absolute indifference. You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or
+will avow."
+
+"No. I danced with a young officer the other night, whom I love a
+thousand times more than he. I often wonder why I feel so very cold to
+Isidore, for everybody says he is handsome, and other ladies admire
+him; but, somehow, he bores me: let me see now how it is...."
+
+And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her.
+
+"Yes!" I said, "try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To
+me it seems in a great mess--chaotic as a rag-bag."
+
+"It is something in this fashion," she cried out ere long: "the man is
+too romantic and devoted, and he expects something more of me than I
+find it convenient to be. He thinks I am perfect: furnished with all
+sorts of sterling qualities and solid virtues, such as I never had,
+nor intend to have. Now, one can't help, in his presence, rather
+trying to justify his good opinion; and it does so tire one to be
+goody, and to talk sense,--for he really thinks I am sensible. I am
+far more at my ease with you, old lady--you, you dear crosspatch--who
+take me at my lowest, and know me to be coquettish, and ignorant, and
+flirting, and fickle, and silly, and selfish, and all the other sweet
+things you and I have agreed to be a part of my character."
+
+"This is all very well," I said, making a strenuous effort to preserve
+that gravity and severity which ran risk of being shaken by this
+whimsical candour, "but it does not alter that wretched business of
+the presents. Pack them up, Ginevra, like a good, honest girl, and
+send them back."
+
+"Indeed, I won't," said she, stoutly.
+
+"Then you are deceiving M. Isidore. It stands to reason that by
+accepting his presents you give him to understand he will one day
+receive an equivalent, in your regard..."
+
+"But he won't," she interrupted: "he has his equivalent now, in the
+pleasure of seeing me wear them--quite enough for him: he is only
+bourgeois."
+
+This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the
+temporary weakness which had made me relax my tone and aspect. She
+rattled on:
+
+"My present business is to enjoy youth, and not to think of fettering
+myself, by promise or vow, to this man or that. When first I saw
+Isidore, I believed he would help me to enjoy it I believed he would
+be content with my being a pretty girl; and that we should meet and
+part and flutter about like two butterflies, and be happy. Lo, and
+behold! I find him at times as grave as a judge, and deep-feeling and
+thoughtful. Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et passionnés ne
+sont pas à mon goût. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better.
+Va pour les beaux fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les
+plaisirs! A bas les grandes passions et les sévères vertus!"
+
+She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
+
+"J'aime mon beau Colonel," she went on: "je n'aimerai jamais son
+rival. Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
+
+I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should
+be relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DR JOHN.
+
+
+Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the
+world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no
+deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous
+about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-
+being; but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little
+children upon her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to
+gather them in a genial embrace, to shower on them softly the
+benignant caress, the loving word.
+
+I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little
+bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their
+_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often
+pondered anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest,
+a puny and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke
+from its nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and
+laughing and panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put
+out one hand, so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the
+child's sudden onset: "Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say
+unmoved, patiently permit it to stand near her a few moments, and
+then, without smile or kiss, or endearing syllable, rise and lead it
+back to Trinette.
+
+Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
+way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Désirée! Quel
+poison que cet enfant là!" were the expressions dedicated to her,
+alike in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she
+boasted an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes
+driving her _bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal
+to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their
+best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity
+to get at the buffet of the salle-à-manger, where she would smash
+articles of porcelain or glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom,
+where she would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break
+jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on
+the cook and the kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which
+when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless
+serenity, was:
+
+"Désirée a besoin d'une surveillance toute particulière." Accordingly
+she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never
+once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain
+the evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
+Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Désirée
+was kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and
+pillaged her mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame's work-table
+or toilet she could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw
+all this, but she still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of
+soul to confront the child with her vices. When an article disappeared
+whose value rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think
+that Désirée had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it.
+Désirée was not to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood
+to the aid of theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring,
+or scissors. Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly
+assume an air of belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the
+child till she tracked her: to her hiding-places--some hole in the
+garden-wall--some chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done,
+Madame would send Désirée out for a walk with her _bonne_, and
+profit by her absence to rob the robber. Désirée proved herself the
+true daughter of her astute parent, by never suffering either her
+countenance or manner to betray the least sign of mortification on
+discovering the loss.
+
+The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.
+Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue
+eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was
+an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling
+creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into
+perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top
+to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing
+the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the salle-à-
+manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
+cassé."
+
+At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too
+true: one little plump arm hung powerless.
+
+"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
+de suite chercher un fiacre."
+
+In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and self-
+possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.
+
+It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that
+mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to
+her mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the
+child's sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.
+
+We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the
+portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the
+small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new
+doctor when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with
+endeavouring to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs)
+were appalling to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the
+stranger approached her bed; when he took her up, "Let alone!" she
+cried passionately, in her broken English (for she spoke English as
+did the other children). "I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!"
+
+"And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend," was the answer, in perfect
+English; "but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come
+in his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence
+business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and
+in right order."
+
+Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucrée_, fed her with some
+teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande;
+anybody could win her heart through her palate), promised her more
+when the operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some
+assistance being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-
+armed woman; but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I
+did not like to touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there
+was no alternative, my hand was already extended to do what was
+requisite. I was anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand:
+hers was steady while mine trembled.
+
+"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.
+
+He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
+forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.
+
+"Merci, Madame; très bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
+finished. "Voilà un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille élans
+de sensibilité déplacée."
+
+He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was
+likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and
+manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked
+well at him, and when a lamp was brought in--for it was evening and
+now waxing dusk--you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than
+woman, it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he
+_was_ young) had no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly
+tall in that little chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made
+women; his profile was clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye
+glanced from face to face rather too vividly, too quickly, and too
+often; but it had a most pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his
+chin was full, cleft, Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could
+not in a hurry make up one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it
+merited; there was something in it that pleased, but something too
+that brought surging up into the mind all one's foibles and weak
+points: all that could lay one open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this
+doubtful smile, and thought the owner genial: much as he had hurt her,
+she held out her hand to bid him a friendly good-night. He patted the
+little hand kindly, and then he and Madame went down-stairs together;
+she talking in her highest tide of spirits and volubility, he
+listening with an air of good-natured amenity, dashed with that
+unconscious roguish archness I find it difficult to describe.
+
+I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better;
+he had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As
+he passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one
+moment--not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing,
+that I almost necessarily looked up at him--a recollection which had
+been struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard
+his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I
+had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the
+trunk; who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as
+he passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised
+his very tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed
+under the dripping trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was, to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician's first
+visit to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr.
+Pillule being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why
+his temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had
+written their decree to the contrary.
+
+Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the
+antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing
+change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the
+timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for
+the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.
+
+I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little
+invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the
+nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his
+care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny
+and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should
+make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase
+and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.
+
+No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Désirée declared
+herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and
+captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came
+to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her
+tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother
+still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck
+as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of
+gravity and good faith.
+
+What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had
+taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of
+addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and
+he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)--that Dr. John consented
+tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics, and to fall in with her manoeuvres.
+He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid
+glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of self-
+consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to play
+his part in the farce. Désirée eat like a raven, gambolled day and
+night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged
+like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with
+throwing her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters--over-
+flowed, in short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only
+languishing when her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit.
+Madame Beck, I knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in
+bed out of the way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not
+tire of the business.
+
+Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual
+attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the
+same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of
+concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the
+patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame
+caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much
+good sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not
+despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design
+to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the
+pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was
+independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he
+was often thoughtful and preoccupied.
+
+It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,
+or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly
+help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my
+presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a
+person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what
+is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary
+joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while
+waiting for Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man
+who thinks himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his
+countenance and movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of
+that peculiar interest and attachment--all mixed up with doubt and
+strangeness, and inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell--which
+wedded him to this demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a
+capital. He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head,
+much less a brain behind them.
+
+Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat
+in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,
+whiskers, and complexion--the whole being of such a tone as a strong
+light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I
+was driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the
+"golden image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new,
+sudden, and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering
+strength and power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked
+at him: the force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget
+myself; and I only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his
+notice was arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear
+little oval mirror fixed in the side of the window recess--by the aid
+of which reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the
+garden below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not
+without a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease
+under a direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and
+said, in a tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in
+it as to mark a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was
+said the character of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am
+not vain enough to fancy that it is my merits which attract her
+attention; it must then be some defect. Dare I ask--what?"
+
+I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an
+irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion
+of incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable
+inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have
+cleared myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not
+in the habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he
+chose and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had
+dropped, and kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his
+stay. There is a perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed
+than irritated by misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never
+be rightly known, we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately
+ignored. What honest man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker,
+does not feel rather tickled than vexed at the mistake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.
+
+
+It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
+children, took a fever. Désirée, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
+together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by
+way of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really
+needed, and Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who
+had been at home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his
+visits. One or two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in
+other respects seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment.
+"Now, at last," I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent
+directress will never venture to permit the attendance of so young a
+man on the pupils."
+
+The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
+venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
+the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
+handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angélique, her
+friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
+mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
+the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
+this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was
+not to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
+school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
+parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
+been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
+were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
+ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
+yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
+as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
+her firmness on this occasion.
+
+She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for
+nobody matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
+assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which
+on various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and
+complete success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would
+probably have failed.
+
+"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing
+joyously her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur
+créature du monde!" and go on to explain how she happened to be
+employing him for her own children, who were so fond of him they would
+scream themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how,
+where she had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose
+trust for others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary
+expedient in the world; Blanche and Angélique had the migraine; Dr.
+John had written a prescription; voilà tout!
+
+The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angélique saved her all
+remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician's praise;
+the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they
+were ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed,
+and the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large
+organ of philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is
+carried by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being
+the children's will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this
+occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying
+colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.
+
+To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest
+for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the
+whole house--pupils, teachers, servants included--affirmed that she
+was going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age
+seemed to make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.
+
+It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance
+this idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so
+oblivious of her former protégé, Pillule. She made, too, such a point
+of personally receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful,
+blithe, and benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about
+this time, marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the
+nightcap and shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits always
+found her with auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly
+fitted on, neat laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the
+whole toilette complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely
+think, however, that her intention in this went further than just to
+show a very handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and
+plain she was not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she
+pleased. Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never
+tired of seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or
+colourless, or flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue
+light, her cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things
+pleased in moderation, but with constancy.
+
+Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
+taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
+which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
+comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
+visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
+half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
+vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
+was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
+encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
+intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
+wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
+fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow
+old, never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
+terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever
+_do_ love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited
+the end.
+
+For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but
+the peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed,
+eager look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been
+quite within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged
+farther and farther beyond it.
+
+One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
+more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
+particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
+it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
+in order to consult him.
+
+The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
+his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
+to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
+and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes elapsed--
+ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be doing?
+Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still piped
+her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term, "Minnie,
+Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to ascertain
+why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he vanished?
+Was he with Madame in the _salle-à-manger?_ Impossible: I had
+left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
+listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
+proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser drawing-
+rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the portress's
+cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended originally for a
+boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the oratory, a whole
+class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson, and just then
+joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it), whereof I yet
+remember these words "fraîchë," "brisë," and "Venisë." Under these
+circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly; had it only
+been to the purpose.
+
+Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
+cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed;
+a man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
+whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
+second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
+with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
+baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.
+
+The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
+believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
+some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
+impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
+sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
+hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
+seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
+him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
+room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
+and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
+grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
+surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed
+to have passed?
+
+But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
+out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar:
+I glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a
+smart dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living
+thing save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a
+glass globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.
+
+Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.
+
+Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside; Madame stood before
+him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay
+composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the
+physician's own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in
+his looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and
+change of air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing
+indifference, telling her that she was "trop bonne," and that he felt
+perfectly well. Madame appealed to me--Dr. John following her movement
+with a slow glance which seemed to express languid surprise at
+reference being made to a quarter so insignificant.
+
+"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
+thinner?"
+
+It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr.
+John's presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever
+to remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I
+took licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made
+quite significant.
+
+"He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some
+temporary cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed." I cannot
+tell how he took this speech, as I never sought his face for
+information. Georgette here began to ask me in her broken English if
+she might have a glass of _eau sucrée_. I answered her in
+English. For the first time, I fancy, he noticed that I spoke his
+language; hitherto he had always taken me for a foreigner, addressing
+me as "Mademoiselle," and giving in French the requisite directions
+about the children's treatment. He seemed on the point of making a
+remark; but thinking better of it, held his tongue.
+
+Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and
+bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air
+of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and
+spoiling.
+
+When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she
+rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable
+vanished from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified
+and morose. She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang
+for morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a
+glass upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white
+hair streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a
+shudder. In the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had
+the colour, could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth;
+and then, where were youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were,
+even _you_ knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but
+my heart softened towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass.
+A calamity had come upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her
+with a grisly "All-hail," and her soul rejected the intimacy.
+
+But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced
+five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to
+contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their
+influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very
+good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any
+philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young
+man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that
+the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a
+mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I
+broke it, and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering
+in good time its exquisite folly. "Somebody," I argued, "might as well
+sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that
+do?"
+
+I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or
+make herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither
+strong feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be
+miserably pained. It is true likewise that she had an important
+avocation, a real business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and
+divide her interest. It is especially true that she possessed a
+genuine good sense which is not given to all women nor to all men; and
+by dint of these combined advantages she behaved wisely--she behaved
+well. Brava! once more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an
+Apollyon of a predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CASKET.
+
+
+Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,
+considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection
+at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to
+certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone
+around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how
+lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!
+
+There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been a
+convent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but I
+think some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter,
+and when it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy
+seclusion as ought to embosom a religious house-that something had
+happened on this site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had
+left to the place the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went
+of a black and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the
+year, seen in some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been
+built out some ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but
+certain convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet
+consecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of a pear-
+tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewed their
+perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants in autumn--you
+saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between the half-bared roots, a
+glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The legend went, unconfirmed
+and unaccredited, but still propagated, that this was the portal of a
+vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground, on whose surface grass
+grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl whom a monkish conclave
+of the drear middle ages had here buried alive for some sin against
+her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers had feared, through long
+generations after her poor frame was dust; her black robe and white
+veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade had mocked, as they
+fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.
+
+Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its
+charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;
+on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising
+moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than
+feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the
+gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful
+about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large
+berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a
+smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all
+along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of
+beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
+spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.
+
+Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
+Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
+pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
+college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
+limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down
+place enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the
+externes were gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies;
+pleasant was it then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the
+bells of St. Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted
+sound.
+
+I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
+the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
+mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
+could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
+the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
+evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
+Protestant, exempted myself.
+
+"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay
+with us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
+presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
+enjoy these precious minutes."
+
+The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
+the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
+premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
+rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain
+attic loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the women-
+servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
+chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
+ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
+forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allée
+défendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
+liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
+establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
+but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
+thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
+leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
+was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully
+shunned.
+
+From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of
+avoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For
+a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by
+degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such
+shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades,
+certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent
+enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted
+with than my identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this
+strait and narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless
+flowers that grew between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away
+the relics of past autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end.
+Borrowing of Goton, the cuisinière, a pail of water and a scrubbing-
+brush, I made this seat clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled
+approbation: whether sincerely or not I don't know; but she
+_seemed_ sincere.
+
+"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
+Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allée, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is
+quiet and shady."
+
+"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonté; and she kindly
+recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying,
+that as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble
+myself to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to
+come there, to talk English with me.
+
+On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed
+from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of
+the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the
+city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park,
+scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide
+streets brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were
+rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which
+tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and
+dropped the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us
+the summons to festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not,
+however: gay instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never
+seen; and though often I had heard them described, and even wished to
+see them, it was not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure
+if she could only reach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright
+distant sphere, could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning
+to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new
+thing.
+
+A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw
+her through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible
+beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood
+knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its
+curve leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old
+field, in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back
+beside a stately spire in this continental capital.
+
+Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I
+spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_
+feel. About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the
+future--such a future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead
+trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature.
+
+At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidents
+of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they
+woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
+could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of
+hurricane shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed
+to their saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny:
+I was roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself,
+and creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge,
+with my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it
+was wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round
+the night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too
+resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and
+full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered
+to man--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and
+pierced by white and blinding bolts.
+
+I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,
+for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me
+upwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was
+necessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after the
+manner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. Unlike
+Sisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and at
+intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did
+the temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.
+
+To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet
+in the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,
+something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on the
+soothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of
+which the sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding
+a reflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed
+sleeper, over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying
+without. Jael, the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her
+captive; but more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber
+coming home. By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy
+sweetness of the night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any
+definite point, but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.
+
+Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been
+the harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude
+Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too
+often is.
+
+Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,
+the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows
+here are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look
+up and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree
+overhead shook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone
+at my feet.
+
+Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it
+was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of
+that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline
+clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even
+in my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to
+read print of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile
+was a box, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid
+opened in my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely
+folded bit of pink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise."
+I wore indeed a dress of French grey.
+
+Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had
+not had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of
+commodity I held between my finger and thumb at this moment?
+
+Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very
+thoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;
+one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future
+husband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospective
+bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
+had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
+which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
+had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
+town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
+were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet
+with some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze
+assured them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that
+my experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church
+and I took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me.
+There was not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and
+did not testify to having received an admiring beam from our young
+doctor's blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however
+humbling it may sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned,
+those blue eyes were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint
+theirs seemed akin. So it came to pass that I heard the others talk,
+wondered often at their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but
+did not trouble myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed
+so certain of treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in
+settled conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it
+ran--I translate:--
+
+"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
+scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
+to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
+with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
+secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
+teacher--une véritable bégueule Britannique à ce que vous dites--
+espèce de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de
+grenadiers, et revêche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse
+my modesty in allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to
+retain the slight veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went
+on this precious effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his
+illness, has been removed to a master's chamber--that favoured
+chamber, whose lattice overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the
+best uncle in the world, am admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I
+approached the window and glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me,
+though a desert for you!--how I feared to behold vacancy, or the
+dragon aforesaid! How my heart palpitated with delight when, through
+apertures in the envious boughs, I at once caught the gleam of your
+graceful straw-hat, and the waving of your grey dress--dress that I
+should recognise amongst a thousand. But why, my angel, will you not
+look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of those adorable eyes!--how a
+single glance would have revived me! I write this in fiery haste;
+while the physician examines Gustave, I snatch an opportunity to
+enclose it in a small casket, together with a bouquet of flowers,
+the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee, my Peri--my
+all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"
+
+"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even
+closer reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than
+to the writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiancé of one of
+the engaged pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
+intended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the
+majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.
+But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--a
+very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,
+common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more
+definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress
+just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had
+grey dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a
+sort of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
+
+Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the
+dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to
+bed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lights
+extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated
+house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet
+close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved
+drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the
+vista.
+
+All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautious
+tinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her
+cabinet and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two
+minutes in parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the
+garden door, lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp,
+looking round vaguely.
+
+"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a
+été."
+
+"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
+familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
+it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and
+walks. It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at
+that hour; but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to
+the friendly night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side
+and on that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
+branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
+There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
+
+"Dr. John! it is found."
+
+He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I
+held it in my hand.
+
+"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
+dragon.
+
+"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
+know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
+reveals."
+
+"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
+believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
+fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his
+calling me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and
+coloured as he read.
+
+"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were
+the words that fell from him.
+
+I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
+matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
+be more to blame.
+
+"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell
+Madame Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"
+
+I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
+there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent
+to make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
+establishment.
+
+He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
+honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
+commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
+grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
+door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
+see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
+connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
+case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
+whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure
+me that none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business,
+I shall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the
+casket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the
+whole affair."
+
+"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
+offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
+
+I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly
+descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two
+minutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a
+cat, however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing
+could be lighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she
+turned a corner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She
+reappeared, and he was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing
+the door between him and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away,
+but I preferred to meet Madame openly.
+
+Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in
+the garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was
+I that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now
+to pounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No.
+Madame was all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she
+testified no shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in
+which I believe she was never surpassed by living thing, she even
+professed merely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."
+
+"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon was
+now gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait
+bon? que l'air est frais!"
+
+And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns
+with her down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she
+leaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the front-
+door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and "Bon
+soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for the night.
+
+I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my couch--
+smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour offered,
+for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind was
+busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,
+through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a
+glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night's
+transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of
+surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown
+into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,
+without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,
+or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few
+words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I
+thought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she should
+have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her
+premises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that
+time be able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay
+tempting her to disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and
+round in cobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved,
+like the foolish fly she was?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.
+
+
+I had occasion to smile--nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the
+space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in
+the last chapter.
+
+Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of
+any English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset,
+and all the next day was one of dry storm--dark, beclouded, yet
+rainless,--the streets were dim with sand and dust, whirled from the
+boulevards. I know not that even lovely weather would have tempted me
+to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it
+yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the
+garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their
+seclusion was now become precarious; their calm--insecure. That
+casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it
+overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision,
+and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants
+there were, indeed, trodden down by Dr. John in his search, and his
+hasty and heedless progress, which I wished to prop up, water, and
+revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the beds: but these, in
+spite of the strong wind, I found a moment's leisure to efface very
+early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a
+pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while
+the pupils settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers
+took up their needlework.
+
+The scene of the "etude du soir" was always the refectory, a much
+smaller apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for
+here none, save the boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered
+only a score. Two lamps hung from the ceiling over the two tables;
+these were lit at dusk, and their kindling was the signal for school-
+books being set aside, a grave demeanour assumed, general silence
+enforced, and then commenced "la lecture pieuse." This said "lecture
+pieuse" was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome
+mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason;
+and such a dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure,
+and thrive on as she best could.
+
+The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
+recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
+Hôtel de Ville.
+
+I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
+into my bands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the
+title, and perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as
+an unworthy heretic, it was only permitted me to drink in with my
+bewildered ears. This book contained legends of the saints. Good God!
+(I speak the words reverently) what legends they were. What
+gasconading rascals those saints must have been, if they first boasted
+these exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, however,
+were no more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed
+inwardly; there were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft
+of the book was far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each
+side of my head as I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom
+inflicted by Rome; the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly
+abused their office, trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies,
+making of countesses and princesses the most tormented slaves under
+the sun. Stories like that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary,
+recurred again and again, with all its dreadful viciousness, sickening
+tyranny and black impiety: tales that were nightmares of oppression,
+privation, and agony.
+
+I sat out this "lecture pieuse" for some nights as well as I could,
+and as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors
+by involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board
+of the table before me. But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and
+my temples, and my heart, and my wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep
+afterwards was so broken with excitement, that I could sit no longer.
+Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance of my person from
+the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. No Mause
+Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
+Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
+popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and
+rein in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps,
+I shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
+vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
+vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.
+
+When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
+carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
+unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought
+the long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate
+if the moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to
+their dim gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In
+summer it was never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own
+quarter of the long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber
+was lit by five casements large as great doors), and leaning out,
+looked forth upon the city beyond the garden, and listened to band-
+music from the park or the palace-square, thinking meantime my own
+thoughts, living my own life, in my own still, shadow-world.
+
+This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
+mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly
+opened the door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which,
+like every other door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled
+hinges. Before I _saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room,
+usually void: not that there was either stir or breath, or rustle of
+sound, but Vacuum lacked, Solitude was not at home. All the white
+beds--the "lits d'ange," as they were poetically termed--lay visible
+at a glance; all were empty: no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of
+a drawer cautiously slid out struck my ear; stepping a little to one
+side, my vision took a free range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I
+now commanded my own bed and my own toilet, with a locked work-box
+upon it, and locked drawers underneath.
+
+Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
+cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
+apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
+stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
+impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in turn: not an article
+of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper but was
+glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the
+adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished.
+Madame wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I
+will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been
+a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she
+was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements
+provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers--satisfied by their
+trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary
+to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The
+searcher might have turned and caught me; there would have been
+nothing for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had to come
+all at once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each
+other: down would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises,
+and _I_ should have looked into her eyes, and she into mine--we
+should have known that we could work together no more, and parted in
+this life for ever.
+
+Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and
+had no wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another
+employer whose yoke would be so light and so, easy of carriage; and
+truly I liked Madame for her capital sense, whatever I might think of
+her principles: as to her system, it did me no harm; she might work me
+with it to her heart's content: nothing would come of the operation.
+Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my
+heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.
+I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift
+and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran
+down the bannister.
+
+How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had
+certainly seen Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were.
+The spectacle of a suspicious nature so far misled by its own
+inventions, tickled me much. Yet as the laugh died, a kind of wrath
+smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was the rock struck, and
+Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and
+contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening:
+soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between
+them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me--I did not
+care twopence for her mistrust--but for other reasons. Complicated,
+disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However,
+that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.
+
+On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the
+closest subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent
+disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded
+as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had
+once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me,
+for we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for
+its sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there
+unstirred; my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars, were
+unrumpled. Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have
+felt much greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all
+straight and orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed:
+why should I bear malice?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key
+to that riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to
+useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he
+had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden,
+should have known that it _was_ dropped, and appeared so promptly
+on the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point
+that I began to entertain this daring suggestion: "Why may I not, in
+case I should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to
+explain this coincidence?"
+
+And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
+test him with such a question.
+
+Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly
+made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them
+altogether, had not Madame insisted on his giving an occasional call
+till the child should be quite well.
+
+She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to
+Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking
+the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de
+fièvre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance
+than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue
+dernièrement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house.
+"Well," she continued, "I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en
+fiacre. I shall call on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will
+that he sees her this evening; her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is
+quick; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from
+home."
+
+Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it
+was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme
+unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made
+"courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the
+first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit
+from Dr. John. The whole arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw,
+but without the least anxiety. "Ha! ha! Madame," laughed Light-heart
+the Beggar, "your crafty wits are on the wrong tack."
+
+She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
+_chapeau vert tendre_--hazardous, as to its tint, for any
+complexion less fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I
+wondered what she intended: whether she really would send Dr. John or
+not; or whether indeed he would come: he might be engaged.
+
+Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came;
+I had therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and
+palavering the little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette;
+she was a sensitive and a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or
+carry her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me
+lay my head on the pillow of her crib; she even put her little arms
+round my neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with which she
+pressed her cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain.
+Feeling of no kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from
+a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued
+the heart, and sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour
+passed; Georgette murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing
+sleepy. "And you _shall_ sleep," thought I, "malgré maman and
+médecin, if they are not here in ten minutes."
+
+Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the
+staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine
+introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether
+peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette
+generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame's presence
+would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the
+cabinet--for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared
+not a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of
+her gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness
+than if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
+
+"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
+a jerk of her chin.
+
+"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
+his pencil some harmless prescription.
+
+"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
+his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
+coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."
+
+"I found it: yes."
+
+"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
+very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
+courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a
+point which, for others, seems unattainable!
+
+"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no, sort
+of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
+character.
+
+"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
+thrown, since be came to seek it--how did he know?"
+
+"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
+saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."
+
+How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
+as then examining "Gustave."
+
+"Ah ça!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de
+mystère, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"
+
+"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.
+
+"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--à qui tout cela
+commençait à donner des idées."
+
+"Vraiment! vous en êtes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
+rejoinder.
+
+She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
+she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured
+and genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
+
+"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
+month?" he asked.
+
+"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite
+readily.
+
+"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
+give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
+danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
+minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
+
+The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
+not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace
+in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering
+like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
+
+I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the
+ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor
+yet on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr.
+John's heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as
+Georgette's little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was
+the culprit? What was the ground--what the origin--what the perfect
+explanation of the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but
+how many yet remained obscure as night!
+
+"However," I said to myself, "it is no affair of yours;" and turning
+from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a
+questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the
+garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bed-side, was slowly
+drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes
+closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he
+should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate "good-
+night.". Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall houses
+bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated,
+cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white
+handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered
+from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after
+there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and light
+--billet the second, of course.
+
+"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.
+
+"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
+"What, is it?"
+
+"They have gone and done it again," was my reply. "A handkerchief
+waved and something fell:" and I pointed to the lattice, now closed
+and looking hypocritically blank.
+
+"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
+adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."
+
+Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper,
+lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct
+to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.
+
+He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it.
+"It is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said,
+looking at me.
+
+"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"
+
+"You don't yet know, then?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Have you no guess?"
+
+"None."
+
+"If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and
+thus secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but
+somewhat inexperienced being."
+
+"As a duenna?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added,
+musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face,
+anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would
+warrant him in recommending to my care and indulgence some
+ethereal creature, against whom powers of darkness were plotting.
+I felt no particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of
+ethereal creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed
+to me that I owed _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ help him then I
+would, and it lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance
+as might be, I intimated that "I was willing to do what I could
+towards taking care of any person in whom he might be interested.".
+
+"I am no farther interested than as a spectator," said he, with a
+modesty, admirable, as I thought, to witness. "I happen to be
+acquainted with the rather worthless character of the person, who,
+from the house opposite, has now twice invaded the, sanctity of this
+place; I have also met in society the object at whom these vulgar
+attempts are aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate refinement
+ought, one would think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It
+is not so, however; and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would
+guard her from evil if I could. In person, however, I can do nothing I
+cannot come near her"--he paused.
+
+"Well, I am willing to help you," said I, "only tell me how." And
+busily, in my own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking
+this paragon, this pearl of great price, this gem without flaw. "It
+must be Madame," I concluded. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has
+the art even to _seem_ superior: but as to being unsuspicious,
+inexperienced, &c., Dr. John need not distract himself about that.
+However, this is just his whim, and I will not contradict him; he
+shall be humoured: his angel shall be an angel.
+
+"Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed," I
+continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of
+being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John
+had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no
+more coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was
+a little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a
+smile he turned and took his hat--he was going. My heart smote me.
+
+"I will--I will help you," said I eagerly. "I will do what you wish. I
+will watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who
+she is."
+
+"But you _must_ know," said he then with earnestness, yet
+speaking very low. "So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful!
+impossible that one house should contain two like her. I allude, of
+course--"
+
+Here the latch of Madame Beck's chamber-door (opening into the
+nursery) gave a sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been
+slightly convulsed; there was the suppressed explosion of an
+irrepressible sneeze. These little accidents will happen to the best
+of us. Madame--excellent woman! was then on duty. She had come home
+quietly, stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If she
+had not sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that
+unlucky sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came
+forward alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no
+novice to her habits but would have thought she had just come in, and
+scouted the idea of her ear having been glued to the key-hole for at
+least ten minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared she was
+"enrhumée," and then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en
+fiacre." The prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FÊTE.
+
+
+As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country.
+I was sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than
+before. But I must not complain. I lived in a house full of robust
+life; I might have had companions, and I chose solitude. Each of the
+teachers in turn made me overtures of special intimacy; I tried them
+all. One I found to be an honest woman, but a narrow thinker, a coarse
+feeler, and an egotist. The second was a Parisienne, externally
+refined--at heart, corrupt--without a creed, without a principle,
+without an affection: having penetrated the outward crust of decorum
+in this character, you found a slough beneath. She had a wonderful
+passion for presents; and, in this point, the third teacher--a person
+otherwise characterless and insignificant--closely resembled her. This
+last-named had also one other distinctive property--that of avarice.
+In her reigned the love of money for its own sake. The sight of a
+piece of gold would bring into her eyes a green glisten, singular to
+witness. She once, as a mark of high favour, took me up-stairs, and,
+opening a secret door, showed me a hoard--a mass of coarse, large
+coin--about fifteen guineas, in five-franc pieces. She loved this
+hoard as a bird loves its eggs. These were her savings. She would come
+and talk to me about them with an infatuated and persevering dotage,
+strange to behold in a person not yet twenty-five.
+
+The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and profligate (in
+disposition, that is: as to action, I do not know). That latter
+quality showed its snake-head to me but once, peeping out very
+cautiously. A curious kind of reptile it seemed, judging from the
+glimpse I got; its novelty whetted my curiosity: if it would have come
+out boldly, perhaps I might philosophically have stood my ground, and
+coolly surveyed the long thing from forked tongue to scaly tail-tip;
+but it merely rustled in the leaves of a bad novel; and, on
+encountering a hasty and ill-advised demonstration of wrath, recoiled
+and vanished, hissing. She hated me from that day.
+
+This Parisienne was always in debt; her salary being anticipated, not
+only in dress, but in perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, and
+condiments. What a cold, callous epicure she was in all things! I see
+her now. Thin in face and figure, sallow in complexion, regular in
+features, with perfect teeth, lips like a thread, a large, prominent
+chin, a well-opened, but frozen eye, of light at once craving and
+ingrate. She mortally hated work, and loved what she called pleasure;
+being an insipid, heartless, brainless dissipation of time.
+
+Madame Beck knew this woman's character perfectly well. She once
+talked to me about her, with an odd mixture of discrimination,
+indifference, and antipathy. I asked why she kept her in the
+establishment. She answered plainly, "because it suited her interest
+to do so;" and pointed out a fact I had already noticed, namely, that
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre possessed, in an almost unique degree, the
+power of keeping order amongst her undisciplined ranks of scholars. A
+certain petrifying influence accompanied and surrounded her: without
+passion, noise, or violence, she held them in check as a breezeless
+frost-air might still a brawling stream. She was of little use as far
+as communication of knowledge went, but for strict surveillance and
+maintenance of rules she was invaluable. "Je sais bien qu'elle n'a pas
+de principes, ni, peut-être, de moeurs," admitted Madame frankly; but
+added with philosophy, "son maintien en classe est toujours convenable
+et rempli même d'une certaine dignité: c'est tout ce qu'il faut. Ni
+les élèves ni les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par conséquent,
+moi non plus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains
+were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism
+pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was
+permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each
+mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from
+dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was
+seized and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to
+bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy,
+hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. "Eat, drink, and
+live!" she says. "Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I
+hold their cure--guide their course: I guarantee their final fate." A
+bargain, in which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer
+just offers the same terms: "All this power will I give thee, and the
+glory of it; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I
+give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine!"
+
+About this time--in the ripest glow of summer--Madame Beck's house
+became as merry a place as a school could well be. All day long the
+broad folding-doors and the two-leaved casements stood wide open:
+settled sunshine seemed naturalized in the atmosphere; clouds were far
+off, sailing away beyond sea, resting, no doubt, round islands such as
+England--that dear land of mists--but withdrawn wholly from the drier
+continent. We lived far more in the garden than under a roof: classes
+were held, and meals partaken of, in the "grand berceau." Moreover,
+there was a note of holiday preparation, which almost turned freedom
+into licence. The autumnal long vacation was but two months distant;
+but before that, a great day--an important ceremony--none other than
+the fête of Madame--awaited celebration.
+
+The conduct of this fête devolved chiefly on Mademoiselle St. Pierre:
+Madame herself being supposed to stand aloof, disinterestedly
+unconscious of what might be going forward in her honour. Especially,
+she never knew, never in the least suspected, that a subscription was
+annually levied on the whole school for the purchase of a handsome
+present. The polite tact of the reader will please to leave out of the
+account a brief, secret consultation on this point in Madame's own
+chamber.
+
+"What will you have this year?" was asked by her Parisian lieutenant.
+
+"Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their
+francs," And Madame looked benign and modest.
+
+The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart;
+she always called her airs of "bonté"--"des grimaces." She never even
+professed to respect them one instant.
+
+"Vite!" she would say coldly. "Name the article. Shall it be jewellery
+or porcelain, haberdashery or silver?"
+
+"Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent."
+
+And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of
+plate.
+
+The programme of the fête-day's proceedings comprised: Presentation of
+plate, collation in the garden, dramatic performance (with pupils and
+teachers for actors), a dance and supper. Very gorgeous seemed the
+effect of the whole to me, as I well remember. Zélie St. Pierre
+understood these things and managed them ably.
+
+The play was the main point; a month's previous drilling being there
+required. The choice, too, of the actors required knowledge and care;
+then came lessons in elocution, in attitude, and then the fatigue of
+countless rehearsals. For all this, as may well be supposed, St.
+Pierre did not suffice: other management, other accomplishments than
+hers were requisite here. They were supplied in the person of a
+master--M. Paul Emanuel, professor of literature. It was never my
+lot to be present at the histrionic lessons of M. Paul, but I often
+saw him as he crossed the _carré_ (a square hall between the
+dwelling-house and school-house). I heard him, too, in the warm
+evenings, lecturing with open doors, and his name, with anecdotes of
+him, resounded in ones ears from all sides. Especially our former
+acquaintance, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe,--who had been selected to take a
+prominent part in the play--used, in bestowing upon me a large portion
+of her leisure, to lard her discourse with frequent allusions to his
+sayings and doings. She esteemed him hideously plain, and used to
+profess herself frightened almost into hysterics at the sound of his
+step or voice. A dark little man he certainly was; pungent and
+austere. Even to me he seemed a harsh apparition, with his close-
+shorn, black head, his broad, sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide
+and quivering nostril, his thorough glance, and hurried bearing.
+Irritable he was; one heard that, as he apostrophized with vehemence
+the awkward squad under his orders. Sometimes he would break out on
+these raw amateur actresses with a passion of impatience at their
+falseness of conception, their coldness of emotion, their feebleness
+of delivery. "Ecoutez!" he would cry; and then his voice rang through
+the premises like a trumpet; and when, mimicking it, came the small
+pipe of a Ginevra, a Mathilde, or a Blanche, one understood why a
+hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce hiss of rage, rewarded the tame
+echo.
+
+"Vous n'êtes donc que des poupées," I heard him thunder. "Vous n'avez
+pas de passions--vous autres. Vous ne sentez donc rien? Votre chair
+est de neige, votre sang de glace! Moi, je veux que tout cela
+s'allume, qu'il ait une vie, une âme!"
+
+Vain resolve! And when he at last found it _was_ vain, he
+suddenly broke the whole business down. Hitherto he had been teaching
+them a grand tragedy; he tore the tragedy in morsels, and came next
+day with a compact little comic trifle. To this they took more kindly;
+he presently knocked it all into their smooth round pates.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre always presided at M. Emanuel's lessons, and I
+was told that the polish of her manner, her seeming attention, her
+tact and grace, impressed that gentleman very favourably. She had,
+indeed, the art of pleasing, for a given time, whom she would; but the
+feeling would not last: in an hour it was dried like dew, vanished
+like gossamer.
+
+The day preceding Madame's fête was as much a holiday as the fête
+itself. It was devoted to clearing out, cleaning, arranging and
+decorating the three schoolrooms. All within-doors was the gayest
+bustle; neither up-stairs nor down could a quiet, isolated person find
+rest for the sole of her foot; accordingly, for my part, I took refuge
+in the garden. The whole day did I wander or sit there alone, finding
+warmth in the sun, shelter among the trees, and a sort of
+companionship in my own thoughts. I well remember that I exchanged but
+two sentences that day with any living being: not that I felt
+solitary; I was glad to be quiet. For a looker-on, it sufficed to pass
+through the rooms once or twice, observe what changes were being
+wrought, how a green-room and a dressing-room were being contrived, a
+little stage with scenery erected, how M. Paul Emanuel, in conjunction
+with Mademoiselle St. Pierre, was directing all, and how an eager band
+of pupils, amongst them Ginevra Fanshawe, were working gaily under his
+control.
+
+The great day arrived. The sun rose hot and unclouded, and hot and
+unclouded it burned on till evening. All the doors and all the windows
+were set open, which gave a pleasant sense of summer freedom--and
+freedom the most complete seemed indeed the order of the day. Teachers
+and pupils descended to breakfast in dressing-gowns and curl-papers:
+anticipating "avec délices" the toilette of the evening, they seemed
+to take a pleasure in indulging that forenoon in a luxury of
+slovenliness; like aldermen fasting in preparation for a feast. About
+nine o'clock A.M., an important functionary, the "coiffeur," arrived.
+Sacrilegious to state, he fixed his head-quarters in the oratory, and
+there, in presence of _bénitier_, candle, and crucifix, solemnised
+the mysteries of his art. Each girl was summoned in turn to pass
+through his hands; emerging from them with head as smooth as a
+shell, intersected by faultless white lines, and wreathed about with
+Grecian plaits that shone as if lacquered. I took my turn with the
+rest, and could hardly believe what the glass said when I applied to
+it for information afterwards; the lavished garlandry of woven brown
+hair amazed me--I feared it was not all my own, and it required
+several convincing pulls to give assurance to the contrary. I then
+acknowledged in the coiffeur a first-rate artist--one who certainly
+made the most of indifferent materials.
+
+The oratory closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions,
+arrayings and bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever
+must be an enigma, how they contrived to spend so much time in doing
+so little. The operation seemed close, intricate, prolonged: the
+result simple. A clear white muslin dress, a blue sash (the Virgin's
+colours), a pair of white, or straw-colour kid gloves--such was the
+gala uniform, to the assumption whereof that houseful of teachers and
+pupils devoted three mortal hours. But though simple, it must be
+allowed the array was perfect--perfect in fashion, fit, and freshness;
+every head being also dressed with exquisite nicety, and a certain
+compact taste--suiting the full, firm comeliness of Labassecourien
+contours, though too stiff for any more flowing and flexible style of
+beauty--the general effect was, on the whole, commendable.
+
+In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling
+myself to be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was
+not in me to put on a transparent white dress: something thin I must
+wear--the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics
+sufferance, so I had sought through a dozen shops till I lit upon a
+crape-like material of purple-gray--the colour, in short, of dun mist,
+lying on a moor in bloom. My _tailleuse_ had kindly made it as
+well as she could: because, as she judiciously observed, it was "si
+triste--si pen voyant," care in the fashion was the more imperative:
+it was well she took this view of the matter, for I, had no flower, no
+jewel to relieve it: and, what was more, I had no natural rose of
+complexion.
+
+We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of
+daily drudgery, but they _will_ force upon us their unwelcome
+blank on those bright occasions when beauty should shine.
+
+However, in this same gown of shadow, I felt at home and at ease; an
+advantage I should not have enjoyed in anything more brilliant or
+striking. Madame Beck, too, kept me in countenance; her dress was
+almost as quiet as mine, except that she wore a bracelet, and a large
+brooch bright with gold and fine stones. We chanced to meet on the
+stairs, and she gave me a nod and smile of approbation. Not that she
+thought I was looking well--a point unlikely to engage her interest--
+but she considered me dressed "convenablement," "décemment," and la
+Convenance et la Décence were the two calm deities of Madame's
+worship. She even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding
+an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a
+sarcasm on the other teachers (whom she had just been complimenting to
+their faces). "Nothing so absurd," she said, "as for des femmes mûres
+'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'--quant à la. St. Pierre,
+elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingénue."
+
+Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a
+pleasure in betaking myself--not to the garden, where servants were
+busy propping up long tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in
+readiness for the collation but to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet,
+cool, and clean; their walls fresh stained, their planked floors fresh
+scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh gathered adorning the recesses
+in pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying the great windows.
+
+Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the
+others, and taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key,
+a volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read. The
+glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large
+berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to
+meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush
+bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the stilly
+hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were
+beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to
+lure me along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of
+dreamland--just then, the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to
+which that much-tried instrument had ever thrilled, snatched me back
+to consciousness.
+
+Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or
+servants, or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, went and came on
+their several errands. Moreover, there was good reason to expect it
+would ring all the afternoon, since about one hundred externes were
+yet to arrive in carriages or fiacres: nor could it be expected to
+rest during the evening, when parents and friends would gather
+thronging to the play. Under these circumstances, a ring--even a sharp
+ring--was a matter of course: yet this particular peal had an accent
+of its own, which chased my dream, and startled my book from my knee.
+
+I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
+on through vestibule--along corridor, across carré, through first
+division, second division, grand salle--strode a step, quick, regular,
+intent. The closed door of the first classe--my sanctuary--offered no
+obstacle; it burst open, and a paletôt and a bonnet grec filled the
+void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
+into me.
+
+"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant
+pis. Toute Anglaise, et, par conséquent, toute bégueule qu'elle soit--
+elle fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."
+
+Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not
+caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon
+the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess----, play you must: I
+am planted there."
+
+"What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?" I inquired: for M. Paul
+Emanuel it was, and in a state of no little excitement.
+
+"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the
+prude. I read your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play
+you can; play you must."
+
+"But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?"
+
+"There is no time to be lost," he went on, now speaking in French;
+"and let us thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all
+minauderies. You must take a part."
+
+"In the vaudeville?"
+
+"In the vaudeville. You have said it."
+
+I gasped, horror-struck. _What_ did the little man mean?
+
+"Listen!" he said. "The case shall be stated, and you shall then
+answer me Yes, or No; and according to your answer shall I ever after
+estimate you."
+
+The scarce-suppressed impetus of a most irritable nature glowed in his
+cheek, fed with sharp shafts his glances, a nature--the injudicious,
+the mawkish, the hesitating, the sullen, the affected, above all, the
+unyielding, might quickly render violent and implacable. Silence and
+attention was the best balm to apply: I listened.
+
+"The whole matter is going to fail," he began. "Louise Vanderkelkov
+has fallen ill--at least so her ridiculous mother asserts; for my part, I
+feel sure she might play if she would: it is only good-will that lacks.
+She was charged with a _rôle_, as you know, or do _not_ know--it is
+equal: without that _rôle_ the play is stopped. There are now but a
+few hours in which to learn it: not a girl in this school would hear
+reason, and accept the task. Forsooth, it is not an interesting, not an
+amiable, part; their vile _amour-propre_--that base quality of which
+women have so much--would revolt from it. Englishwomen are either
+the best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait que je les déteste comme
+la peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to
+an Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer--Yes, or No?"
+
+A thousand objections rushed into my mind. The foreign language, the
+limited time, the public display... Inclination recoiled, Ability
+faltered, Self-respect (that "vile quality") trembled. "Non, non,
+non!" said all these; but looking up at M. Paul, and seeing in his
+vexed, fiery, and searching eye, a sort of appeal behind all its
+menace, my lips dropped the word "oui". For a moment his rigid
+countenance relaxed with a quiver of content: quickly bent up again,
+however, he went on,--
+
+"Vite à l'ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your _rôle_: read."
+And I read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and
+stamped. He gave me a lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a
+disagreeable part--a man's--an empty-headed fop's. One could put into
+it neither heart nor soul: I hated it. The play--a mere trifle--ran
+chiefly on the efforts of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair
+coquette. One lover was called the "Ours," a good and gallant but
+unpolished man, a sort of diamond in the rough; the other was a
+butterfly, a talker, and a traitor: and I was to be the butterfly,
+talker, and traitor.
+
+I did my best--which was bad, I know: it provoked M. Paul; he fumed.
+Putting both--hands to the work, I endeavoured to do better than my
+best; I presume he gave me credit for good intentions; he professed to
+be partially content. "Ca ira!" he cried; and as voices began sounding
+from the garden, and white dresses fluttering among the trees, he
+added: "You must withdraw: you must be alone to learn this. Come with
+me."
+
+Without being allowed time or power to deliberate, I found myself in
+the same breath convoyed along as in a species of whirlwind, up-
+stairs, up two pair of stairs, nay, actually up three (for this fiery
+little man seemed as by instinct to know his way everywhere); to the
+solitary and lofty attic was I borne, put in and locked in, the key
+being, in the door, and that key he took with him and vanished.
+
+The attic was no pleasant place: I believe he did not know how
+unpleasant it was, or he never would have locked me in with so little
+ceremony. In this summer weather, it was hot as Africa; as in winter,
+it was always cold as Greenland. Boxes and lumber filled it; old
+dresses draped its unstained wall--cobwebs its unswept ceiling. Well
+was it known to be tenanted by rats, by black beetles, and by
+cockroaches--nay, rumour affirmed that the ghostly Nun of the garden
+had once been seen here. A partial darkness obscured one end, across
+which, as for deeper mystery, an old russet curtain was drawn, by way
+of screen to a sombre band of winter cloaks, pendent each from its
+pin, like a malefactor from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and
+behind that curtain, the Nun was said to issue. I did not believe
+this, nor was I troubled by apprehension thereof; but I saw a very
+dark and large rat, with a long tail, come gliding out from that
+squalid alcove; and, moreover, my eye fell on many a black-beetle,
+dotting the floor. These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, than it
+would be wise to say, as also did the dust, lumber, and stifling heat
+of the place. The last inconvenience would soon have become
+intolerable, had I not found means to open and prop up the skylight,
+thus admitting some freshness. Underneath this aperture I pushed a
+large empty chest, and having mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped
+from both the dust, I gathered my dress (my best, the reader must
+remember, and therefore a legitimate object of care) fastidiously
+around me, ascended this species of extempore throne, and being
+seated, commenced the acquisition of my task; while I learned, not
+forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the black-beetles and
+cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of the rats, I sat
+in mortal dread.
+
+My impression at first was that I had undertaken what it really was
+impossible to perform, and I simply resolved to do my best and be
+resigned to fail. I soon found, however, that one part in so short a
+piece was not more than memory could master at a few hours' notice. I
+learned and learned on, first in a whisper, and then aloud. Perfectly
+secure from human audience, I acted my part before the garret-vermin.
+Entering into its emptiness, frivolity, and falsehood, with a spirit
+inspired by scorn and impatience, I took my revenge on this "fat," by
+making him as fatuitous as I possibly could.
+
+In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into
+evening; and I, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew
+excessively hungry. Now I thought of the collation, which doubtless
+they were just then devouring in the garden far below. (I had seen in
+the vestibule a basketful of small _pâtés à la crême_, than which
+nothing in the whole range of cookery seemed to me better). A
+_pâté_, or a square of cake, it seemed to me would come very
+_àpropos;_ and as my relish for those dainties increased, it
+began to appear somewhat hard that I should pass my holiday, fasting
+and in prison. Remote as was the attic from the street-door and
+vestibule, yet the ever-tinkling bell was faintly audible here; and
+also the ceaseless roll of wheels, on the tormented pavement. I knew
+that the house and garden were thronged, and that all was gay and glad
+below; here it began to grow dusk: the beetles were fading from my
+sight; I trembled lest they should steal on me a march, mount my
+throne unseen, and, unsuspected, invade my skirts. Impatient and
+apprehensive, I recommenced the rehearsal of my part merely to kill
+time. Just as I was concluding, the long-delayed rattle of the key in
+the lock came to my ear--no unwelcome sound. M. Paul (I could just see
+through the dusk that it _was_ M. Paul, for light enough still
+lingered to show the velvet blackness of his close-shorn head, and the
+sallow ivory of his brow) looked in.
+
+"Brava!" cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the
+threshold. "J'ai tout entendu. C'est assez bien. Encore!"
+
+A moment I hesitated.
+
+"Encore!" said he sternly. "Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidité!"
+
+Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it
+alone.
+
+"Enfin, elle sait," said he, half dissatisfied, "and one cannot be
+fastidious or exacting under the circumstances." Then he added, "You
+may yet have twenty minutes for preparation: au revoir!" And he was
+going.
+
+"Monsieur," I called out, taking courage.
+
+"Eh bien! Qu'est-ce que c'est, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"J'ai bien faim."
+
+"Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?"
+
+"I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here."
+
+"Ah! C'est vrai," cried he.
+
+In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse
+repetition of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic,
+instantly took me down--down--down to the very kitchen. I thought I
+should have gone to the cellar. The cook was imperatively ordered to
+produce food, and I, as imperatively, was commanded to eat. To my
+great joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I had feared wine
+and sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should like a
+_petit pâté à la crême_ I cannot tell; but he went out and
+procured me one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate
+and drank, keeping the _petit pâté_ till the last, as a _bonne
+bouche_. M. Paul superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me
+more than I could swallow.
+
+"A la bonne heure," he cried, when I signified that I really could
+take no more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the
+additional roll on which he had just spread butter. "You will set me
+down as a species of tyrant and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret;
+whereas, after all, I am no such thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel
+courage and strength to appear?"
+
+I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused,
+and could hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order
+of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant
+force sufficient to crush him at once.
+
+"Come then," said he, offering his hand.
+
+I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to
+run at his side in order to keep pace. In the carré he stopped a
+moment: it was lit with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes
+were open, and so were the equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in
+tubs, and tall flowers in pots, ornamented these portals on each side;
+groups of ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress stood and walked
+amongst the flowers. Within, the long vista of the school-rooms
+presented a thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, streaming
+multitude, all rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were
+lustres burning overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green
+curtain, a row of footlights.
+
+"Nest-ce pas que c'est beau?" demanded my companion.
+
+I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul
+discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my
+pains.
+
+"I will do my best, but I wish it was over," said I; then I asked:
+"Are we to walk through that crowd?"
+
+"By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the garden--
+here."
+
+In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me
+somewhat. It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing
+windows lit the court brightly, and even the alleys--dimly. Heaven was
+cloudless, and grand with the quiver of its living fires. How soft are
+the nights of the Continent! How bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no
+chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh as morning.
+
+Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the
+first classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we
+passed, and then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the
+first classe from the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so
+full of light: it deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it
+stifled me, it was so hot, choking, thronged.
+
+"De l'ordre! Du silence!" cried M. Paul. "Is this chaos?", he
+demanded; and there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many
+gestures, he turned out half the persons present, and obliged the
+remnant to fall into rank. Those left were all in costume: they were
+the performers, and this was the green-room. M. Paul introduced me.
+All stared and some tittered. It was a surprise: they had not expected
+the Englishwoman would play in a _vaudeville_. Ginevra Fanshawe,
+beautifully dressed for her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty,
+turned on me a pair of eyes as round as beads. In the highest spirit,
+unperturbed by fear or bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of
+shining off before hundreds--my entrance seemed to transfix her with
+amazement in the midst of her joy. She would have exclaimed, but M.
+Paul held her and all the rest in check.
+
+Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.
+
+"You, too, must be dressed for your part."
+
+"Dressed--dressed like a man!" exclaimed Zélie St. Pierre, darting
+forwards; adding with officiousness, "I will dress her myself."
+
+To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had
+consented to take a man's name and part; as to his dress--_halte
+là!_ No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might
+storm, might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice
+as resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in
+utterance.
+
+He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he
+stood silent. But Zélie again interposed.
+
+"She will make a capital _petit-mâitre_. Here are the garments,
+all--all complete: somewhat too large, but--I will arrange all that.
+Come, chère amie--belle Anglaise!"
+
+And she sneered, for I was not "belle." She seized my hand, she was
+drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable--neutral.
+
+"You must not resist," pursued St. Pierre--for resist I did. "You will
+spoil all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the
+company, sacrifice everything to your _amour-propre_. This would
+be too bad--monsieur will never permit this?"
+
+She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her
+one, and then he gave me one. "Stop!" he said slowly, arresting St.
+Pierre, who continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody
+awaited the decision. He was not angry, not irritated; I perceived
+that, and took heart.
+
+"You do not like these clothes?" he asked, pointing to the masculine
+vestments.
+
+"I don't object to some of them, but I won't have them all."
+
+"How must it be, then? How accept a man's part, and go on the stage
+dressed as a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true--a
+_vaudeville de pensionnat;_ certain modifications I might
+sanction, yet something you must have to announce you as of the nobler
+sex."
+
+"And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody
+must meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress
+myself."
+
+Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave
+it to me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone,
+I grew calm, and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman's garb
+without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a
+little vest, a collar, and cravat, and a paletôt of small dimensions;
+the whole being the costume of a brother of one of the pupils. Having
+loosened my hair out of its braids, made up the long back-hair close,
+and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my
+hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He
+looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then
+added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid--un peu
+d'aplomb, M. Lucien, et tout ira bien."
+
+St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.
+
+I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon
+her and saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I
+should feel disposed to call her out.
+
+"After the play, after the play," said M. Paul. "I will then divide my
+pair of pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according
+to form: it will only be the old quarrel of France and England."
+
+But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M.
+Paul, setting us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general
+addressing soldiers about to charge. I don't know what he said, except
+that he recommended each to penetrate herself with a sense of her
+personal insignificance. God knows I thought this advice superfluous
+for some of us. A bell tinkled. I and two more were ushered on to the
+stage. The bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very first words.
+
+"Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it," whispered M. Paul in my
+ear. "Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats."
+
+He vanished. The curtain drew up--shrivelled to the ceiling: the
+bright lights, the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought
+of the black-beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my
+say badly; but I said it. That first speech was the difficulty; it
+revealed to me this fact, that it was not the crowd I feared so much
+as my own voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd were nothing to
+me. Nor did I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and my
+voice took its true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of
+nothing but the personage I represented--and of M. Paul, who was
+listening, watching, prompting in the side-scenes.
+
+By-and-by, feeling the right power come--the spring demanded gush and
+rise inwardly--I became sufficiently composed to notice my fellow-
+actors. Some of them played very well; especially Ginevra Fanshawe,
+who had to coquette between two suitors, and managed admirably: in
+fact she was in her element. I observed that she once or twice threw a
+certain marked fondness and pointed partiality into her manner towards
+me--the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she favour me, such
+glances did she dart out into the listening and applauding crowd, that
+to me--who knew her--it presently became evident she was acting
+_at_ some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her gesture,
+and ere long discovered that she had at least singled out a handsome
+and distinguished aim for her shafts; full in the path of those
+arrows--taller than other spectators, and therefore more sure to
+receive them--stood, in attitude quiet but intent, a well-known form--
+that of Dr. John.
+
+The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr.
+John's look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew
+out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I per formed; I threw
+it into my wooing of Ginevra. In the "Ours," or sincere lover, I saw
+Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I hardened my heart, rivalled
+and out-rivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but where _he_ was
+outcast _I_ could please. Now I know acted as if wishful and
+resolute to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-
+changed the nature of the _rôle_, gilding it from top to toe.
+Between the acts M. Paul, told us he knew not what possessed us, and
+half expostulated. "C'est peut-être plus beau que votre modèle," said
+he, "mais ce n'est pas juste." I know not what possessed me either;
+but somehow, my longing was to eclipse the "Ours," _i.e._, Dr.
+John. Ginevra was tender; how could I be otherwise than chivalric?
+Retaining the letter, I recklessly altered the spirit of the
+_rôle_. Without heart, without interest, I could not play it at
+all. It must be played--in went the yearned-for seasoning--thus
+favoured, I played it with relish.
+
+What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and
+do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold,
+reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere
+long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please
+myself. Yet the next day, when I thought it over, I quite disapproved
+of these amateur performances; and though glad that I had obliged M.
+Paul, and tried my own strength for once, I took a firm resolution,
+never to be drawn into a similar affair. A keen relish for dramatic
+expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and
+exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight,
+but it would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and
+longing must be put by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with
+the lock of a resolution which neither Time nor Temptation has since
+picked.
+
+No sooner was the play over, and _well_ over, than the choleric
+and arbitrary M. Paul underwent a metamorphosis. His hour of
+managerial responsibility past, he at once laid aside his magisterial
+austerity; in a moment he stood amongst us, vivacious, kind, and
+social, shook hands with us all round, thanked us separately, and
+announced his determination that each of us should in turn be his
+partner in the coming ball. On his claiming my promise, I told him I
+did not dance. "For once I must," was the answer; and if I had not
+slipped aside and kept out of his way, he would have compelled me to
+this second performance. But I had acted enough for one evening; it
+was time I retired into myself and my ordinary life. My dun-coloured
+dress did well enough under a paletôt on the stage, but would not suit
+a waltz or a quadrille. Withdrawing to a quiet nook, whence unobserved
+I could observe--the ball, its splendours and its pleasures, passed
+before me as a spectacle.
+
+Again Ginevra Fanshawe was the belle, the fairest and the gayest
+present; she was selected to open the ball: very lovely she looked,
+very gracefully she danced, very joyously she smiled. Such scenes were
+her triumphs--she was the child of pleasure. Work or suffering found
+her listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded
+her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made
+her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet
+and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like
+a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet
+cake her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room;
+elsewhere she drooped dispirited.
+
+Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere
+sake of M. Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces
+that night for the edification of her companions only, or for that of
+the parents and grand-parents, who filled the carré, and lined the
+ball-room; under circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so
+chilly and vapid, Ginevra would scarce have deigned to walk one
+quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness would have replaced animation
+and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the otherwise heavy
+festal mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment which gave
+it zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her choicest
+attractions.
+
+In the ball-room, indeed, not a single male spectator was to be seen
+who was not married and a father--M. Paul excepted--that gentleman,
+too, being the sole creature of his sex permitted to lead out a pupil
+to the dance; and this exceptional part was allowed him, partly as a
+matter of old-established custom (for he was a kinsman of Madame
+Beck's, and high in her confidence), partly because he would always
+have his own way and do as he pleased, and partly because--wilful,
+passionate, partial, as he might be--he was the soul of honour, and
+might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect
+security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of
+the girls--it may be noted in parenthesis--were not pure-minded at
+all, very much otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural
+coarseness in M. Paul's presence, than they dare tread purposely on
+his corns, laugh in his face during a stormy apostrophe, or speak
+above their breath while some crisis of irritability was covering his
+human visage with the mask of an intelligent tiger. M. Paul, then,
+might dance with whom he would--and woe be to the interference which
+put him out of step.
+
+Others there were admitted as spectators--with (seeming) reluctance,
+through prayers, by influence, under restriction, by special and
+difficult exercise of Madame Beck's gracious good-nature, and whom she
+all the evening--with her own personal surveillance--kept far aloof at
+the remotest, drearest, coldest, darkest side of the carré--a small,
+forlorn band of "jeunes gens;" these being all of the best families,
+grown-up sons of mothers present, and whose sisters were pupils in the
+school. That whole evening was Madame on duty beside these "jeunes
+gens"--attentive to them as a mother, but strict with them as a
+dragon. There was a sort of cordon stretched before them, which they
+wearied her with prayers to be permitted to pass, and just to revive
+themselves by one dance with that "belle blonde," or that "jolie
+brune," or "cette jeune fille magnifique aux cheveux noirs comme le
+jais."
+
+"Taisez-vous!" Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. "Vous ne
+passerez pas à moins que ce ne soit sur mon cadavre, et vous ne
+danserez qu'avec la nonnette du jardin" (alluding to the legend). And
+she majestically walked to and fro along their disconsolate and
+impatient line, like a little Bonaparte in a mouse-coloured silk gown.
+
+Madame knew something of the world; Madame knew much of human nature.
+I don't think that another directress in Villette would have dared to
+admit a "jeune homme" within her walls; but Madame knew that by
+granting such admission, on an occasion like the present, a bold
+stroke might be struck, and a great point gained.
+
+In the first place, the parents were made accomplices to the deed, for
+it was only through their mediation it was brought about. Secondly:
+the admission of these rattlesnakes, so fascinating and so dangerous,
+served to draw out Madame precisely in her strongest character--that
+of a first-rate _surveillante_. Thirdly: their presence furnished
+a most piquant ingredient to the entertainment: the pupils knew it,
+and saw it, and the view of such golden apples shining afar off,
+animated them with a spirit no other circumstance could have kindled.
+The children's pleasure spread to the parents; life and mirth
+circulated quickly round the ball-room; the "jeunes gens" themselves,
+though restrained, were amused: for Madame never permitted them to
+feel dull--and thus Madame Beck's fête annually ensured a success
+unknown to the fête of any other directress in the land.
+
+I observed that Dr. John was at first permitted to walk at large
+through the classes: there was about him a manly, responsible look,
+that redeemed his youth, and half-expiated his beauty; but as soon as
+the ball began, Madame ran up to him.
+
+"Come, Wolf; come," said she, laughing: "you wear sheep's clothing,
+but you must quit the fold notwithstanding. Come; I have a fine
+menagerie of twenty here in the carré: let me place you amongst my
+collection."
+
+"But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice."
+
+"Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety.
+Sortez, sortez, au plus vite."
+
+She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon.
+
+Ginevra being, I suppose, tired with dancing, sought me out in my
+retreat. She threw herself on the bench beside me, and (a
+demonstration I could very well have dispensed with) cast her arms
+round my neck.
+
+"Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!" she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half
+hysterical.
+
+"What in the world is the matter?" I drily said.
+
+"How do I look--how do I look to-night?" she demanded.
+
+"As usual," said I; "preposterously vain."
+
+"Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of
+you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel
+it, I see it--for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room,
+where I can view my shape from head to foot. Will you go with me now,
+and let us two stand before it?"
+
+"I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your
+bent."
+
+The dressing-room was very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm
+through mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance
+remonstrance, or remark, I stood and let her self-love have its feast
+and triumph: curious to see how much it could swallow--whether it was
+possible it could feed to satiety--whether any whisper of
+consideration for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate its
+vainglorious exultation.
+
+Not at all. She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all
+sides; she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she
+spread her dress, and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with
+mock respect, she said: "I would not be you for a kingdom."
+
+The remark was too _naïve_ to rouse anger; I merely said: "Very
+good."
+
+"And what would _you_ give to be ME?" she inquired.
+
+"Not a bad sixpence--strange as it may sound," I replied. "You are but
+a poor creature."
+
+"You don't think so in your heart."
+
+"No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only
+occasionally turn you over in my brain."
+
+"Well, but," said she, in an expostulatory tone, "just listen to the
+difference of our positions, and then see how happy am I, and how
+miserable are you."
+
+"Go on; I listen."
+
+"In the first place: I am the daughter of a gentleman of family, and
+though my father is not rich, I have expectations from an uncle.
+Then, I am just eighteen, the finest age possible. I have had a
+continental education, and though I can't spell, I have abundant
+accomplishments. I _am_ pretty; _you_ can't deny that; I may have
+as many admirers as I choose. This very night I have been breaking the
+hearts of two gentlemen, and it is the dying look I had from one of them
+just now, which puts me in such spirits. I do so like to watch them turn
+red and pale, and scowl and dart fiery glances at each other, and
+languishing ones at me. There is _me_--happy ME; now for _you_,
+poor soul!
+
+"I suppose you are nobody's daughter, since you took care of little
+children when you first came to Villette: you have no relations; you
+can't call yourself young at twenty-three; you have no attractive
+accomplishments--no beauty. As to admirers, you hardly know what they
+are; you can't even talk on the subject: you sit dumb when the other
+teachers quote their conquests. I believe you never were in love, and
+never will be: you don't know the feeling, and so much the better, for
+though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will you
+ever break. Isn't it all true?"
+
+"A good deal of it is true as gospel, and shrewd besides. There must
+be good in you, Ginevra, to speak so honestly; that snake, Zélie St.
+Pierre, could not utter what you have uttered. Still, Miss Fanshawe,
+hapless as I am, according to your showing, sixpence I would not give
+to purchase you, body and soul."
+
+"Just because I am not clever, and that is all _you_ think of.
+Nobody in the world but you cares for cleverness."
+
+"On the contrary, I consider you _are_ clever, in your way--very
+smart indeed. But you were talking of breaking hearts--that edifying
+amusement into the merits of which I don't quite enter; pray on whom
+does your vanity lead you to think you have done execution to-night?"
+
+She approached her lips to my ear--"Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are
+both here?" she whispered.
+
+"Oh! they are? I should like to see them."
+
+"There's a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me,
+I will point them out."
+
+She proudly led the way--"But you cannot see them well from the
+classes," said she, turning, "Madame keeps them too far off. Let us
+cross the garden, enter by the corridor, and get close to them behind:
+we shall be scolded if we are seen, but never mind."
+
+For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went--penetrated into
+the corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the
+_carré_, yet keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view
+of the band of "jeunes gens."
+
+I believe I could have picked out the conquering de Hamal even
+undirected. He was a straight-nosed, very correct-featured little
+dandy. I say _little_ dandy, though he was not beneath the middle
+standard in stature; but his lineaments were small, and so were his
+hands and feet; and he was pretty and smooth, and as trim as a doll:
+so nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted and gloved and
+cravated--he was charming indeed. I said so. "What, a dear personage!"
+cried I, and commended Ginevra's taste warmly; and asked her what she
+thought de Hamal might have done with the precious fragments of that
+heart she had broken--whether he kept them in a scent-vial, and
+conserved them in otto of roses? I observed, too, with deep rapture of
+approbation, that the colonel's hands were scarce larger than Miss
+Fanshawe's own, and suggested that this circumstance might be
+convenient, as he could wear her gloves at a pinch. On his dear curls,
+I told her I doated: and as to his low, Grecian brow, and exquisite
+classic headpiece, I confessed I had no language to do such
+perfections justice.
+
+"And if he were your lover?" suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra.
+
+"Oh! heavens, what bliss!" said I; "but do not be inhuman, Miss
+Fanshawe: to put such thoughts into my head is like showing poor
+outcast Cain a far, glimpse of Paradise."
+
+"You like him, then?"
+
+"As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers."
+
+Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she
+could then readily credit that they were mine too.
+
+"Now for Isidore," I went on. I own I felt still more curious to see
+him than his rival; but Ginevra was absorbed in the latter.
+
+"Alfred was admitted here to-night," said she, "through the influence
+of his aunt, Madame la Baronne de Dorlodot; and now, having seen him,
+can you not understand why I have been in such spirits all the
+evening, and acted so well, and danced with such life, and why I am
+now happy as a queen? Dieu! Dieu! It was such good fun to glance first
+at him and then at the other, and madden them both."
+
+"But that other--where is he? Show me Isidore."
+
+"I don't like."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I am ashamed of him."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Because--because" (in a whisper) "he has such--such whiskers, orange
+--red--there now!"
+
+"The murder is out," I subjoined. "Never mind, show him all the same;
+I engage not to faint."
+
+She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me.
+
+"You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor."
+
+"There is no draught, Dr. John," said I, turning.
+
+"She takes cold so easily," he pursued, looking at Ginevra with
+extreme kindness. "She is delicate; she must be cared for: fetch her a
+shawl."
+
+"Permit me to judge for myself," said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. "I
+want no shawl."
+
+"Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated."
+
+"Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing."
+
+The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was
+hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he
+turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty
+of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.
+
+"She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her," said I, folding
+it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her
+arms. "Is that Isidore?" I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.
+
+She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have
+given her a dozen.
+
+"C'est lui-même," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
+Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"
+
+Dr. John now passed on.
+
+"The Colonel-Count!" I echoed. "The doll--the puppet--the manikin--the
+poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his
+foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman--handsome as a
+vision--offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises
+to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and
+struggles of life--and you hang back--you scorn, you sting, you
+torture him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where
+is it? Does it lie all in your beauty--your pink and white complexion,
+and your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend
+his neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection,
+his tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble,
+cordial love--and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only
+dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him;
+but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?"
+
+"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."
+
+I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a
+seat and told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she
+meant in the end to accept--the man or the monkey.
+
+"Him you call the man," said she, "is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and
+answers to the name of John!--cela suffit: je n'en veux pas. Colonel
+de Hamal is a gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners,
+sweet appearance, with pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like
+an Italian. Then too he is the most delightful company possible--a man
+quite in my way; not sensible and serious like the other; but one with
+whom I can talk on equal terms--who does not plague and bore, and
+harass me with depths, and heights, and passions, and talents for
+which I have no taste. There now. Don't hold me so fast."
+
+I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue
+her.
+
+Somehow I could not avoid returning once more in the direction of the
+corridor to get another glimpse of Dr. John; but I met him on the
+garden-steps, standing where the light from a window fell broad. His
+well-proportioned figure was not to be mistaken, for I doubt whether
+there was another in that assemblage his equal. He carried his hat in
+his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine brow were most
+handsome and manly. _His_ features were not delicate, not slight
+like those of a woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble;
+though well cut, they were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to
+lose in expression or significance what they gained in unmeaning
+symmetry. Much feeling spoke in them at times, and more sat silent in
+his eye. Such at least were my thoughts of him: to me he seemed all
+this. An inexpressible sense of wonder occupied me, as I looked at
+this man, and reflected that _he_ could not be slighted.
+
+It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our
+terms of acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to
+view him in the crowd--myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I
+withdrew. But he was looking out for me, or rather for her who had
+been with me: therefore he descended the steps, and followed me down
+the alley.
+
+"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew
+her," said he.
+
+"Yes: I know her."
+
+"Intimately?"
+
+"Quite as intimately as I wish."
+
+"What have you done with her now?"
+
+"Am I her keeper?" I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, "I
+have shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she
+escaped out of my hands and ran away."
+
+"Would you favour me," he asked, "by watching over her this one
+evening, and observing that she does nothing imprudent--does not, for
+instance, run out into the night-air immediately after dancing?"
+
+"I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she
+likes her own way too well to submit readily to control."
+
+"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
+
+"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
+
+"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell
+_you_ how."
+
+"And why me?"
+
+"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
+
+"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend.
+That is precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she
+ever speak of me to you?"
+
+"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I
+must add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered
+that you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within
+that brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the
+person, under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that
+she is the magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her
+sake you venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by
+rivals."
+
+"You know all?"
+
+"I know so much."
+
+"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society.
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see
+her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore'
+she often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of
+confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her
+remarks? I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented
+with uncertainty as to how I stand with her."
+
+"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."
+
+"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"
+
+"I can," thought I, "but it would not do to communicate that general
+idea to you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would
+not believe me."
+
+"You are silent," he pursued. "I suppose you have no good news to
+impart. No matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion,
+it is a sign I do not deserve her."
+
+"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
+Colonel de Hamal?"
+
+"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being,
+and would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal,
+I fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me,
+all his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your
+beautiful young friend."
+
+"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel
+who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not
+serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."
+
+"Are you not a little severe?"
+
+"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You
+should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young
+friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of
+tender considerateness for her delicate nature."
+
+"She is so lovely, one cannot but be loving towards her. You--every
+woman older than herself, must feel for such a simple, innocent,
+girlish fairy a sort of motherly or elder-sisterly fondness. Graceful
+angel! Does not your heart yearn towards her when she pours into your
+ear her pure, childlike confidences? How you are privileged!" And he
+sighed.
+
+"I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then," said
+I. "But excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant?
+What a god-like person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face--
+perfect! Model one in putty or clay, you could not make a better or
+straighter, or neater; and then, such classic lips and chin--and his
+bearing--sublime."
+
+"De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered
+hero."
+
+"You, Dr. John, and every man of a less-refined mould than he, must
+feel for him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the
+coarser deities may be supposed to have borne the young, graceful
+Apollo."
+
+"An unprincipled, gambling little jackanapes!" said Dr. John curtly,
+"whom, with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and
+lay low in the kennel if I liked."
+
+"The sweet seraph!" said I. "What a cruel idea! Are you not a little
+severe, Dr. John?"
+
+And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond
+myself--venturing out of what I looked on as my natural habits--
+speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled me
+strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I
+anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay
+lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr.
+John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on his
+illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward
+to an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn.
+
+The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the
+reflex from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was
+melancholy. How I wished that he could feel heart's-ease! How I
+grieved that he brooded over pain, and pain from such a cause! He,
+with his great advantages, _he_ to love in vain! I did not then
+know that the pensiveness of reverse is the best phase for some minds;
+nor did I reflect that some herbs, "though scentless when entire,
+yield fragrance when they're bruised."
+
+"Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve," I broke out. "If there is in
+Ginevra one spark of worthiness of your affection, she will--she
+_must_ feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr.
+John. Who should hope, if not you?"
+
+In return for this speech I got--what, it must be supposed, I
+deserved--a look of surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation.
+We parted, and I went into the house very chill. The clocks struck and
+the bells tolled midnight; people were leaving fast: the fête was
+over; the lamps were fading. In another hour all the dwelling-house,
+and all the pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, but
+not asleep. To me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such
+excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Following Madame Beck's fête, with its three preceding weeks of
+relaxation, its brief twelve hours' burst of hilarity and dissipation,
+and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of
+reaction; two months of real application, of close, hard study. These
+two months, being the last of the "année scolaire," were indeed the
+only genuine working months in the year. To them was procrastinated--
+into them concentrated, alike by professors, mistresses, and pupils--
+the main burden of preparation for the examinations preceding the
+distribution of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work in
+good earnest; masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the
+wheel, to urge on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more
+promising. A showy demonstration--a telling exhibition--must be got up
+for public view, and all means were fair to this end.
+
+I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own
+business to mind; and _my_ task was not the least onerous, being
+to imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they
+considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the
+English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was
+an almost impossible pronunciation--the lisping and hissing dentals of
+the Isles.
+
+The examination-day arrived. Awful day! Prepared for with anxious
+care, dressed for with silent despatch--nothing vaporous or fluttering
+now--no white gauze or azure streamers; the grave, close, compact was
+the order of the toilette. It seemed to me that I was this day,
+especially doomed--the main burden and trial falling on me alone of
+all the female teachers. The others were not expected to examine in
+the studies they taught; the professor of literature, M. Paul, taking
+upon himself this duty. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and
+sundry reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any
+colleague; he would not have help. Madame herself, who evidently
+rather wished to undertake the examination in geography--her favourite
+study, which she taught well--was forced to succumb, and be
+subordinate to her despotic kinsman's direction. The whole staff of
+instructors, male and female, he set aside, and stood on the
+examiner's estrade alone. It irked him that he was forced to make one
+exception to this rule. He could not manage English: he was obliged to
+leave that branch of education in the English teacher's hands; which
+he did, not without a flash of naïve jealousy.
+
+A constant crusade against the "amour-propre" of every human being but
+himself, was the crotchet of this able, but fiery and grasping little
+man. He had a strong relish for public representation in his own
+person, but an extreme abhorrence of the like display in any other. He
+quelled, he kept down when he could; and when he could not, he fumed
+like a bottled storm.
+
+On the evening preceding the examination-day, I was walking in the
+garden, as were the other teachers and all the boarders. M. Emanuel
+joined me in the "allée défendue;" his cigar was at his lips; his
+paletôt--a most characteristic garment of no particular shape--hung
+dark and menacing; the tassel of his bonnet grec sternly shadowed his
+left temple; his black whiskers curled like those of a wrathful cat;
+his blue eye had a cloud in its glitter.
+
+"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez
+trôner comme une reine; demain--trôner à mes côtés? Sans doute vous
+savourez d'avance les délices de l'autorité. Je crois voir en je ne
+sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!"
+
+Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken. I did not--
+could not--estimate the admiration or the good opinion of tomorrow's
+audience at the same rate he did. Had that audience numbered as many
+personal friends and acquaintance for me as for him, I know not how it
+might have been: I speak of the case as it stood. On me school-
+triumphs shed but a cold lustre. I had wondered--and I wondered now--
+how it was that for him they seemed to shine as with hearth-warmth
+and hearth-glow. _He_ cared for them perhaps too much; _I_,
+probably, too little. However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I
+liked, for instance, to see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature,
+and woke his spirit; it threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows
+over his dun face, and into his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that
+his black hair and blue eyes were "une de ses beautés"). There was a
+relish in his anger; it was artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but
+never hypocritical. I uttered no disclaimer then of the complacency he
+attributed to me; I merely asked where the English examination came
+in--whether at the commencement or close of the day?
+
+"I hesitate," said he, "whether at the very beginning, before many
+persons are come, and when your aspiring nature will not be gratified
+by a large audience, or quite at the close, when everybody is tired,
+and only a jaded and worn-out attention will be at your service."
+
+"Que vous êtes dur, Monsieur!" I said, affecting dejection.
+
+"One ought to be 'dur' with you. You are one of those beings who must
+be _kept down_. I know you! I know you! Other people in this
+house see you pass, and think that a colourless shadow has gone by. As
+for me, I scrutinized your face once, and it sufficed."
+
+"You are satisfied that you understand me?"
+
+Without answering directly, he went on, "Were you not gratified when
+you succeeded in that vaudeville? I watched you and saw a passionate
+ardour for triumph in your physiognomy. What fire shot into the
+glance! Not mere light, but flame: je me tiens pour averti."
+
+"What feeling I had on that occasion, Monsieur--and pardon me, if I
+say, you immensely exaggerate both its quality and quantity--was quite
+abstract. I did not care for the vaudeville. I hated the part you
+assigned me. I had not the slightest sympathy with the audience below
+the stage. They are good people, doubtless, but do I know them? Are
+they anything to me? Can I care for being brought before their view
+again to-morrow? Will the examination be anything but a task to me--a
+task I wish well over?"
+
+"Shall I take it out of your hands?"
+
+"With all my heart; if you do not fear failure."
+
+"But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few
+words: par exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stares--est-ce bien dit? My
+opinion is that it would be better to give up the thing altogether: to
+have no English examination, eh?"
+
+"If Madame consents, I consent."
+
+"Heartily?"
+
+"Very heartily."
+
+He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly.
+
+"Donnez-moi la main," said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out
+of his face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead.
+
+"Come, we will not be rivals, we will be friends," he pursued. "The
+examination shall take place, and I will choose a good moment; and
+instead of vexing and hindering, as I felt half-inclined ten minutes
+ago--for I have my malevolent moods: I always had from childhood--I
+will aid you sincerely. After all, you are solitary and a stranger,
+and have your way to make and your bread to earn; it may be well that
+you should become known. We will be friends: do you agree?"
+
+"Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better
+than a triumph."
+
+"Pauvrette?" said he, and turned away and left the alley.
+
+The examination passed over well; M. Paul was as good as his word, and
+did his best to make my part easy. The next day came the distribution
+of prizes; that also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went
+home, and now began the long vacation.
+
+That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not. Madame Beck went,
+the first day of the holidays, to join her children at the sea-side;
+all the three teachers had parents or friends with whom they took
+refuge; every professor quitted the city; some went to Paris, some to
+Boue-Marine; M. Paul set forth on a pilgrimage to Rome; the house was
+left quite empty, but for me, a servant, and a poor deformed and
+imbecile pupil, a sort of crétin, whom her stepmother in a distant
+province would not allow to return home.
+
+My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its
+chords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!
+How vast and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the
+forsaken garden--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed.
+Looking forward at the commencement of those eight weeks, I hardly
+knew how I was to live to the end. My spirits had long been gradually
+sinking; now that the prop of employment was withdrawn, they went down
+fast. Even to look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no
+comfort, offered no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil
+in reliance on future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence
+often pressed on me--a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end
+of all things earthly. Alas! When I had full leisure to look on life
+as life must be looked on by such as me, I found it but a hopeless
+desert: tawny sands, with no green fields, no palm-tree, no well in
+view. The hopes which are dear to youth, which bear it up and lead it
+on, I knew not and dared not know. If they knocked at my heart
+sometimes, an inhospitable bar to admission must be inwardly drawn.
+When they turned away thus rejected, tears sad enough sometimes
+flowed: but it could not be helped: I dared not give such guests
+lodging. So mortally did I fear the sin and weakness of presumption.
+
+Religious reader, you will preach to me a long sermon about what I
+have just written, and so will you, moralist: and you, stern sage:
+you, stoic, will frown; you, cynic, sneer; you, epicure, laugh. Well,
+each and all, take it your own way. I accept the sermon, frown, sneer,
+and laugh; perhaps you are all right: and perhaps, circumstanced like
+me, you would have been, like me, wrong. The first month was, indeed,
+a long, black, heavy month to me.
+
+The crétin did not seem unhappy. I did my best to feed her well and
+keep her warm, and she only asked food and sunshine, or when that
+lacked, fire. Her weak faculties approved of inertion: her brain, her
+eyes, her ears, her heart slept content; they could not wake to work,
+so lethargy was their Paradise.
+
+Three weeks of that vacation were hot, fair, and dry, but the fourth
+and fifth were tempestuous and wet. I do not know why that change in
+the atmosphere made a cruel impression on me, why the raging storm and
+beating rain crushed me with a deadlier paralysis than I had
+experienced while the air had remained serene; but so it was; and my
+nervous system could hardly support what it had for many days and
+nights to undergo in that huge empty house. How I used to pray to
+Heaven for consolation and support! With what dread force the
+conviction would grasp me that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be
+conciliated. I did not, in my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of
+God for this; I concluded it to be a part of his great plan that some
+must deeply suffer while they live, and I thrilled in the certainty
+that of this number, I was one.
+
+It was some relief when an aunt of the crétin, a kind old woman, came
+one day, and took away my strange, deformed companion. The hapless
+creature had been at times a heavy charge; I could not take her out
+beyond the garden, and I could not leave her a minute alone: for her
+poor mind, like her body, was warped: its propensity was to evil. A
+vague bent to mischief, an aimless malevolence, made constant
+vigilance indispensable. As she very rarely spoke, and would sit for
+hours together moping and mowing, and distorting her features with
+indescribable grimaces, it was more like being prisoned with some
+strange tameless animal, than associating with a human being. Then
+there were personal attentions to be rendered which required the nerve
+of a hospital nurse; my resolution was so tried, it sometimes fell
+dead-sick. These duties should not have fallen on me; a servant, now
+absent, had rendered them hitherto, and in the hurry of holiday
+departure, no substitute to fill this office had been provided. This
+tax and trial were by no means the least I have known in life. Still,
+menial and distasteful as they were, my mental pain was far more
+wasting and wearing. Attendance on the crétin deprived me often of the
+power and inclination to swallow a meal, and sent me faint to the
+fresh air, and the well or fountain in the court; but this duty never
+wrung my heart, or brimmed my eyes, or scalded my cheek with tears hot
+as molten metal.
+
+The crétin being gone, I was free to walk out. At first I lacked
+courage to venture very far from the Rue Fossette, but by degrees I
+sought the city gates, and passed them, and then went wandering away
+far along chaussées, through fields, beyond cemeteries, Catholic and
+Protestant, beyond farmsteads, to lanes and little woods, and I know
+not where. A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me to rest; a want of
+companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly
+famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid
+afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise.
+
+While wandering in solitude, I would sometimes picture the present
+probable position of others, my acquaintance. There was Madame Beck at
+a cheerful watering-place with her children, her mother, and a whole
+troop of friends who had sought the same scene of relaxation. Zélie
+St. Pierre was at Paris, with her relatives; the other teachers were
+at their homes. There was Ginevra Fanshawe, whom certain of her
+connections had carried on a pleasant tour southward. Ginevra seemed
+to me the happiest. She was on the route of beautiful scenery; these
+September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest and
+vintage matured under their mellow beam. These gold and crystal moons
+rose on her vision over blue horizons waved in mounted lines.
+
+But all this was nothing; I too felt those autumn suns and saw those
+harvest moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and
+turf, deep out of their influence; for I could not live in their
+light, nor make them comrades, nor yield them affection. But Ginevra
+had a kind of spirit with her, empowered to give constant strength and
+comfort, to gladden daylight and embalm darkness; the best of the good
+genii that guard humanity curtained her with his wings, and canopied
+her head with his bending form. By True Love was Ginevra followed:
+never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It
+seemed to me impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined
+her grateful in secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day
+to show how much she loved: I pictured her faithful hero half
+conscious of her coy fondness, and comforted by that consciousness: I
+conceived an electric chord of sympathy between them, a fine chain of
+mutual understanding, sustaining union through a separation of a
+hundred leagues--carrying, across mound and hollow, communication by
+prayer and wish. Ginevra gradually became with me a sort of heroine.
+One day, perceiving this growing illusion, I said, "I really believe
+my nerves are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too
+much a malady is growing upon it--what shall I do? How shall I keep
+well?"
+
+Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last
+a day and night of peculiarly agonizing depression were succeeded by
+physical illness, I took perforce to my bed. About this time the
+Indian summer closed and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine
+dark and wet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf,
+dishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--I lay in a strange
+fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise
+in the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A
+rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied---Sleep never
+came!
+
+I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she
+brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste,
+that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but
+sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a
+nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very
+tone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night
+a cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no
+well, but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea.
+Suffering, brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for
+mortal lips, tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank and
+woke, I thought all was over: the end come and past by. Trembling
+fearfully--as consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some fellow-
+creature to help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was near
+enough to catch the wild summons--Goton in her far distant attic could
+not hear--I rose on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over me:
+indescribably was I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the
+horrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-
+loved dead, who had loved _me_ well in life, met me elsewhere,
+alienated: galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of
+despair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to
+recover or wish to live; and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless
+and haughty voice in which Death challenged me to engage his unknown
+terrors. When I tried to pray I could only utter these words: "From my
+youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind."
+
+Most true was it.
+
+On bringing me my tea next morning Goton urged me to call in a doctor.
+I would not: I thought no doctor could cure me.
+
+One evening--and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got up
+--I dressed myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness of
+the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white
+beds were turning into spectres--the coronal of each became a death's-
+head, huge and sun-bleached--dead dreams of an elder world and
+mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes. That evening
+more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate
+was of stone, and Hope a false idol--blind, bloodless, and of granite
+core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its
+climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling
+as they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I
+thought, than it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling,
+and I deemed its influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming
+night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping. It seemed to me that
+at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all
+pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became
+alleviated--that insufferable thought of being no more loved--no more
+owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary--I was sure this hope
+would shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was
+crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain
+quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I
+could not be delirious, for I had sense and recollection to put on
+warm clothing), forth I set. The bells of a church arrested me in
+passing; they seemed to call me in to the _salut_, and I went in.
+Any solemn rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, any opening for
+appeal to God was as welcome to me then as bread to one in extremity
+of want. I knelt down with others on the stone pavement. It was an old
+solemn church, its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light
+shed through stained glass.
+
+Few worshippers were assembled, and, the _salut_ over, half of
+them departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess.
+I did not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy
+quiet sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space,
+breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the
+confessional. I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was
+whispered back; she returned consoled. Another went, and another. A
+pale lady, kneeling near me, said in a low, kind voice:--"Go you now,
+I am not quite prepared."
+
+Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my
+mind had run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step
+could not make me more wretched than I was; it might soothe me.
+
+The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me;
+he only quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man,
+but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it
+with the phlegm of custom. I hesitated; of the formula of confession I
+was ignorant: instead of commencing, then, with the prelude usual, I
+said:--"Mon père, je suis Protestante."
+
+He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the
+cast of physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his
+profile and brow he was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in
+years, he did not, I think, lack feeling or intelligence. He inquired,
+not unkindly, why, being a Protestant, I came to him?
+
+I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I
+had been living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a
+pressure of affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer
+endure the weight.
+
+"Was it a sin, a crime?" he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured
+him on this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere
+outline of my experience.
+
+He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. "You take me unawares," said
+he. "I have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know
+our routine, and are prepared; but this makes a great break in the
+common course of confession. I am hardly furnished with counsel
+fitting the circumstances."
+
+Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of
+communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet consecrated
+--the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up
+pain into a vessel whence it could not be again diffused--had done me
+good. I was already solaced.
+
+"Must I go, father?" I asked of him as he sat silent.
+
+"My daughter," he said kindly--and I am sure he was a kind man: he had
+a compassionate eye--"for the present you had better go: but I assure
+you your words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt
+to become formal and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your
+heart out; a thing seldom done. I would fain think your case over, and
+take it with me to my oratory. Were you of our faith I should know
+what to say--a mind so tossed can find repose but in the bosom of
+retreat, and the punctual practice of piety. The world, it is well
+known, has no satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy men have
+bidden penitents like you to hasten their path upward by penance,
+self-denial, and difficult good works. Tears are given them here for
+meat and drink--bread of affliction and waters of affliction--their
+recompence comes hereafter. It is my own conviction that these
+impressions under which you are smarting are messengers from God to
+bring you back to the true Church. You were made for our faith: depend
+upon it our faith alone could heal and help you--Protestantism is
+altogether too dry, cold, prosaic for you. The further I look into
+this matter, the more plainly I see it is entirely out of the common
+order of things. On no account would I lose sight of you. Go, my
+daughter, for the present; but return to me again."
+
+I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return.
+
+"You must not come to this church," said he: "I see you are ill, and
+this church is too cold; you must come to my house: I live----" (and
+he gave me his address). "Be there to-morrow morning at ten."
+
+In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil,
+and gathering round me my cloak, I glided away.
+
+Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that
+worthy priest's reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a
+Babylonish furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he
+was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
+softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting some
+sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre of root
+in reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to withstand. Had I
+gone to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, and
+comforting, and gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he
+would have tried to kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good
+works. I know not how it would all have ended. We all think ourselves
+strong in some points; we all know ourselves weak in many; the
+probabilities are that had I visited Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the
+hour and day appointed, I might just now, instead of writing this
+heretic narrative, be counting my beads in the cell of a certain
+Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of Crécy, in Villette. There was
+something of Fénélon about that benign old priest; and whatever most
+of his brethren may be, and whatever I may think of his Church and
+creed (and I like neither), of himself I must ever retain a grateful
+recollection. He was kind when I needed kindness; he did me good. May
+Heaven bless him!
+
+Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets
+ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become
+possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the
+little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative
+impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope:
+she put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But
+I had become involved in a part of the city with which I was not
+familiar; it was the old part, and full of narrow streets of
+picturesque, ancient, and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be
+very collected, and I was still too careless of my own welfare and
+safety to be cautious; I grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network
+of turns unknown. I was lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of
+any passenger.
+
+If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost
+time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from
+north-west to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a
+sharp hail, like shot: it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I
+bent my head to meet it, but it beat me back. My heart did not fail at
+all in this conflict; I only wished that I had wings and could ascend
+the gale, spread and repose my pinions on its strength, career in its
+course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I suddenly felt
+colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I was
+weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the
+mass of frontage and the giant spire turned black and vanished from my
+eyes. Instead of sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch
+headlong down an abyss. I remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AULD LANG SYNE.
+
+
+Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw,
+or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept
+her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling
+imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and
+come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and
+deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved.
+While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's
+threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more,
+all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of
+whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
+
+I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a
+moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were
+hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a
+racking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me,
+red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, like
+thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled, wondering
+into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I
+knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall--a lamp not a lamp. I
+should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the
+commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye
+rested on struck it as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each
+in his place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and
+regular working.
+
+Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed
+from the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and
+tempest were excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house
+I had been carried--but what house?
+
+I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Still half-
+dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me;
+whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was
+puzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw
+accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white
+beds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. "Surely,"
+thought I, "it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carried
+me!" And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask.
+Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last
+I took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on
+a clear-shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue
+relieved a ground of shaded fawn; pale walls over which a slight but
+endless garland of azure forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered
+amongst myriad gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the
+space between two windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this
+mirror I saw myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked
+spectral; my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was
+natural, by contrast with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not
+only from the furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and
+fireplace, that this was an unknown room in an unknown house.
+
+Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I
+gazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a
+certain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a
+blue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all,
+two little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed
+chair, of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of
+brilliant flowers on a dark ground.
+
+Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old
+acquaintance were all about me, and "auld lang syne" smiled out of
+every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of
+which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered "heads;"
+the velvets circling the white throats; the swell of the full muslin
+kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon the mantel-
+shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive tea-
+service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a white
+centre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass.
+Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the
+flaws or cracks, like any _clairvoyante_. Above all, there was a
+pair of handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line
+engravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding again, recalling
+hours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, a
+tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers,
+now so skeleton-like.
+
+Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of
+our Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant
+country. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year
+they and I had never met. I gasped audibly, "Where am I?"
+
+A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape
+inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the
+riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a
+common-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French nor
+English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding
+her phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead with
+some cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion on
+which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her
+post at the foot of the sofa.
+
+She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on
+her without interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or
+what she could have to do among the scenes, or with the days of my
+girlhood. Still more I marvelled what those scenes and days could now
+have to do with me.
+
+Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by
+saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there
+could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was
+sane. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not
+so clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens,
+the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damask
+furniture, were, in fact, precisely the same, in every minutest
+detail, with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been so
+thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother's house at
+Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different
+proportions and dimensions.
+
+I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to
+the gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the
+storm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from the
+church-steps, and "rising high into the air," as the eastern tale
+said, had he borne me over land and ocean, and laid me quietly down
+beside a hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth
+burned before its Lares no more--it went out long ago, and the
+household gods had been carried elsewhere.
+
+The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open,
+and, I suppose, deeming their expression perturbed and excited, she
+put down her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little
+stand; she poured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in
+hand, she approached me. What dark-tinged draught might she now be
+offering? what Genii-elixir or Magi-distillation?
+
+It was too late to inquire--I had swallowed it passively, and at once.
+A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain; softer and
+softer rose the flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. The
+pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to
+move; but, losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That
+kind bonne placed a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to
+do this, but do not remember seeing her resume her place: in the
+interval between the two acts, I "fell on sleep."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded
+me; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and
+blustering autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat--sure
+by the beating rain on the casement; sure by the "wuther" of wind
+amongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, the
+whiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I say _whiteness_--
+for the dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.
+
+I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of
+a long, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on
+encountering the limited area of a small cabinet--a cabinet with
+seagreen walls; also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there
+was one high lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two
+dozen little stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer,
+there was a toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white
+robe over a pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a
+pretty pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette,
+together with a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a
+washstand topped with a marble slab, and supplied with utensils of
+pale greenware, sufficiently furnished the tiny chamber.
+
+Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this
+simple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid?
+Merely this--These articles of furniture could not be real, solid arm-
+chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands--they must be the ghosts of
+such articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis--and,
+confounded as I was, I _did_ deny it--there remained but to
+conclude that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in
+short, that I was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the
+strangest figment with which delirium had ever harassed a victim.
+
+I knew--I was obliged to know--the green chintz of that little chair;
+the little snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated
+frame of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on
+the stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered
+at one corner;--all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as
+last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the
+drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.
+
+Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror.
+And why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they
+came at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my
+distempered vision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the
+locality were gone? As to that pincushion made of crimson satin,
+ornamented with gold beads and frilled with thread-lace, I had the
+same right to know it as to know the screens--I had made it myself.
+Rising with a start from the bed, I took the cushion in my hand and
+examined it. There was the cipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beds, and
+surrounded with an oval wreath embroidered in white silk. These were
+the initials of my godmother's name--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.
+
+"Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?" I muttered; and hastily pulling up
+the blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and
+discover _where_ I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old,
+handsome buildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to
+see at the end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully
+expectant of a town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street
+in a pleasant and ancient English city.
+
+I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering
+round the high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level,
+a lawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond--high
+forest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were now
+groaning under the gale of October, and between their trunks I traced
+the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, or
+were whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. Whatever landscape
+might lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches shut it
+out. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I did not
+know it at all.
+
+Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning my
+face to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became
+excluded. Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope,
+behold, on the green space between the divided and looped-up curtains,
+hung a broad, gilded picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was drawn
+--well drawn, though but a sketch--in water-colours; a head, a boy's
+head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youth of
+sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hair
+long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an arch
+mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at,
+especially for, those claiming a right to that youth's affections--
+parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little school-girl
+might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked as if when
+somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response to love: I cannot
+tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine of faith. For
+whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips menaced,
+beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.
+
+Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered
+to myself--
+
+"Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the
+mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I
+used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding
+it in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose
+glance under their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and
+well I liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of
+the mouth." I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that
+mouth, or of the chin; even _my_ ignorance knew that both were
+beautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: "How it was that
+what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?" Once, by
+way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms,
+told her to look at the picture.
+
+"Do you like it, Polly?" I asked. She never answered, but gazed long,
+and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as
+she said, "Put me down." So I put her down, saying to myself: "The
+child feels it too."
+
+All these things do I now think over, adding, "He had his faults, yet
+scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible." My
+reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, "Graham!"
+
+"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. "Do you want Graham?"
+
+I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If
+it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall,
+still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered
+living form opposite--a woman, a lady, most real and substantial,
+tall, well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best
+became her matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good
+face; too marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or
+character. She was little changed; something sterner, something more
+robust--but she was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs.
+Bretton.
+
+I kept quiet, yet internally _I_ was much agitated: my pulse
+fluttered, and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
+
+"Madam, where am I?" I inquired.
+
+"In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind
+quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning."
+
+"I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my
+senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular:
+but you speak English, do you not, madam?"
+
+"I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long
+discourse in French."
+
+"You do not come from England?"
+
+"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You
+seem to know my son?"
+
+"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son--the picture there?"
+
+"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced
+his name."
+
+"Graham Bretton?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ----shire?"
+
+"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign
+school here: my son recognised you as such."
+
+"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"
+
+"My son shall tell you that by-and-by," said she; "but at present you
+are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast,
+and then sleep."
+
+Notwithstanding all I had undergone--the bodily fatigue, the
+perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather--it seemed that I was
+better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was
+abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid
+food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast
+being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward
+faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered,
+and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It
+was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some
+two or three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup
+of broth and a biscuit.
+
+As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild
+and cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary--very
+weary of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it
+confining: I longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering
+gloom, too, depressed me; I wanted to see--to feel firelight. Besides,
+I kept thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him?
+Certainly not till I left my room.
+
+At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to
+wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but,
+declining these attentions, I proceeded to dress myself:
+
+The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath,
+when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.
+
+"Dressed!" she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew--a
+pleasant smile, though not soft. "You are quite better then? Quite
+strong--eh?"
+
+She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost
+fancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of
+patronage in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had always
+experienced from her--a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it was
+not founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (in
+the last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree
+was mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the
+shelter the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further
+ceremony.
+
+"Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here."
+
+"I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the
+change," was her reply. "Come then; here is an arm." And she offered
+me hers: I took it, and we descended one flight of carpeted steps to a
+landing where a tall door, standing open, gave admission into the
+blue-damask room. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic
+comfort! How warm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To
+render the picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table--an English
+tea, whereof the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from
+the solid silver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the
+same metal, to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding.
+I knew the very seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould,
+which always had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it,
+and there it was as of yore--set before Graham's plate with the silver
+knife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham was
+now, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," said my conductress, as my step faltered a
+little in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon
+passed behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found
+another seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to
+make a fuss about any person or anything; without remonstrance she
+suffered me to have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the
+newspaper. I liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her
+movements were so young: she must have been now above fifty, yet
+neither her sinews nor her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of
+age. Though portly, she was alert, and though serene, she was at times
+impetuous--good health and an excellent temperament kept her green as
+in her spring.
+
+While she read, I perceived she listened--listened for her son. She
+was not the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no
+lull in the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind--
+roaring still unsatisfied--I well knew his mother's heart would be out
+with him.
+
+"Ten minutes behind his time," said she, looking at her watch; then,
+in another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight
+inclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some
+sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less
+practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel,
+lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from
+the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue
+chair--her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with
+impunity usurp it. And when that _one_ came up the stairs--which
+he soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as
+the wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in--
+
+"Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking
+curtly.
+
+"Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessing
+himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.
+
+"Don't you deserve cold tea, for being late?"
+
+"I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily."
+
+"Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but
+mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always
+leave that chair for the Old Lady."
+
+"So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me.
+How is your patient, mamma?"
+
+"Will she come forward and speak for herself?" said Mrs. Bretton,
+turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham
+courteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure
+justifying his mother's unconcealed pride.
+
+"So you are come down," said he; "you must be better then--much
+better. I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was
+alarmed last night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a
+dying patient, I certainly would not have left you; but my mother
+herself is something of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I
+saw the case was a fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What
+brought it on, I have yet to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I
+trust you really do feel better?"
+
+"Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."
+
+For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host of mine
+--this Graham Bretton, _was_ Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what
+is more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is
+more, when I heard Graham's step on the stairs, I knew what manner of
+figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The
+discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated my perceptions
+long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten
+years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they
+mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference
+as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr.
+John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of
+sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the
+excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I
+first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back,
+when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification
+of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every
+point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the
+habits of his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep
+tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to
+him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye
+and lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under
+his well-charactered brow.
+
+To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ at my discovery,
+had not suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of
+feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to
+myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not
+seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special
+illumination which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his
+feet, and cast light no farther.
+
+Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to
+come forward and announce, "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in my
+teacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He
+heard me called "Miss," and "Miss Lucy;" he never heard the surname,
+"Snowe." As to spontaneous recognition--though I, perhaps, was still
+less changed than he--the idea never approached his mind, and why
+should I suggest it?
+
+During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal
+over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the
+cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst
+them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten
+minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me.
+Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, presently, "I have seldom seen a stronger
+likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
+
+"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One
+would think you had an attack of second sight."
+
+"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing
+to me.
+
+"Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is
+your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not
+know your ways."
+
+"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she
+like, Graham?"
+
+"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to
+solve it!"
+
+"And you have known her some time, you say--ever since you first began
+to attend the school in the Rue Fossette:--yet you never mentioned to
+me that singular resemblance!"
+
+"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
+not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"
+
+"Stupid boy! look at her."
+
+Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must
+end, so I thought it best to anticipate.
+
+"Dr. John," I said, "has had so much to do and think of, since he and
+I shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while I
+readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never
+occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at
+once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,
+perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without being
+particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make a
+bustle, and she preferred all sentimental demonstrations in bas-
+relief. So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single
+salute; yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we
+renewed old acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed
+of his paroxysm of astonishment.
+
+"Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so," at length he said;
+"for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected
+this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I
+recollect her perfectly, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,"
+he added, "you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all
+this time, and never mentioned it."
+
+"That I have," was my answer.
+
+Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as
+eccentric, but he was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay,
+too, he would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very
+closely, to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and,
+though he might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was
+by no means such as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.
+
+For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the
+circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight
+annoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my
+mind.
+
+"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."
+
+"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.
+
+"Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I
+wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to
+your usually averted eyes."
+
+"You see how it was now?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past
+times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to
+explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed
+conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John
+listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had
+known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had
+retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, with
+such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with
+the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of
+those on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity
+might set against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat
+her down with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not
+rash, yet valiant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to
+win from her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.
+
+In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided.
+Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small château,
+they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crécy); this
+country site being chosen for the sake of his mother's health, with
+which town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton,
+and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residue
+furniture of the former St. Ann's Street mansion as she had thought
+fit to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs,
+and the wraiths of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups.
+
+As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.
+
+"Miss Snowe must retire now," he said; "she is beginning to look very
+pale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the
+cause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last
+July, when I saw her enact with no little spirit the part of a very
+killing fine gentleman. As to last night's catastrophe, I am sure
+thereby hangs a tale, but we will inquire no further this evening.
+Good-night, Miss Lucy."
+
+And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted
+me up the one flight of stairs.
+
+When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I
+felt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehement
+attachment, not offering the tender solace of well-matched and
+congenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand of
+affection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; but
+towards whom my heart softened instinctively, and yearned with an
+importunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to check.
+
+"Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly," I
+implored: "let me be content with a temperate draught of this living
+stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome
+waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth's
+fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enough
+sustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, brief,
+unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!"
+
+Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_
+repeating it, I steeped that pillow with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+LA TERRASSE.
+
+
+These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of
+the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
+They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that
+turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often
+opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenour of a
+life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on
+the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
+As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as
+you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to
+your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how
+you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and
+pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous
+weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour,
+though perhaps not _your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in
+_some_ shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which
+your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will
+descend, the cripple and the blind, and the dumb, and the possessed
+will be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly! Thousands lie round the
+pool, weeping and despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant.
+Long are the "times" of Heaven: the orbits of angel messengers seem
+wide to mortal vision; they may enring ages: the cycle of one
+departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations; and dust,
+kindling to brief suffering life, and through pain, passing back to
+dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. To how
+many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel
+visitant, him easterns call Azrael!
+
+I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
+intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand,
+with design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
+difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Here is an absurdity!" was her morning accost. "Not so," she added,
+and dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion--
+that fashion which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son,
+and by him vigorously resisted--in two minutes she consigned me
+captive to the French bed.
+
+"There you lie till afternoon," said she. "My boy left orders before
+he went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son
+is master and must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast."
+
+Presently she brought that meal--brought it with her own active hands
+--not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while I
+ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and
+esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to
+watch us, to wait on us, to approach us with the proximity of a nurse
+to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick
+room, whose presence is there a solace: but all this was Mrs. Bretton
+to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so
+well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion
+when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our
+natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are
+people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid,
+though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others
+with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live
+content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively
+black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her self-
+reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all beneficial to me as the
+atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her "the
+old lady;" it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the alacrity
+and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and around her.
+
+"I would bring my work here," she said, as she took from me the
+emptied teacup, "and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing
+John Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. 'Now, mamma,'
+he said, when he went out, 'take notice, you are not to knock up your
+god-daughter with gossip,' and he particularly desired me to keep
+close to my own quarters, and spare you my fine company. He says,
+Lucy, he thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look,
+--is that so?"
+
+I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that
+I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on
+this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the
+details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence
+in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a
+new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature!
+The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the
+stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of
+crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the
+life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an
+old, dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in
+rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death
+divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa
+Bretton" never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a
+scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat
+man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.
+
+She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
+remember me before he went out.
+
+My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and
+cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after
+the morning hours were gone by,--those hours which always bring, even
+to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of
+tasks waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be
+employed--when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of
+afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I
+then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.
+
+My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was
+no colour about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of
+foam and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-
+shaped ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the
+ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin
+pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might
+have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale,
+subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell
+upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a
+tide retiring from a shore of the upper world--a world so high above
+that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers,
+could sound down in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a
+lullaby.
+
+Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light;
+with her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the
+morning, I made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.
+
+Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls
+earlier than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as
+I entered the parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the
+door, reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as
+closing day yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the
+table unlit, and tea was not yet brought up.
+
+As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother--who, I afterwards found, had
+been out in the open air all day--lay half-reclined in her deep-
+cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came
+forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he
+also spoke low: his mellow voice never had any sharpness in it;
+modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than
+startle slumber.
+
+"This is a quiet little château," he observed, after inviting me to
+sit near the casement. "I don't know whether you may have noticed it
+in your walks: though, indeed, from the chaussée it is not visible;
+just a mile beyond the Porte de Crécy, you turn down a lane which soon
+becomes an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to
+the very door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built
+somewhat in the old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir
+than a château; they call it 'La Terrasse,' because its front rises
+from a broad turfed walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the
+avenue. See yonder! The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-
+boles."
+
+Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene,
+confined or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery,
+she mounted now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her
+flushed ascent, she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated
+up stainless into a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr.
+Bretton? Did it touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no
+sighing mood, he sighed in watching it: sighed to himself quietly. No
+need to ponder the cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was
+wakened by beauty; I knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea
+pressed upon me that it was in some sort my duty to speak the name he
+meditated. Of course he was ready for the subject: I saw in his
+countenance a teeming plenitude of comment, question and interest; a
+pressure of language and sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense
+of embarrassment how to begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my
+best, indeed my sole use. I had but to utter the idol's name, and
+love's tender litany would flow out. I had just found a fitting
+phrase, "You know that Miss Fanshawe is gone on a tour with the
+Cholmondeleys," and was opening my lips to speak to it, when he
+scattered my plans by introducing another theme.
+
+"The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his
+pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue
+Fossette, and told the cuisinière that you were safe and in good
+hands. Do you know that I actually found that she had not yet
+discovered your absence from the house: she thought you safe in the
+great dormitory. With what care you must have been waited on!"
+
+"Oh! all that is very conceivable," said I. "Goton could do nothing
+for me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had
+rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got
+tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
+school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
+believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
+been delighted to cook me côtelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
+them."
+
+"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"
+
+"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."
+
+"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"
+
+"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
+low-spirited."
+
+"Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
+give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
+Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
+neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
+be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise."
+
+Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
+right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the well-
+worn stamp of use.
+
+"Miss Snowe," recommenced Dr. John--my health, nervous system
+included, being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--
+"is it permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"
+
+I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
+idea?"
+
+"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me
+doubt."
+
+"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
+learn how I fell into your hands."
+
+"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance
+all day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
+character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
+similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
+interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
+symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
+set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
+the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
+past an old church belonging to a community of Béguines, I saw by a
+lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
+lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
+the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
+have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
+latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
+class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better
+informed, as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on
+me to stop: what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I
+alighted.
+
+"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
+is not dead.'
+
+"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
+at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
+bloodless, and nearly cold.
+
+"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.
+
+"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
+evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
+coupled with some things you had said--"
+
+"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"
+
+"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
+the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
+Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father;
+it seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should he out on
+such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
+you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
+of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
+might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little
+of the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn
+the locality of your home--did you impart that in your confession?"
+
+"I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
+indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will
+think me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I
+suppose it was all the fault of what you call my 'nervous system.' I
+cannot put the case into words, but my days and nights were grown
+intolerable: a cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling
+that would make its way, rush out, or kill me--like (and this you will
+understand, Dr. John) the current which passes through the heart, and
+which, if aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural
+channels, seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted
+friendship, I wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or
+chamber, so I went and sought them in church and confessional. As to
+what I said, it was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing
+wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of
+romance or reality: all I poured out was a dreary, desperate
+complaint."
+
+"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
+is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
+widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"
+
+"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
+fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."
+
+"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"
+
+"Me--Dr. John--me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I
+like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me
+and Fate."
+
+"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
+suppose, at my bad grammar.
+
+"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
+the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
+yet, Père Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
+wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
+Fossette, your fevered wanderings--there must have been high fever--"
+
+"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
+that I was delirious, for I know differently."
+
+"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
+wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
+Béguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
+of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
+succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
+procured a fiacre and brought you here. Père Silas, old as he is,
+would carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
+certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
+restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
+arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left--the last duties
+were called for--the physician's last visit and the priest's last
+rite; extreme unction could not be deferred. Père Silas and myself
+departed together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave
+you in charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she
+followed successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Père Silas know where
+I live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
+thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
+for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
+for tea."
+
+Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up--astonished and indignant at
+herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
+prepared to deny that she had slept at all--her son came gaily to the
+attack.
+
+"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in
+your slumbers."
+
+"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I
+never _do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."
+
+"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
+circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."
+
+"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."
+
+"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a
+most sprightly woman of her size and age."
+
+"Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
+size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
+rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
+eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater
+tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you."
+
+"As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
+indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away
+in green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity
+to scold. It keeps her lively--it maintains the wholesome ferment of
+her spirits."
+
+The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
+fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
+atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
+Bretton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom; her dearest
+pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
+his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
+the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin's portion.
+Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own
+young idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could
+not tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe's
+conduct towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing,
+and repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with
+which she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his
+fine spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him,
+his subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation--_then_
+Mrs. Bretton would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or
+both. Well--I thought so too.
+
+That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_
+sweetly indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old
+troubles were not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I
+felt happier, easier, more at home. That night--instead of crying
+myself asleep--I went down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with
+pleasant thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WE QUARREL.
+
+
+During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
+seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
+quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
+but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
+lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
+theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
+sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
+outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
+and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
+delicately; anonymously as it were.
+
+"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"
+
+"Friend, forsooth!" thought I to myself: but it would not do to
+contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
+friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
+whom he meant?
+
+He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
+thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
+
+"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
+through the south of France?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"Do you and she correspond?"
+
+"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
+application for that privilege."
+
+"You have seen letters of her writing?"
+
+"Yes; several to her uncle."
+
+"They will not be deficient in wit and _naïveté_; there is so
+much sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"
+
+"She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
+Bassompierre: he who runs may read." (In fact, Ginevra's epistles to
+her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
+applications for cash.)
+
+"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
+think?"
+
+It was, and I said so.
+
+"I verily believe that all she does is well done," said Dr. John; and
+as I seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added "You,
+who know her, could you name a point in which she is deficient?"
+
+"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
+subjoined I, in thought.)
+
+"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.
+
+"Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in
+ascribing to me a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the
+felicity to enjoy. I have never been the depositary of her plans and
+secrets. You will find her particular friends in another sphere than
+mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for instance."
+
+He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
+his own!
+
+"Excuse her," he said; "judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion
+misleads her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow,
+and will return to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust.
+I know something of the Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish
+people; depend on it, at heart Ginevra values you beyond a score of
+such."
+
+"You are very kind," I said briefly.
+
+A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but
+I extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the
+humiliated, cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished
+Miss Fanshawe: but, reader, it was a hard submission.
+
+"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, I
+cannot take the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do
+me justice. De Hamal is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her:
+wretched delusion!"
+
+My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I
+suppose illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.
+
+"Dr. Bretton," I broke out, "there is no delusion like your own. On
+all points but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking,
+clear-sighted: on this exceptional point you are but a slave. I
+declare, where Miss Fanshawe is concerned, you merit no respect; nor
+have you mine."
+
+I got up, and left the room very much excited.
+
+This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again
+in the evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of
+common clay, not put together out of vulgar materials; while the
+outlines of his nature had been shaped with breadth and vigour, the
+details embraced workmanship of almost feminine delicacy: finer, much
+finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; than you could believe
+inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. Indeed, till some
+over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its effects, their
+acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; and
+the more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent
+in him: to feel, and to seize quickly another's feelings, are separate
+properties; a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John
+had the one in exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that
+he was not endowed with the other in equal degree, the reader will
+considerately refrain from passing to an extreme, and pronouncing him
+_un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the contrary, he was a kind,
+generous man. Make your need known, his hand was open. Put your grief
+into words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of perception,
+miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when
+Dr. John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at
+one glance his whole mechanism.
+
+To one who had named him "slave," and, on any point, banned him from
+respect, he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well
+applied, and the ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it
+was so: his mind even candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He
+sought in this accusation the cause of that ill-success which had got
+so galling a hold on his mental peace: Amid the worry of a self-
+condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both
+to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no
+rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best
+beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table,
+which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed
+him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank you,
+Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear
+welcomed.
+
+For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my
+culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do
+at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage
+war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and
+stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr.
+John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any
+other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest place,
+among the highest stars, where her lover's highest flight of fancy
+chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to
+dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and
+again that eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew,
+and I was baffled. After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I
+wished I could have dared to go and sit near him, but it seemed that
+if I ventured to take that step, he would infallibly evince hostility
+and indignation. I longed to speak out, and I dared not whisper. His
+mother left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just
+murmured the words "Dr. Bretton."
+
+He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his
+mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might
+have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour
+in one thunder-clap.
+
+"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."
+
+He smiled that moment I spoke. "Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you
+don't respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I
+fear, I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where
+I wish to please, it seems I don't please."
+
+"Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the
+fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me
+unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply
+respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of
+others, what is that but an excellence?"
+
+"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"
+
+"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree
+to differ. Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."
+
+"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"
+
+"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
+that, to ease me of the heart-ache."
+
+"Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me
+a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I
+feel grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher."
+
+"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."
+
+Thus our quarrel ended.
+
+Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr.
+John undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give
+the feeling as at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character
+as it appeared when discovered.
+
+He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that
+misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my
+theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed,
+somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated.
+An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but
+very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two
+lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those
+few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail
+frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I
+think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in
+discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that
+if he would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was
+most interested, my expectation would always be answered, my wish
+always satisfied. It follows, as a matter of course, that I continued
+to hear much of "Ginevra."
+
+"Ginevra!" He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of
+her charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain
+prose knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to
+settle on her idea, even for me. Still, reader, I am free to confess,
+that he often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient
+with him. I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the
+pain of crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and
+new sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the
+delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still
+seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded
+about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. The
+fancy became rooted in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she
+was only coquetting to goad him, and that, at heart, she coveted
+everyone of his words and looks. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of
+my resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable
+gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the
+flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again. I
+chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience,
+that in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe _must_ intend
+eventually to accept him.
+
+"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
+assurance?"
+
+"The best grounds."
+
+"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"
+
+"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really
+amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her
+fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult."
+
+"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a
+little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an
+explanation--a full explanation: I must have it."
+
+"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
+you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Père
+Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for
+his poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of
+your favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr.
+John--"
+
+"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."
+
+"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her
+hands filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have
+sought for her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in
+devising gifts the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as
+only a woman could have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns
+a set of ornaments, to purchase which your generosity must have verged
+on extravagance."
+
+The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
+flushed all over the face of her admirer.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my
+scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour
+in accepting them."
+
+"She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour
+that she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in
+affection, she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the
+shape of some rouleaux of gold pieces."
+
+"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care
+for my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."
+
+I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and
+well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money's worth, and
+endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the
+most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years.
+
+He pursued. "You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap
+some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even
+pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me,
+she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to
+bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her
+ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully
+chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
+valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would
+hardly cast one look on my gift"
+
+"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
+you?"
+
+"No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to
+seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like
+quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build
+on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part,
+were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her
+incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture
+to believe the transaction advanced me one step."
+
+"Dr. John," I began, "Love is blind;" but just then a blue subtle ray
+sped sideways from Dr. John's eye: it reminded me of old days, it
+reminded me of his picture: it half led me to think that part, at
+least, of his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's _naïveté_
+was assumed; it led me dubiously to conjecture that perhaps, in spite
+of his passion for her beauty, his appreciation of her foibles might
+possibly be less mistaken, more clear-sighted, than from his general
+language was presumable. After all it might be only a chance look, or
+at best the token of a merely momentary impression. Chance or
+intentional real or imaginary, it closed the conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of
+the vacation. Mrs. Bretton's kind management procured me this respite.
+Her son having one day delivered the dictum that "Lucy was not yet
+strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionnat," she at once
+drove over to the Rue Fossette, had an interview with the directress,
+and procured the indulgence, on the plea of prolonged rest and change
+being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, however, followed an
+attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz--a polite call
+from Madame Beck.
+
+That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
+château. I suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner
+of place Dr. John inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat
+interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw,
+pronounced the blue salon "une pièce magnifique," profusely
+congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes,
+aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my
+favour, and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost
+buoyancy, opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all
+sparkling with felicitations and protestations about his "château,"--
+"madame sa mère, la digne châtelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed,
+were very flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by
+the good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to
+Madame's fluent and florid French. In short, Madame shone in her very
+best phase that day, and came in and went out quite a living
+catherine-wheel of compliments, delight, and affability. Half
+purposely, and half to ask some question about school-business, I
+followed her to the carriage, and looked in after she was seated and
+the door closed. In that brief fraction of time what a change had been
+wrought! An instant ago, all sparkles and jests, she now sat sterner
+than a judge and graver than a sage. Strange little woman!
+
+I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame's devotion to him. How he
+laughed! What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine
+speeches, and repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an
+acute sense of humour, and was the finest company in the world--when
+he could forget Miss Fanshawe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To "sit in sunshine calm and sweet" is said to be excellent for weak
+people; it gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was
+recovering from her illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk
+with her in the garden by the hour together, beneath a certain wall
+hung with grapes, which the Southern sun was ripening: that sun
+cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as it mellowed
+and swelled the clustering fruit.
+
+There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose
+influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for
+the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of
+these choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton's and his
+mother's. They liked to communicate happiness, as some like to
+occasion misery: they did it instinctively; without fuss, and
+apparently with little consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose
+spontaneously in their minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some
+little plan was proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully
+occupied as was Dr. John's time, he still made it in his way to
+accompany us in each brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed
+his engagements; they were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed
+them in an order which left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw
+him hard-worked, yet seldom over-driven, and never irritated,
+confused, or oppressed. What he did was accomplished with the ease and
+grace of all-sufficing strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of
+high and unbroken energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one
+happy fortnight, more of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants,
+than I had seen in the whole eight months of my previous residence. He
+took me to places of interest in the town, of whose names I had not
+before so much as heard; with willingness and spirit he communicates.
+much noteworthy information. He never seemed to think it a trouble to
+talk to me, and, I am sure, it was never a task to me to listen. It
+was not his way to treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he rarely
+generalized, never prosed. He seemed to like nice details almost as
+much as I liked them myself: he seemed observant of character: and
+not superficially observant, either. These points gave the quality of
+interest to his discourse; and the fact of his speaking direct from
+his own resources, and not borrowing or stealing from books--here a
+dry fact, and there a trite phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion
+--ensured a freshness, as welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too,
+his disposition seemed to unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh
+day: to rise in new and nobler dawn.
+
+His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a
+better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville--
+the poor and crowded quarter of the city--that his errands there were
+as much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood
+presently that cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded
+unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds--he was
+achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good.
+The lower orders liked him well; his poor, patients in the hospitals
+welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.
+
+But stop--I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the
+partial eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not
+perfect, anymore than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him
+throughout: there was no hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I
+spent with him that in act or speech, or look, he did not betray
+something that was not of a god. A god could not have the cruel vanity
+of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity., No immortal could have
+resembled him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the
+present--in his passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely,
+by devoting it to material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting
+from it whatever it could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-
+love: his delight was to feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought
+of the price of provender, or care for the cost of keeping it sleek
+and high-pampered.
+
+The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two
+views which have been given of Graham Bretton--the public and private
+--the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public, he is
+shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his energies, as
+earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside picture, there
+is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he is; pleasure in
+homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in receiving the
+same. Both portraits are correct.
+
+It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When
+you thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use
+had been achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it
+when placed ready for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed
+you by a smilingly-uttered observation or two, proving that his eye
+had been on the work from commencement to close: that he had noted the
+design, traced its progress, and marked its completion. It pleased him
+to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in his eye and play
+about his mouth.
+
+This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly
+and unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he
+called debts. When his mother worked for him, he paid her by
+showering about her his bright animal spirits, with even more
+affluence than his gay, taunting, teasing, loving wont. If Lucy Snowe
+were discovered to have put her hand to such work, he planned, in
+recompence, some pleasant recreation.
+
+I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge
+not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its
+galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object
+worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or
+science, he seemed to possess the "Open! Sesame." I never had a head
+for science, but an ignorant, blind, fond instinct inclined me to art.
+I liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I dearly liked to be left
+there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see
+much or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was
+necessary to maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half
+an hour would knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical
+lassitude and entire mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-
+reared child, much less the educated adult, who could not put me to
+shame, by the sustained intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal
+of a conversable, sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights
+or buildings, or any lions of public interest. Dr. Bretton was a
+cicerone after my own heart; he would take me betimes, ere the
+galleries were filled, leave me there for two or three hours, and call
+for me when his own engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was
+happy; happy, not always in admiring, but in examining, questioning,
+and forming conclusions. In the commencement of these visits, there
+was some misunderstanding and consequent struggle between Will and
+Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was
+considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter
+inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up,
+goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was
+chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually
+that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious
+efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that
+great labour, and concluded eventually that I might, and so sank
+supine into a luxury of calm before ninety-nine out of a hundred of
+the exhibited frames.
+
+It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce
+as an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
+myself, standing before certain _chef-d'oeuvres_ bearing great
+names, "These are not a whit like nature. Nature's daylight never had
+that colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it
+is laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not
+ether; and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees." Several
+very well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no
+means the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores
+of marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of
+sketches, excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in
+the handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry
+whimsically applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and
+there which satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered
+the vision. Nature's power here broke through in a mountain snow-
+storm; and there her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in
+this portrait proved clear insight into character; a face in that
+historical painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly
+reminded you that genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they
+grew dear as friends.
+
+One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
+certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size,
+set up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched
+before it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the
+accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed
+themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business
+sitting: this picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of
+the collection.
+
+It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
+I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
+for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
+fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
+much butcher's meat--to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids
+--must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that wealth
+of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a couch:
+why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round her;
+she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
+plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
+standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
+lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
+garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
+abundance of material--seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
+drapery--she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the
+wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots
+and pans--perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets--were rolled here
+and there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed
+amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery
+smothered the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the
+catalogue, I found that this notable production bore the name
+"Cleopatra."
+
+Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
+I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking
+that while some of the details--as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were
+very prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of
+claptrap; the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill.
+Scarcely noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to
+me) I retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to
+studying this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I
+soon tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of
+some exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-
+fruit, mossy woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen
+through clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse
+and preposterous canvas.
+
+Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
+face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.
+
+"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."
+
+"Vous vous amusez! et à quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-
+moi le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre
+côté."
+
+I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned
+from Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant
+of insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled
+his temples.
+
+"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
+room.
+
+"I have no party."
+
+"You are not alone?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Did you come here unaccompanied?"
+
+"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."
+
+"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"
+
+"No; only Dr. Bretton."
+
+"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"By no means; I found it out for myself."
+
+M. Paul's hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
+bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
+certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.
+
+"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulières
+femmes que ces Anglaises!"
+
+"What is the matter, Monsieur?"
+
+"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the self-
+possession of a garçon, and look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
+look at it"
+
+"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."
+
+'If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And
+then, what does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody
+meddles with me."
+
+"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous là--là!"--setting down a chair with
+emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
+specially dreary "cadres."
+
+"Mais, Monsieur?"
+
+"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez pas--entendez-vous?--
+jusqu'à ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je vous donne la
+permission."
+
+"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"
+
+And "laids," indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in
+the catalogue "La vie d'une femme." They were painted rather in a
+remarkable style--flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented
+a "Jeune Fille," coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand,
+her dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up--the
+image of a most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second,
+a "Mariée," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her
+chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and
+showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The
+third, a "Jeune Mère," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy
+baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve,"
+being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the
+twain studiously surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a
+corner of some Père la Chaise. All these four "Anges" were grim and
+grey as burglars, and cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live
+with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As
+bad in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in
+hers.
+
+It was impossible to keep one's attention long confined to these
+master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
+gallery.
+
+A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
+Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
+crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were "des
+dames," and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
+"demoiselle" ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
+agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
+with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also,
+in the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A
+more despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor's
+chair. I noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself
+quite at his ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however,
+neglect to glance from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to
+make sure that I was obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-
+by, he again accosted me.
+
+"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
+
+"Yes, but I was now quite well."
+
+"Where had I spent the vacation?"
+
+"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
+
+"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
+
+"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the crétin) "was with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
+rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
+never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
+advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
+between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
+repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
+temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
+apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
+the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
+forbearance and compassion--such a claim as it was not in his nature
+to deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience
+and disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other;
+in which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
+feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
+character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
+aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
+both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their
+vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
+excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to
+fear him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
+apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
+confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
+however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
+nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
+
+"How did you get on with Marie Broc?" he asked, after some minutes'
+silence.
+
+"Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!"
+
+"You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps,
+charity. Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister
+of Mercy."
+
+[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and self-
+sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of his
+soul.]
+
+"I don't know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
+her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief."
+
+"Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
+of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?"
+
+"Could Monsieur do it himself?"
+
+"Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our
+coarse, fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such
+duties."
+
+"I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
+she made mouths at me instead of speaking."
+
+"You think you did great things?"
+
+"No; but as great as I _could_ do."
+
+"Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell
+sick."
+
+"Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill."
+
+"Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic
+mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it
+merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of
+Cleopatra."
+
+It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of
+the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had
+no present disposition to begin.
+
+"Cleopatra!" I repeated, quietly. "Monsieur, too, has been looking at
+Cleopatra; what does he think of her?"
+
+"Cela ne vaut rien," he responded. "Une femme superbe--une taille
+d'impératrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne
+voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour soeur. Aussi vous ne
+jeterez plus un seul coup d'oeil de sa côté."
+
+"But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been
+talking: I can see her quite well from this corner."
+
+"Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life."
+
+"Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them,
+allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation."
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended
+for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You
+nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen
+walk calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe,
+if some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you
+would issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire."
+
+"Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?"
+
+"How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an
+acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?"
+
+"I think so--Yes, I see there a person I know."
+
+In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any
+other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished,
+highly polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty!
+What womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of
+his optics! with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and
+then, how engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow!
+Oh, the man of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of superior taste and
+tact! I observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was
+exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much
+was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character
+by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the
+interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his
+scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present
+abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I
+again looked round, he was gone.
+
+My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and
+dissimilar figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well
+as the port lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in
+visage, in shape, in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic
+little professor, as the fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the
+sloe in the wild thicket; as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian
+is unlike the rude and stubborn "sheltie." He was looking for me, but
+had not yet explored the corner where the schoolmaster had just put
+me. I remained quiet; yet another minute I would watch.
+
+He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a
+pleasure in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the
+Cleopatra. I doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the
+little Count; his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without
+demonstration he stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I
+saw now that he was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.
+
+We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant
+to take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say
+about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a
+connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be
+fresh: very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to
+tell him some things he did not know--he listened so kindly, so
+teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright
+handsome head, to gather a woman's rather obscure and stammering
+explanation, should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he
+communicated information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence
+that left all his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of
+his giving, no fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.
+
+As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra
+(after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent
+me to the right about, and taking him to see the sweet series of
+pictures recommended to my attention.)
+
+"Pooh!" said he. "My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some
+French fops, yonder, designating her as 'le type du voluptueux;' if
+so, I can only say, 'le voluptueux' is little to my liking. Compare
+that mulatto with Ginevra!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE CONCERT.
+
+
+One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me
+to open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a
+word.
+
+"That will do," said she, when she had turned them over. "You must
+have a new one."
+
+She went out. She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me
+measured. "I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my
+own way in this little matter."
+
+Two days after came home--a pink dress!
+
+"That is not for me," I said, hurriedly, feeling that I would almost
+as soon clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.
+
+"We shall see whether it is for you or not," rejoined my godmother,
+adding with her resistless decision: "Mark my words. You will wear it
+this very evening."
+
+I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put
+me into it. A pink dress! I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not
+proved it.
+
+My godmother went on to decree that I was to go with her and Graham to
+a concert that same night: which concert, she explained, was a grand
+affair to be held in the large salle, or hall, of the principal
+musical society. The most advanced of the pupils of the Conservatoire
+were to perform: it was to be followed by a lottery "au bénéfice des
+pauvres;" and to crown all, the King, Queen, and Prince of Labassecour
+were to be present. Graham, in sending tickets, had enjoined attention
+to costume as a compliment due to royalty: he also recommended
+punctual readiness by seven o'clock.
+
+About six, I was ushered upstairs. Without any force at all, I found
+myself led and influenced by another's will, unconsulted, unpersuaded,
+quietly overruled. In short, the pink dress went on, softened by some
+drapery of black lace. I was pronounced to be en grande tenue, and
+requested to look in the glass. I did so with some fear and trembling;
+with more fear and trembling, I turned away. Seven o'clock struck; Dr.
+Bretton was come; my godmother and I went down. _She_ was clad in
+brown velvet; as I walked in her shadow, how I envied her those folds
+of grave, dark majesty! Graham stood in the drawing-room doorway.
+
+"I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to
+draw attention," was my uneasy aspiration.
+
+"Here, Lucy, are some flowers," said he, giving me a bouquet. He took
+no further notice of my dress than was conveyed in a kind smile and
+satisfied nod, which calmed at once my sense of shame and fear of
+ridicule. For the rest; the dress was made with extreme simplicity,
+guiltless of flounce or furbelow; it was but the light fabric and
+bright tint which scared me, and since Graham found in it nothing
+absurd, my own eye consented soon to become reconciled.
+
+I suppose people who go every night to places of public amusement, can
+hardly enter into the fresh gala feeling with which an opera or a
+concert is enjoyed by those for whom it is a rarity: I am not sure
+that I expected great pleasure from the concert, having but a very
+vague notion of its nature, but I liked the drive there well. The snug
+comfort of the close carriage on a cold though fine night, the
+pleasure of setting out with companions so cheerful and friendly, the
+sight of the stars glinting fitfully through the trees as we rolled
+along the avenue; then the freer burst of the night-sky when we issued
+forth to the open chaussée, the passage through the city gates, the
+lights there burning, the guards there posted, the pretence of
+inspection, to which we there submitted, and which amused us so much--
+all these small matters had for me, in their novelty, a peculiarly
+exhilarating charm. How much of it lay in the atmosphere of friendship
+diffused about me, I know not: Dr. John and his mother were both in
+their finest mood, contending animatedly with each other the whole
+way, and as frankly kind to me as if I had been of their kin.
+
+Our way lay through some of the best streets of Villette, streets
+brightly lit, and far more lively now than at high noon. How brilliant
+seemed the shops! How glad, gay, and abundant flowed the tide of life
+along the broad pavement! While I looked, the thought of the Rue
+Fossette came across me--of the walled-in garden and school-house, and
+of the dark, vast "classes," where, as at this very hour, it was my
+wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through the high,
+blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader in
+the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the "lecture pieuse." Thus
+must I soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future
+stole with timely sobriety across the radiant present.
+
+By this time we had got into a current of carriages all tending in one
+direction, and soon the front of a great illuminated building blazed
+before us. Of what I should see within this building, I had, as before
+intimated, but an imperfect idea; for no place of public entertainment
+had it ever been my lot to enter yet.
+
+We alighted under a portico where there was a great bustle and a great
+crowd, but I do not distinctly remember further details, until I found
+myself mounting a majestic staircase wide and easy of ascent, deeply
+and softly carpeted with crimson, leading up to great doors closed
+solemnly, and whose panels were also crimson-clothed.
+
+I hardly noticed by what magic these doors were made to roll back--Dr.
+John managed these points; roll back they did, however, and within was
+disclosed a hall--grand, wide, and high, whose sweeping circular
+walls, and domed hollow ceiling, seemed to me all dead gold (thus with
+nice art was it stained), relieved by cornicing, fluting, and
+garlandry, either bright, like gold burnished, or snow-white, like
+alabaster, or white and gold mingled in wreaths of gilded leaves and
+spotless lilies: wherever drapery hung, wherever carpets were spread,
+or cushions placed, the sole colour employed was deep crimson. Pendent
+from the dome, flamed a mass that dazzled me--a mass, I thought, of
+rock-crystal, sparkling with facets, streaming with drops, ablaze with
+stars, and gorgeously tinged with dews of gems dissolved, or fragments
+of rainbows shivered. It was only the chandelier, reader, but for me
+it seemed the work of eastern genii: I almost looked to see if a huge,
+dark, cloudy hand--that of the Slave of the Lamp--were not hovering in
+the lustrous and perfumed atmosphere of the cupola, guarding its
+wondrous treasure.
+
+We moved on--I was not at all conscious whither--but at some turn we
+suddenly encountered another party approaching from the opposite
+direction. I just now see that group, as it flashed--upon me for one
+moment. A handsome middle-aged lady in dark velvet; a gentleman who
+might be her son--the best face, the finest figure, I thought, I had
+ever seen; a third person in a pink dress and black lace mantle.
+
+I noted them all--the third person as well as the other two--and for
+the fraction of a moment believed them all strangers, thus receiving
+an impartial impression of their appearance. But the impression was
+hardly felt and not fixed, before the consciousness that I faced a
+great mirror, filling a compartment between two pillars, dispelled it:
+the party was our own party. Thus for the first, and perhaps only time
+in my life, I enjoyed the "giftie" of seeing myself as others see me.
+No need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of
+regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful;
+it might have been worse.
+
+At last, we were seated in places commanding a good general view of
+that vast and dazzling, but warm and cheerful hall. Already it was
+filled, and filled with a splendid assemblage. I do not know that the
+women were very beautiful, but their dresses were so perfect; and
+foreigners, even such as are ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to
+posses the art of appearing graceful in public: however blunt and
+boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with peignoir
+and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and
+arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala
+use--always brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with
+the "parure."
+
+Some fine forms there were here and there, models of a peculiar style
+of beauty; a style, I think, never seen in England; a solid, firm-set,
+sculptural style. These shapes have no angles: a caryatid in marble is
+almost as flexible; a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain
+still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters
+give to their madonnas: low-country classic features, regular but
+round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless
+calm, of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone offer a
+type. Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any;
+the smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to
+the smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the
+rounded arm and perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain.
+
+With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be
+perfectly acquainted: the inert force of the deep, settled love she
+bore herself, was wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud
+impotency to care for any other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins
+conducted no flow; placid lymph filled and almost obstructed her
+arteries.
+
+Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view--a sort of mark
+for all eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the
+magnetic influence of gaze or glance: cold, rounded, blonde, and
+beauteous as the white column, capitalled with gilding, which rose at
+her side.
+
+Observing that Dr. John's attention was much drawn towards her, I
+entreated him in a low voice "for the love of heaven to shield well
+his heart. You need not fall in love with _that_ lady," I said,
+"because, I tell you beforehand, you might die at her feet, and she
+would not love you again."
+
+"Very well," said he, "and how do you know that the spectacle of her
+grand insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to
+homage? The sting of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to
+my emotions: but" (shrugging his shoulders) "you know nothing about
+these things; I'll address myself to my mother. Mamma, I'm in a
+dangerous way."
+
+"As if that interested me!" said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Alas! the cruelty of my lot!" responded her son. "Never man had a
+more unsentimental mother than mine: she never seems to think that
+such a calamity can befall her as a daughter-in-law."
+
+"If I don't, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over
+my head: you have threatened me with it for the last ten years.
+'Mamma, I am going to be married soon!' was the cry before you were
+well out of jackets."
+
+"But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden,
+when you think you are most secure, I shall go forth like Jacob or
+Esau, or any other patriarch, and take me a wife: perhaps of these
+which are of the daughters of the land."
+
+"At your peril, John Graham! that is all."
+
+"This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous
+old lady it is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the
+pale blue satin dress, and hair of paler brown, with 'reflets satinés'
+as those of her robe. Would you not feel proud, mamma, if I were to
+bring that goddess home some day, and introduce her to you as Mrs.
+Bretton, junior?"
+
+"You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse: that little château will
+not contain two mistresses; especially if the second be of the height,
+bulk, and circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid
+and satin."
+
+"Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!"
+
+"Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it
+be for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your
+eyes."
+
+During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full
+at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the
+semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping
+from floor to ceiling. The stage, too, or rather the wide temporary
+platform, larger than any stage, desert half an hour since, was now
+overflowing with life; round two grand pianos, placed about the
+centre, a white flock of young girls, the pupils of the Conservatoire,
+had noiselessly poured. I had noticed their gathering, while Graham
+and his mother were engaged in discussing the belle in blue satin, and
+had watched with interest the process of arraying and marshalling
+them. Two gentlemen, in each of whom I recognised an acquaintance,
+officered this virgin troop. One, an artistic-looking man, bearded,
+and with long hair, was a noted pianiste, and also the first music-
+teacher in Villette; he attended twice a week at Madame Beck's
+pensionnat, to give lessons to the few pupils whose parents were rich
+enough to allow their daughters the privilege of his instructions;
+his name was M. Josef Emanuel, and he was half-brother to M. Paul:
+which potent personage was now visible in the person of the second
+gentleman.
+
+M. Paul amused me; I smiled to myself as I watched him, he seemed so
+thoroughly in his element--standing conspicuous in presence of a wide
+and grand assemblage, arranging, restraining, over-aweing about one
+hundred young ladies. He was, too, so perfectly in earnest--so
+energetic, so intent, and, above all, so of the foreigners then
+resident in Villette. These took possession of the crimson benches;
+the ladies were seated; most of the men remained standing: their sable
+rank, lining the background, looked like a dark foil to the splendour
+displayed in front. Nor was this splendour without varying light and
+shade and gradation: the middle distance was filled with matrons in
+velvets and satins, in plumes and gems; the benches in the foreground,
+to the Queen's right hand, seemed devoted exclusively to young girls,
+the flower--perhaps, I should rather say, the bud--of Villette
+aristocracy. Here were no jewels, no head-dresses, no velvet pile or
+silken sheen purity, simplicity, and aërial grace reigned in that
+virgin band. Young heads simply braided, and fair forms (I was going
+to write _sylph_ forms, but that would have been quite untrue:
+several of these "jeunes filles," who had not numbered more than
+sixteen or seventeen years, boasted contours as robust and solid as
+those of a stout Englishwoman of five-and-twenty)--fair forms robed in
+white, or pale rose, or placid blue, suggested thoughts of heaven and
+angels. I knew a couple, at least, of these "rose et blanche"
+specimens of humanity. Here was a pair of Madame Beck's late pupils--
+Mesdemoiselles Mathilde and Angélique: pupils who, during their last
+year at school, ought to have been in the first class, but whose
+brains never got them beyond the second division. In English, they had
+been under my own charge, and hard work it was to get them to
+translate rationally a page of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Also
+during three months I had one of them for my vis-à-vis at table, and
+the quantity of household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would
+habitually consume at "second déjeuner" was a real world's wonder--to
+be exceeded only by the fact of her actually pocketing slices she
+could not eat. Here be truths--wholesome truths, too.
+
+I knew another of these seraphs--the prettiest, or, at any rate, the
+least demure and hypocritical looking of the lot: she was seated by
+the daughter of an English peer, also an honest, though haughty-
+looking girl: both had entered in the suite of the British embassy.
+She (_i.e._ my acquaintance) had a slight, pliant figure, not at
+all like the forms of the foreign damsels: her hair, too, was not
+close-braided, like a shell or a skull-cap of satin; it looked
+_like_ hair, and waved from her head, long, curled, and flowing.
+She chatted away volubly, and seemed full of a light-headed sort of
+satisfaction with herself and her position. I did not look at Dr.
+Bretton; but I knew that he, too, saw Ginevra Fanshawe: he had become
+so quiet, he answered so briefly his mother's remarks, he so often
+suppressed a sigh. Why should he sigh? He had confessed a taste for
+the pursuit of love under difficulties; here was full gratification
+for that taste. His lady-love beamed upon him from a sphere above his
+own: he could not come near her; he was not certain that he could win
+from her a look. I watched to see if she would so far favour him. Our
+seat was not far from the crimson benches; we must inevitably be seen
+thence, by eyes so quick and roving as Miss Fanshawe's, and very soon
+those optics of hers were upon us: at least, upon Dr. and Mrs.
+Bretton. I kept rather in the shade and out of sight, not wishing to
+be immediately recognised: she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and
+then she raised a glass to examine his mother; a minute or two
+afterwards she laughingly whispered her neighbour; upon the
+performance commencing, her rambling attention was attracted to the
+platform.
+
+On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my
+impressions thereanent: and, indeed, it would not be worth while to
+record them, as they were the impressions of an ignorance crasse. The
+young ladies of the Conservatoire, being very much frightened, made
+rather a tremulous exhibition on the two grand pianos. M. Josef
+Emanuel stood by them while they played; but he had not the tact or
+influence of his kinsman, who, under similar circumstances, would
+certainly have _compelled_ pupils of his to demean themselves
+with heroism and self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the
+hysteric débutantes between two fires--terror of the audience, and
+terror of himself--and would have inspired them with the courage of
+desperation, by making the latter terror incomparably the greater: M.
+Josef could not do this.
+
+Following the white muslin pianistes, came a fine, full-grown, sulky
+lady in white satin. She sang. Her singing just affected me like the
+tricks of a conjuror: I wondered how she did it--how she made her
+voice run up and down, and cut such marvellous capers; but a simple
+Scotch melody, played by a rude street minstrel, has often moved me
+more deeply.
+
+Afterwards stepped forth a gentleman, who, bending his body a good
+deal in the direction of the King and Queen, and frequently
+approaching his white-gloved hand to the region of his heart, vented a
+bitter outcry against a certain "fausse Isabelle." I thought he seemed
+especially to solicit the Queen's sympathy; but, unless I am
+egregiously mistaken, her Majesty lent her attention rather with the
+calm of courtesy than the earnestness of interest. This gentleman's
+state of mind was very harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up his
+musical exposition of the same.
+
+Some rousing choruses struck me as the best part of the evening's
+entertainment. There were present deputies from all the best
+provincial choral societies; genuine, barrel-shaped, native
+Labassecouriens. These worthies gave voice without mincing the matter
+their hearty exertions had at least this good result--the ear drank
+thence a satisfying sense of power.
+
+Through the whole performance--timid instrumental duets, conceited
+vocal solos, sonorous, brass-lunged choruses--my attention gave but
+one eye and one ear to the stage, the other being permanently retained
+in the service of Dr. Bretton: I could not forget him, nor cease to
+question how he was feeling, what he was thinking, whether he was
+amused or the contrary. At last he spoke.
+
+"And how do you like it all, Lucy? You are very quiet," he said, in
+his own cheerful tone.
+
+"I am quiet," I said, "because I am so very, _very_ much
+interested: not merely with the music, but with everything about me."
+
+He then proceeded to make some further remarks, with so much
+equanimity and composure that I began to think he had really not seen
+what I had seen, and I whispered--"Miss Fanshawe is here: have you
+noticed her?"
+
+"Oh, yes! and I observed that you noticed her too?"
+
+"Is she come with Mrs. Cholmondeley, do you think?"
+
+"Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes; Ginevra was
+in _her_ train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady ----'s train,
+who was in the Queen's train. If this were not one of the compact
+little minor European courts, whose very formalities are little more
+imposing than familiarities, and whose gala grandeur is but homeliness
+in Sunday array, it would sound all very fine."
+
+"Ginevra saw you, I think?"
+
+"So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you
+withdrew yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little
+spectacle which you were spared."
+
+I did not ask what; I waited voluntary information, which was
+presently given.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he said, "has a companion with her--a lady of rank. I
+happen to know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in
+professionally. She is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent,
+and I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation
+by making a butt of her neighbours."
+
+"What neighbours?"
+
+"Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural:
+nothing, I suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois
+doctor; but my mother! I never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know,
+the curling lip, and sarcastically levelled glass thus directed, gave
+me a most curious sensation?"
+
+"Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were
+in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no
+scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy
+King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly.
+To a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred."
+
+"But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe
+in the light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my
+divinity--the angel of my career?"
+
+"Hem! There was your mistake."
+
+"To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance,
+there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her
+divine. Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not
+quite open with you in discussing that subject: the warmth with which
+you took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your
+lights, I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was.
+It was that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal.
+Still her beauty retained its fascination: three days--three hours
+ago, I was very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant
+in beauty, my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I
+should yet be the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at
+_me_, and, while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me:
+through myself, she could not in ten years have done what, in a
+moment, she has done through my mother."
+
+He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so
+little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye as just now.
+
+"Lucy," he recommenced, "look well at my mother, and say, without fear
+or favour, in what light she now appears to you."
+
+"As she always does--an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well,
+though gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence,
+constitutionally composed and cheerful."
+
+"So she seems to me--bless her! The merry may laugh _with_ mamma,
+but the weak only will laugh _at_ her. She shall not be ridiculed,
+with my consent, at least; nor without my--my scorn--my antipathy--my--"
+
+He stopped: and it was time--for he was getting excited--more it
+seemed than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had
+witnessed double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The
+glow of his complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve
+which disdain gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and
+striking phase. Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and
+serene, is not a pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of
+vindictive thrill which passed through his strong young frame.
+
+"Do I frighten you, Lucy?" he asked.
+
+"I cannot tell why you are so very angry."
+
+"For this reason," he muttered in my ear. "Ginevra is neither a pure
+angel, nor a pure-minded woman."
+
+"Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her."
+
+"Too much for me. _I_ can see where _you_ are blind. Now
+dismiss the subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma: I will
+assert that she is flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself."
+
+"John, I will certainly rouse you if you are not better conducted.
+Will you and Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?"
+
+They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the
+previous dialogue had taken place.
+
+"_You_ hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs, which
+are genuine, against your paste brooch--"
+
+"My paste brooch, Graham? Profane boy! you know that it is a stone of
+value."
+
+"Oh! that is one of your superstitions: you were cheated in the
+business."
+
+"I am cheated in fewer things than you imagine. How do you happen to
+be acquainted with young ladies of the court, John? I have observed
+two of them pay you no small attention during the last half-hour."
+
+"I wish you would not observe them."
+
+"Why not? Because one of them satirically levels her eyeglass at me?
+She is a pretty, silly girl: but are you apprehensive that her titter
+will discomfit the old lady?"
+
+"The sensible, admirable old lady! Mother, you are better to me than
+ten wives yet."
+
+"Don't be demonstrative, John, or I shall faint, and you will have to
+carry me out; and if that burden were laid upon you, you would reverse
+your last speech, and exclaim, 'Mother, ten wives could hardly be
+worse to me than you are!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The concert over, the Lottery "au bénéfice des pauvres" came next: the
+interval between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest
+imaginable stir and commotion. The white flock was cleared from the
+platform; a busy throng of gentlemen crowded it instead, making
+arrangements for the drawing; and amongst these--the busiest of all--
+re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but active, alive
+with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did work!
+How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own shoulder
+to the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to remove the
+pianos, &c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his own. The
+redundancy of his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous: in my
+mind I both disapproved and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in the
+midst of prejudice and annoyance, I could not, while watching, avoid
+perceiving a certain not disagreeable naïveté in all he did and said;
+nor could I be blind to certain vigorous characteristics of his
+physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast with a throng of
+tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power of his
+forehead, pale, broad, and full--the mobility of his most flexible
+mouth. He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he
+signally possessed.
+
+Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained
+standing, for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The
+crimson compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long
+cloud of gentlemen, breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow
+line of ladies; two or three officer-like men approached the King and
+conversed with him. The Queen, leaving her chair, glided along the
+rank of young ladies, who all stood up as she passed; and to each in
+turn I saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness--a gracious word, look
+or smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and Ginevra
+Fanshawe, she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and
+especially the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification.
+They were afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle
+of gentlemen gathered round them; amongst these--the nearest to
+Ginevra--stood the Count de Hamal.
+
+"This room is stiflingly hot," said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden
+impatience. "Lucy--mother--will you come a moment to the fresh air?"
+
+"Go with him, Lucy," said Mrs. Bretton. "I would rather keep my seat."
+
+Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham's desire must take
+precedence of my own; I accompanied him.
+
+We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to
+feel it; but it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread
+cloudless. I was wrapped in a fur shawl. We took some turns on the
+pavement; in passing under a lamp, Graham encountered my eye.
+
+"You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?"
+
+"I was only fearing that you were grieved."
+
+"Not at all: so be of good cheer--as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my
+persuasion is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung,
+I may seem to droop for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has
+yet gone through my whole system. You have always seen me cheerful at
+home?"
+
+"Generally."
+
+"I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for
+a dozen beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank
+you, Miss Fanshawe!" And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and
+made a mock reverence.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in
+ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled
+from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice."
+
+"You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel
+differently to-morrow."
+
+"_I_ heated and indignant! You don't know me. On the contrary,
+the heat is gone: I am as cool as the night--which, by the way, may be
+too cool for you. We will go back."
+
+"Dr. John, this is a sudden change."
+
+"Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it--two good reasons:
+I have told you one. But now let us re-enter."
+
+We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was
+excited confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we
+had to pass: it was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance
+round--indeed I half fancied I heard my name pronounced--I saw quite
+near, the ubiquitous, the inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me
+gravely and intently: at me, or rather at my pink dress--sardonic
+comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his habit to indulge
+in strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, at Madame
+Beck's--a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive
+impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it--my sombre daily
+attire not being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to
+permit any new encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I
+would ignore his presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to
+the sleeve of Dr. John's coat; finding in that same black sleeve a
+prospect more redolent of pleasure and comfort, more genial, more
+friendly, I thought, than was offered by the dark little Professor's
+unlovely visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to sanction the
+preference by looking down and saying in his kind voice, "Ay, keep
+close to my side, Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of
+persons."
+
+I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence,
+mesmeric or otherwise--an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but
+effective--I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there
+he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he
+had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking
+but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I
+bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and
+sternest of nods in return.
+
+"Whom have you made angry, Lucy?" whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. "Who
+is that savage-looking friend of yours?"
+
+"One of the professors at Madame Beck's: a very cross little man."
+
+"He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it
+all about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this."
+
+"No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I
+looked at your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him,
+he thinks I have failed in respect."
+
+"The little--" began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have
+added, for at that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of
+the crowd. M. Paul had rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way
+with such utter disregard to the convenience and security of all
+around, that a very uncomfortable pressure was the consequence.
+
+"I think he is what he himself would call 'méchant,'" said Dr.
+Bretton. I thought so, too.
+
+Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at
+last regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an
+hour; it was an animating and amusing scene; and as we each held
+tickets, we shared in the alternations of hope and fear raised by each
+turn of the wheel. Two little girls, of five and six years old, drew
+the numbers: and the prizes were duly proclaimed from the platform.
+These prizes were numerous, though of small value. It so fell out that
+Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a cigar-case, his a lady's
+head-dress--a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, with a
+streamer of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was
+excessively anxious to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to
+hear reason, and to this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I
+look at it, to remind me of old times, and one happy evening.
+
+Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm's length between his
+finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and
+embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over,
+he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground
+between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the
+treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not come
+to the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm
+like an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had
+issued.
+
+Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed
+natural and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily
+described; there was something in it peculiar, and, in its way,
+original. I read in it no common mastery of the passions, and a fund
+of deep and healthy strength which, without any exhausting effort,
+bore down Disappointment and extracted her fang. His manner, now,
+reminded me of qualities I had noticed in him when professionally
+engaged amongst the poor, the guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-
+Ville: he looked at once determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who
+could help liking him? _He_ betrayed no weakness which harassed
+all your feelings with considerations as to how its faltering must be
+propped; from _him_ broke no irritability which startled calm and
+quenched mirth; _his_ lips let fall no caustic that burned to the
+bone; _his_ eye shot no morose shafts that went cold, and rusty,
+and venomed through your heart: beside him was rest and refuge--around
+him, fostering sunshine.
+
+And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once
+angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated--once
+alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more
+than once; not stealthily or humbly, but with a movement of hardy,
+open observation. De Hamal was now a fixture beside her; Mrs.
+Cholmondeley sat near, and they and she were wholly absorbed in the
+discourse, mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats were as
+much astir as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some
+apparently animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand
+and arm; a handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its
+gleam flickered in Dr. John's eye--quickening therein a derisive,
+ireful sparkle; he laughed:----
+
+"I think," he said, "I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of
+offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no
+grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after
+all, I know she is a girl of family."
+
+"But you don't know her education, Dr. John," said I. "Tossed about
+all her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly
+proffer the plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults.
+And then, from what she says, I believe her father and mother were
+brought up much as she has been brought up."
+
+"I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in
+the thought," said he.
+
+"She tells me," I answered, "that they are poor at home; she always
+speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as
+these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they
+occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their
+opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and
+inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered
+reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of
+sustaining a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the
+only state of things, she has seen from childhood upwards."
+
+"I believe it--and I thought to mould her to something better: but,
+Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in
+looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the
+impertinence directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between
+them immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome
+light on my mind."
+
+"How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep
+up?"
+
+"Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the
+true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look
+marking mutual and secret understanding--it was neither girlish nor
+innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give
+or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I
+would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap--and be
+sure that she was honest."
+
+I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case:
+Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I
+told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to
+trust her with his honour.
+
+"The only thing," said I, "with which you may safely trust her. She
+would unscrupulously damage a husband's purse and property, recklessly
+try his patience and temper: I don't think she would breathe, or let
+another breathe, on his honour."
+
+"You are becoming her advocate," said he. "Do you wish me to resume my
+old chains?"
+
+"No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long
+remain. Yet be, at the same time, just."
+
+"I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly
+estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen
+are rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma,
+too, is excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we
+stay longer."
+
+"I tired, John?" cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and
+as wide-awake as her son. "I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave
+us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most
+jaded by sunrise."
+
+"I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you
+are the most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It
+must then be on the plea of your son's delicate nerves and fragile
+constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment."
+
+"Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose
+you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For
+shame, Lucy! At your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made
+me a shade paler. Come away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old
+lady as much as you please, but, for my part, I shall take charge of
+the bandbox and turban."
+
+Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken
+off with kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do
+to take care of myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of
+the gay "confusion worse confounded" succeeding to the King and
+Queen's departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded us, and promptly made us a
+lane through the crowd. Graham followed, apostrophizing his mother as
+the most flourishing grisette it had ever been his good fortune to see
+charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to mark her
+affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that
+she intended one day to wear it.
+
+The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we
+found the carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as
+at a fire-side; and the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than
+the drive to the concert. Pleasant it was, even though the coachman--
+having spent in the shop of a "marchand de vin" a portion of the time
+we passed at the concert--drove us along the dark and solitary
+chaussée far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; we, who were
+occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration till, at
+last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the
+château a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the
+world's end, as she declared seemed now to be the case, for she
+believed we had been an hour and a half en route, and had not yet
+taken the turn down the avenue.
+
+Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with
+unfamiliar rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else
+invisible sunk-fences, began to conjecture how matters were, and
+calling a halt and descending, he mounted the box and took the reins
+himself. Thanks to him, we arrived safe at home about an hour and a
+half beyond our time.
+
+Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat
+supper spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter
+dawn was actually breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off
+my pink dress and lace mantle with happier feelings than I had
+experienced in putting them on. Not all, perhaps, who had shone
+brightly arrayed at that concert could say the same; for not all had
+been satisfied with friendship--with its calm comfort and modest hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+REACTION.
+
+
+Yet three days, and then I must go back to the _pensionnat_. I
+almost numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I
+have retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them:
+they were already gone while I yet feared their departure.
+
+"Lucy will not leave us to-day," said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at
+breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite."
+
+"I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word," said I. "I
+long to get the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette
+again. I must go this morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed
+and corded."
+
+It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said
+he would accompany, me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all
+day, and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of
+words. Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I
+could have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to
+leave them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to
+descend: that is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they
+could not tell. On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their
+experience.
+
+It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck's
+door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had
+rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a
+night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at
+this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very
+shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye, while,
+with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at
+which I stood--a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had
+briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that
+rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination
+to do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best
+kept there.
+
+Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just
+that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their
+departure--consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
+
+"Don't come in," said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the well-
+lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that "the water stood
+in my eyes," for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly shown
+such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal--to relieve--when,
+physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in
+his power.
+
+"Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true
+friends. We will not forget you."
+
+"Nor will I forget you, Dr. John."
+
+My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go,
+but he was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content
+his generous impulses.
+
+"Lucy,"--stepping after me--"shall you feel very solitary here?"
+
+"At first I shall."
+
+"Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I'll tell
+you what I'll do. I'll write--just any cheerful nonsense that comes
+into my head--shall I?"
+
+"Good, gallant heart!" thought I to myself; but I shook my head,
+smiling, and said, "Never think of it: impose on yourself no such
+task. _You_ write to _me_!--you'll not have time."
+
+"Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!"
+
+He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen--the pang
+was experienced.
+
+Allowing myself no time to think or feel--swallowing tears as if they
+had been wine--I passed to Madame's sitting-room to pay the necessary
+visit of ceremony and respect. She received me with perfectly well-
+acted cordiality--was even demonstrative, though brief, in her
+welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. From the salle-à-manger I
+proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers were now
+assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I
+think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory.
+
+"And will Graham really write?" I questioned, as I sank tired on the
+edge of the bed.
+
+Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long,
+dim chamber, whispered sedately--"He may write once. So kind is his
+nature, it may stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it
+_cannot_ be continued--it _may_ not be repeated. Great were
+that folly which should build on such a promise--insane that credulity
+which should mistake the transitory rain-pool, holding in its hollow
+one draught, for the perennial spring yielding the supply of seasons."
+
+I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered
+me, laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my
+ear with the chill blue lips of eld.
+
+"If," muttered she, "if he _should_ write, what then? Do you
+meditate pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your
+answer. Hope no delight of heart--no indulgence of intellect: grant no
+expansion to feeling--give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no
+friendly exchange: foster no genial intercommunion...."
+
+"But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide," I pleaded.
+
+"No," said she, "I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You
+converse imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of
+inferiority--no encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury
+stamp your language...."
+
+"But," I again broke in, "where the bodily presence is weak and the
+speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
+language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
+achieve?"
+
+Reason only answered, "At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
+its influence to animate any writing of yours!"
+
+"But if I feel, may I _never_ express?"
+
+"_Never!_" declared Reason.
+
+I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never--never--oh, hard word!
+This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope:
+she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in,
+and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece
+of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life
+to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times
+to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
+Imagination--_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine
+Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the
+terrible revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a
+devil: for me she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have
+obeyed her it has chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of
+love. Long ago I should have died of her ill-usage her stint, her
+chill, her barren board, her icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but
+for that kinder Power who holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often
+has Reason turned me out by night, in mid-winter, on cold snow,
+flinging for sustenance the gnawed bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has
+she vowed her stores held nothing more for me--harshly denied my right
+to ask better things.... Then, looking up, have I seen in the sky a
+head amidst circling stars, of which the midmost and the brightest
+lent a ray sympathetic and attent. A spirit, softer and better than
+Human Reason, has descended with quiet flight to the waste--bringing
+all round her a sphere of air borrowed of eternal summer; bringing
+perfume of flowers which cannot fade--fragrance of trees whose fruit
+is life; bringing breezes pure from a world whose day needs no sun to
+lighten it. My hunger has this good angel appeased with food, sweet
+and strange, gathered amongst gleaning angels, garnering their dew-
+white harvest in the first fresh hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has
+she assuaged the insufferable fears which weep away life itself--
+kindly given rest to deadly weariness--generously lent hope and
+impulse to paralyzed despair. Divine, compassionate, succourable
+influence! When I bend the knee to other than God, it shall be at thy
+white and winged feet, beautiful on mountain or on plain. Temples have
+been reared to the Sun--altars dedicated to the Moon. Oh, greater
+glory! To thee neither hands build, nor lips consecrate: but hearts,
+through ages, are faithful to thy worship. A dwelling thou hast, too
+wide for walls, too high for dome--a temple whose floors are space--
+rites whose mysteries transpire in presence, to the kindling, the
+harmony of worlds!
+
+Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of
+martyrs; for achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity
+unquestioned, thine essence foils decay!
+
+This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and
+she came with comfort: "Sleep," she said. "Sleep, sweetly--I gild thy
+dreams!"
+
+She kept her word, and watched me through a night's rest; but at dawn
+Reason relieved the guard. I awoke with a sort of start; the rain was
+dashing against the panes, and the wind uttering a peevish cry at
+intervals; the night-lamp was dying on the black circular stand in the
+middle of the dormitory: day had already broken. How I pity those whom
+mental pain stuns instead of rousing! This morning the pang of waking
+snatched me out of bed like a hand with a giant's gripe. How quickly I
+dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice-
+cold water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like
+other dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin.
+
+Ere long the bell rang its _réveillée_ to the whole school. Being
+dressed, I descended alone to the refectory, where the stove was lit
+and the air was warm; through the rest of the house it was cold, with
+the nipping severity of a continental winter: though now but the
+beginning of November, a north wind had thus early brought a wintry
+blight over Europe: I remember the black stoves pleased me little when
+I first came; but now I began to associate with them a sense of
+comfort, and liked them, as in England we like a fireside.
+
+Sitting down before this dark comforter, I presently fell into a deep
+argument with myself on life and its chances, on destiny and her
+decrees. My mind, calmer and stronger now than last night, made for
+itself some imperious rules, prohibiting under deadly penalties all
+weak retrospect of happiness past; commanding a patient journeying
+through the wilderness of the present, enjoining a reliance on faith--
+a watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue while they guide, and
+awe while they illumine--hushing the impulse to fond idolatry,
+checking the longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose rivers
+are, perhaps, never to be, reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet
+pastures are to be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit
+of a Nebo.
+
+By degrees, a composite feeling of blended strength and pain wound
+itself wirily round my heart, sustained, or at least restrained, its
+throbbings, and made me fit for the day's work. I lifted my head.
+
+As I said before, I was sitting near the stove, let into the wall
+beneath the refectory and the carré, and thus sufficing to heat both
+apartments. Piercing the same wall, and close beside the stove, was a
+window, looking also into the carré; as I looked up a cap-tassel, a
+brow, two eyes, filled a pane of that window; the fixed gaze of those
+two eyes hit right against my own glance: they were watching me. I had
+not till that moment known that tears were on my cheek, but I felt
+them now.
+
+This was a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion,
+where not a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was
+at hand to note and to divine. And this new, this out-door, this male
+spy, what business had brought him to the premises at this unwonted
+hour? What possible right had he to intrude on me thus? No other
+professor would have dared to cross the carré before the class-bell
+rang. M. Emanuel took no account of hours nor of claims: there was
+some book of reference in the first-class library which he had
+occasion to consult; he had come to seek it: on his way he passed the
+refectory. It was very much his habit to wear eyes before, behind, and
+on each side of him: he had seen me through the little window--he now
+opened the refectory door, and there he stood.
+
+"Mademoiselle, vous êtes triste."
+
+"Monsieur, j'en ai bien le droit."
+
+"Vous êtes malade de coeur et d'humeur," he pursued. "You are at once
+mournful and mutinous. I see on your cheek two tears which I know are
+hot as two sparks, and salt as two crystals of the sea. While I speak
+you eye me strangely. Shall I tell you of what I am reminded while
+watching you?"
+
+"Monsieur, I shall be called away to prayers shortly; my time for
+conversation is very scant and brief at this hour--excuse----"
+
+"I excuse everything," he interrupted; "my mood is so meek, neither
+rebuff nor, perhaps, insult could ruffle it. You remind me, then, of a
+young she wild creature, new caught, untamed, viewing with a mixture
+of fire and fear the first entrance of the breaker-in."
+
+Unwarrantable accost!--rash and rude if addressed to a pupil; to a
+teacher inadmissible. He thought to provoke a warm reply; I had seen
+him vex the passionate to explosion before now. In me his malice
+should find no gratification; I sat silent.
+
+"You look," said he, "like one who would snatch at a draught of sweet
+poison, and spurn wholesome bitters with disgust.
+
+"Indeed, I never liked bitters; nor do I believe them wholesome. And
+to whatever is sweet, be it poison or food, you cannot, at least, deny
+its own delicious quality--sweetness. Better, perhaps, to die quickly
+a pleasant death, than drag on long a charmless life."
+
+"Yet," said he, "you should take your bitter dose duly and daily, if I
+had the power to administer it; and, as to the well-beloved poison, I
+would, perhaps, break the very cup which held it."
+
+I sharply turned my head away, partly because his presence utterly
+displeased me, and partly because I wished to shun questions: lest, in
+my present mood, the effort of answering should overmaster self-
+command.
+
+"Come," said he, more softly, "tell me the truth--you grieve at being
+parted from friends--is it not so?"
+
+The insinuating softness was not more acceptable than the
+inquisitorial curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down
+on the bench about two yards from me, and persevered long, and, for
+him, patiently, in attempts to draw me into conversation--attempts
+necessarily unavailing, because I _could_ not talk. At last I
+entreated to be let alone. In uttering the request, my voice faltered,
+my head sank on my arms and the table. I wept bitterly, though
+quietly. He sat a while longer. I did not look up nor speak, till the
+closing door and his retreating step told me that he was gone. These
+tears proved a relief.
+
+I had time to bathe my eyes before breakfast, and I suppose I appeared
+at that meal as serene as any other person: not, however, quite as
+jocund-looking as the young lady who placed herself in the seat
+opposite mine, fixed on me a pair of somewhat small eyes twinkling
+gleefully, and frankly stretched across the table a white hand to be
+shaken. Miss Fanshawe's travels, gaieties, and flirtations agreed with
+her mightily; she had become quite plump, her cheeks looked as round
+as apples. I had seen her last in elegant evening attire. I don't know
+that she looked less charming now in her school-dress, a kind of
+careless peignoir of a dark-blue material, dimly and dingily plaided
+with black. I even think this dusky wrapper gave her charms a triumph;
+enhancing by contrast the fairness of her skin, the freshness of her
+bloom, the golden beauty of her tresses.
+
+"I am glad you are come back, Timon," said she. Timon was one of her
+dozen names for me. "You don't know how often I have wanted you in
+this dismal hole."
+
+"Oh, have you? Then, of course, if you wanted me, you have something
+for me to do: stockings to mend, perhaps." I never gave Ginevra a
+minute's or a farthing's credit for disinterestedness.
+
+"Crabbed and crusty as ever!" said she. "I expected as much: it would
+not be you if you did not snub one. But now, come, grand-mother, I
+hope you like coffee as much, and pistolets as little as ever: are you
+disposed to barter?"
+
+"Take your own way."
+
+This way consisted in a habit she had of making me convenient. She did
+not like the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being
+strong or sweet enough to suit her palate; and she had an excellent
+appetite, like any other healthy school-girl, for the morning
+pistolets or rolls, which were new-baked and very good, and of which a
+certain allowance was served to each. This allowance being more than I
+needed, I gave half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, though
+many others used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would
+sometimes give me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of
+the draught; hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don't
+know why I chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another;
+nor why, if two had to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel,
+as sometimes happened--for instance, when we took a long walk into the
+country, and halted for refreshment at a farm--I always contrived that
+she should be my convive, and rather liked to let her take the lion's
+share, whether of the white beer, the sweet wine, or the new milk: so
+it was, however, and she knew it; and, therefore, while we wrangled
+daily, we were never alienated.
+
+After breakfast my custom was to withdraw to the first classe, and sit
+and read, or think (oftenest the latter) there alone, till the nine-
+o'clock bell threw open all doors, admitted the gathered rush of
+externes and demi-pensionnaires, and gave the signal for entrance on
+that bustle and business to which, till five P.M., there was no relax.
+
+I was just seated this morning, when a tap came to the door.
+
+"Pardon, Mademoiselle," said a pensionnaire, entering gently; and
+having taken from her desk some necessary book or paper, she withdrew
+on tip-toe, murmuring as she passed me, "Que mademoiselle est
+appliquée!"
+
+Appliquée, indeed! The means of application were spread before me, but
+I was doing nothing; and had done nothing, and meant to do nothing.
+Thus does the world give us credit for merits we have not. Madame Beck
+herself deemed me a regular bas-bleu, and often and solemnly used to
+warn me not to study too much, lest "the blood should all go to my
+head." Indeed, everybody in the Rue Fossette held a superstition that
+"Meess Lucie" was learned; with the notable exception of M. Emanuel,
+who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite inscrutable to me, had
+obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used
+to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee
+over their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about
+this penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great
+pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those
+on whose style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly
+stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever
+and meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was
+concerned, God had limited its powers and, its action--thankful, I
+trust, for the gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments,
+not restlessly eager after higher culture.
+
+The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without
+tap, in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known
+who this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told
+with wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my
+co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment.
+When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German
+would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous
+Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the
+playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the "Pas de Géant," or
+to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called "Un, deux,
+trois," were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little
+attentions had ceased some time ago--ceased, too, without my finding
+it necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I
+had now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one
+quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe
+made no scruple of--at times--catching me as I was crossing the carré,
+whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the
+mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra
+Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon "my learned leisure." She
+carried a huge music-book under her arm.
+
+"Go to your practising," said I to her at once: "away with you to the
+little salon!"
+
+"Not till I have had a talk with you, chère amie. I know where you
+have been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced
+sacrificing to the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I
+saw you at the concert the other night, dressed, actually, like
+anybody else. Who is your tailleuse?"
+
+"Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!--a fiddlestick!
+Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don't want your company."
+
+"But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little
+reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manoeuvre
+with our gifted compatriote--the learned 'ourse Britannique.' And so,
+Ourson, you know Isidore?"
+
+"I know John Bretton."
+
+"Oh, hush!" (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums
+with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell
+me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my
+behaviour the other night? Wasn't I cruel?"
+
+"Do you think I noticed you?"
+
+"It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to
+watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady--
+my future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little
+rude in quizzing her."
+
+"Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what _you_ did,
+don't make yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive
+_your_ sneer."
+
+"She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me
+what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up."
+
+"He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal."
+
+"Did he?" she cried with delight. "He noticed that? How charming! I
+thought he would be mad with jealousy?"
+
+"Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to
+give you up?"
+
+"Oh! you know he _can't_ do that: but wasn't he mad?"
+
+"Quite mad," I assented; "as mad as a March hare."
+
+"Well, and how _ever_ did you get him home?"
+
+"How _ever_, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me?
+Fancy us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between
+us, fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong,
+somehow, and we lost our way."
+
+"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe--"
+
+"I assure you it is fact--and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would
+_not_ stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and _would_ ride
+outside."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards--when he _did_ reach home--the scene transcends
+description."
+
+"Oh, but describe it--you know it is such fun!"
+
+"Fun for _you_, Miss Fanshawe? but" (with stern gravity) you know
+the proverb--'What is sport to one may be death to another.'"
+
+"Go on, there's a darling Timon."
+
+"Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart."
+
+"I have--such an immensity, you don't know!"
+
+"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton
+rejecting his supper in the first instance--the chicken, the
+sweetbread prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched.
+Then----but it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing
+details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and
+moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the sheets
+about him as she had that night."
+
+"He wouldn't lie still?"
+
+"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in,
+but the thing was to keep them tucked in."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra,
+anathematizing that demon, de Hamal--raving about golden locks, blue
+eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"
+
+"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"
+
+"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the
+first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has
+encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we
+will have an end of this. Go away to your practising."
+
+And I opened the door.
+
+"But you have not told me all."
+
+"You had better not wait until I _do_ tell you all. Such extra
+communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!"
+
+"Cross thing!" said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe
+was my territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of
+quittance from me.
+
+Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her
+than I was then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast
+between the reality and my description--to remember Dr. John enjoying
+the drive home, eating his supper with relish, and retiring to rest
+with Christian composure. It was only when I saw him really unhappy
+that I felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of his suffering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of
+school, and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of
+custom. One afternoon, in crossing the carré, on my way to the first
+classe, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of "style and
+literature," I saw, standing by one of the long and large windows,
+Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as usual, was quite nonchalante.
+She always "stood at ease;" one of her hands rested in her apron-
+pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter, whereof
+Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately studied the
+seal.
+
+A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain
+in its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last
+night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I
+should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that
+white envelope, with the spot of red wax in the middle, I know not.
+No; I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from
+Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp
+of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the
+Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him.
+Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the
+class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps,
+exempt me from notice; but, if caught lingering in the carré, I should
+be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated,
+to enforce perfect silence, to take out my work, and to commence it
+amidst the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. Emanuel entered
+with his vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant
+bow, prophetic of choler.
+
+As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of
+flashing lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career
+halted midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window,
+his back to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look--such a look as
+might have licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant--
+a look of scowling distrust.
+
+"Voilà! pour vous," said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and
+placing on my desk a letter--the very letter I had seen in Rosine's
+hand--the letter whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop's-eye
+of vermilion-red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the
+retina of an inward vision. I knew it, I felt it to be the letter of
+my hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the
+ransom from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his unwarrantably
+interfering habits, had taken from the portress, and now delivered it
+himself.
+
+I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes:
+I held in my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at
+least, contain a sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial,
+satisfying. And here was the direction, "Miss Lucy Snowe," in a clean,
+clear, equal, decided hand; and here was the seal, round, full, deftly
+dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well-cut impress of
+initials, "J. G. B." I experienced a happy feeling--a glad emotion
+which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For
+once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid
+joy: not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy
+chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot
+live; not a mess of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago--which,
+indeed, at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and
+preternatural sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely
+loathe; longing deliriously for natural and earth-grown food, wildly
+praying Heaven's Spirits to reclaim their own spirit-dew and essence--
+an aliment divine, but for mortals deadly. It was neither sweet hail
+nor small coriander-seed--neither slight wafer, nor luscious honey, I
+had lighted on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter,
+nourishing and salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh,
+healthful, and life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch
+demanded of his son Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his
+last breath. It was a godsend; and I inwardly thanked the God who had
+vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked man, crying, "Thank you, thank
+you, Monsieur!"
+
+Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and
+strode to his estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man,
+though he had good points.
+
+Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once
+and with haste, as if Esau's shaft flew every day?
+
+I knew better. The cover with its address--the seal, with its three
+clear letters--was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from
+the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept
+locked by day. I went to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling
+lest Madame should creep up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer,
+unlocked a box, and took out a case, and--having feasted my eyes with
+one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame
+and delight, to my lips--I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair
+and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up box
+and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,
+feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream.
+Strange, sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had
+not yet read: did not yet know the number of its lines.
+
+When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a
+pestilence! Some pupil had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to
+suit his ear and taste, and now she and others were weeping, and he
+was raving from his estrade, almost livid. Curious to mention, as I
+appeared, he fell on me.
+
+"Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the
+conduct befitting ladies?--and did I permit and, he doubted not,
+encourage them to strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to
+mince and mash it between their teeth, as if they had some base cause
+to be ashamed of the words they uttered? Was this modesty? He knew
+better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment--the offspring or the
+forerunner of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing,
+this mincing and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this
+general affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the
+first class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable petites
+maîtresses, and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of
+the third division."
+
+What could I say to all this? Really nothing; and I hoped he would
+allow me to be silent. The storm recommenced.
+
+"Every answer to his queries was then refused? It seemed to be
+considered in _that_ place--that conceited boudoir of a first
+classe, with its pretentious book-cases, its green-baized desks, its
+rubbish of flower-stands, its trash of framed pictures and maps, and
+its foreign surveillante, forsooth!--it seemed to be the fashion to
+think _there_ that the Professor of Literature was not worthy of
+a reply! These were new ideas; imported, he did not doubt, straight
+from 'la Grande Bretagne:' they savoured of island insolence and
+arrogance."
+
+Lull the second--the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a
+tear for the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like snow-
+statues before the intemperate heat of M. Emanuel: I not yet much
+shaken, sitting down, and venturing to resume my work.
+
+Something--either in my continued silence or in the movement of my
+hand, stitching--transported M. Emanuel beyond the last boundary of
+patience; he actually sprang from his estrade. The stove stood near my
+desk, he attacked it; the little iron door was nearly dashed from its
+hinges, the fuel was made to fly.
+
+"Est-ce que vous avez l'intention de m'insulter?" said he to me, in a
+low, furious voice, as he thus outraged, under pretence of arranging
+the fire.
+
+It was time to soothe him a little if possible.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur," said I, "I would not insult you for the world. I
+remember too well that you once said we should be friends."
+
+I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think,
+through the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present
+fear. Still there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger--a kind
+of passion of emotion--that specially tended to draw tears. I was not
+unhappy, nor much afraid, yet I wept.
+
+"Allons, allons!" said he presently, looking round and seeing the
+deluge universal. "Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only
+one pocket-handkerchief," he added, "but if I had twenty, I would
+offer you each one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here,
+Miss Lucy."
+
+And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a
+person who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his
+impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer--declined
+accepting the same--et cetera. But I too plainly felt this would never
+do: the slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient
+treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief half-way, received it
+with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my seat, and
+retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial
+care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor
+thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast
+at these implements; he hated them mortally, considering sewing a
+source of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very
+eloquent lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the
+close. Ere he had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining
+out--tears were exchanged for smiles.
+
+In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.
+
+"And your letter?" said he, this time not quite fiercely.
+
+"I have not yet read it, Monsieur."
+
+"Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a
+boy, I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?"
+
+The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-
+rising warmth in my face from revealing as much.
+
+"You promise yourself a pleasant moment," said he, "in reading that
+letter; you will open it when alone--n'est-ce pas? Ah! a smile
+answers. Well, well! one should not be too harsh; 'la jeunesse n'a
+qu'un temps.'"
+
+"Monsieur, Monsieur!" I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he
+turned to go, "do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a
+friend's letter. Without reading it, I can vouch for that."
+
+"Je conçois, je conçois: on sait ce que c'est qu'un ami. Bonjour,
+Mademoiselle!"
+
+"But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief."
+
+"Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall
+read the billet's tenor in your eyes."
+
+When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the
+schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to
+take their customary recreation before the five-o'clock dinner, I
+stood a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round
+my arm. For some reason--gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the
+golden glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its
+buoyancy, made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above
+all, solaced at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in
+the case, box, drawer up-stairs,--I fell to playing with the
+handkerchief as if it were a ball, casting it into the air and
+catching it--as it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than
+mine-a hand emerging from a paletôt-sleeve and stretched over my
+shoulder; it caught the extemporised plaything and bore it away with
+these sullen words:
+
+"Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets."
+
+Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and,
+ubiquity: one never knew either his whim or his whereabout.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy
+recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of
+study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the
+clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame
+was safely settled in the salle-à-manger in company with her mother
+and some friends; I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for
+one half-hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my
+petition at the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, "Mais
+certainement, chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;" and,
+light in hand, I mounted noiseless to the dormitory.
+
+Great was my chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed
+indisposed,--greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap
+borders, the "figure chiffonnée" of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine
+at this moment, it is true--but certain to wake and overwhelm me with
+chatter when the interruption would be least acceptable: indeed, as I
+watched her, a slight twinkling of the eyelids warned me that the
+present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, assumed to cover sly
+vigilance over "Timon's" movements; she was not to be trusted. And I
+had so wished to be alone, just to read my precious letter in peace.
+
+Well, I must go to the classes. Having sought and found my prize in
+its casket, I descended. Ill-luck pursued me. The classes were
+undergoing sweeping and purification by candle-light, according to
+hebdomadal custom: benches were piled on desks, the air was dim with
+dust, damp coffee-grounds (used by Labassecourien housemaids instead
+of tea-leaves) darkened the floor; all was hopeless confusion.
+Baffled, but not beaten, I withdrew, bent as resolutely as ever on
+finding solitude _somewhere_.
+
+Taking a key whereof I knew the repository, I mounted three staircases
+in succession, reached a dark, narrow, silent landing, opened a worm-
+eaten door, and dived into the deep, black, cold garret. Here none
+would follow me--none interrupt--not Madame herself. I shut the
+garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of
+drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter;
+trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal.
+
+"Will it be long--will it be short?" thought I, passing my hand across
+my eyes to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south-wind
+shower.
+
+It was long.
+
+"Will it be cool?--will it be kind?"
+
+It was kind.
+
+To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind:
+to my longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it
+was.
+
+So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fulness of
+delight in this taste of fruition--such, perhaps, as many a human
+being passes through life without ever knowing. The poor English
+teacher in the frosty garret, reading by a dim candle guttering in the
+wintry air, a letter simply good-natured--nothing more; though that
+good-nature then seemed to me godlike--was happier than most queens in
+palaces.
+
+Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could be but brief; yet,
+while it lasted it was genuine and exquisite: a bubble--but a sweet
+bubble--of real honey-dew. Dr. John had written to me at length; he
+had written to me with pleasure; he had written with benignant mood,
+dwelling with sunny satisfaction on scenes that had passed before his
+eyes and mine,--on places we had visited together--on conversations we
+had held--on all the little subject-matter, in short, of the last few
+halcyon weeks. But the cordial core of the delight was, a conviction
+the blithe, genial language generously imparted, that it had been
+poured out not merely to content _me_--but to gratify _himself_.
+A gratification he might never more desire, never more seek--an
+hypothesis in every point of view approaching the certain; but _that_
+concerned the future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no want;
+full, pure, perfect, it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph seemed to have
+rested beside me, leaned towards my heart, and reposed on its throb a
+softening, cooling, healing, hallowing wing. Dr. John, you pained me
+afterwards: forgiven be every ill--freely forgiven--for the sake of that
+one dear remembered good!
+
+Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there
+evil influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was
+near me?
+
+Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely
+and certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor: a
+sort of gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by
+the malefactor cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was long--
+but as I live! I saw in the middle of that ghostly chamber a figure
+all black and white; the skirts straight, narrow, black; the head
+bandaged, veiled, white.
+
+Say what you will, reader--tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I
+was unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I
+dreamed; this I vow--I saw there--in that room--on that night--an
+image like--a NUN.
+
+I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have
+swooned. It receded: I made for the door. How I descended all the
+stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my
+course to Madame's sitting-room: I burst in. I said--
+
+"There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw
+something. Go and look at it, all of you!"
+
+I said, "All of you;" for the room seemed to me full of people, though
+in truth there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame
+Kint, who was out of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her
+brother, M. Victor Kint, and another gentleman, who, when I entered
+the room, was conversing with the old lady, and had his back towards
+the door.
+
+My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt
+cold and shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me.
+I urged them to go to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me
+good and gave me courage: it seemed as if there were some help and
+hope, with men at hand. I turned to the door, beckoning them to
+follow. They wanted to stop me, but I said they must come this way:
+they must see what I had seen---something strange, standing in the
+middle of the garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the
+drawers with the light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be
+defied for its sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew
+I was followed: they were obliged to come.
+
+Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the
+light was out. Happily some one--Madame, I think, with her usual calm
+sense--had brought a lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they
+came up, a ray pierced the opaque blackness. There stood the bougie
+quenched on the drawers; but where was the letter? And I looked for
+_that_ now, and not for the nun.
+
+"My letter! my letter!" I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I
+groped on the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To
+have my bit of comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had
+well tasted its virtue!
+
+I don't know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they
+asked me questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they
+prattled about this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or
+crack in the sky-light--I know not what. "Something or somebody has
+been here," was sagely averred.
+
+"Oh! they have taken my letter!" cried the grovelling, groping,
+monomaniac.
+
+"What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?" asked a known voice in
+my ear. Could I believe that ear? No: and I looked up. Could I trust
+my eyes? Had I recognised the tone? Did I now look on the face of the
+writer of that very letter? Was this gentleman near me in this dim
+garret, John Graham--Dr. Bretton himself?
+
+Yes: it was. He had been called in that very evening to prescribe for
+some access of illness in old Madame Kint; he was the second gentleman
+present in the salle-à-manger when I entered.
+
+"Was it _my_ letter, Lucy?"
+
+"Your own: yours--the letter you wrote to me. I had come here to read
+it quietly. I could not find another spot where it was possible to
+have it to myself. I had saved it all day--never opened it till this
+evening: it was scarcely glanced over: I _cannot bear_ to lose
+it. Oh, my letter!"
+
+"Hush! don't cry and distress yourself so cruelly. What is it worth?
+Hush! Come out of this cold room; they are going to send for the
+police now to examine further: we need not stay here--come, we will go
+down."
+
+A warm hand, taking my cold fingers, led me down to a room where there
+was a fire. Dr. John and I sat before the stove. He talked to me and
+soothed me with unutterable goodness, promising me twenty letters for
+the one lost. If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep-
+inflicted lacerations never heal--cutting injuries and insults of
+serrated and poison-dripping edge--so, too, there are consolations of
+tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their
+echo: caressing kindnesses--loved, lingered over through a whole life,
+recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed
+shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. I have
+been told since that Dr. Bretton was not nearly so perfect as I
+thought him: that his actual character lacked the depth, height,
+compass, and endurance it possessed in my creed. I don't know: he was
+as good to me as the well is to the parched wayfarer--as the sun to
+the shivering jailbird. I remember him heroic. Heroic at this moment
+will I hold him to be.
+
+He asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I
+thought, but did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins.
+I only answered that I had so few letters to care for.
+
+"I am sure you did not read it," said he; "or you would think nothing
+of it!"
+
+"I read it, but only once. I want to read it again. I am sorry it is
+lost." And I could not help weeping afresh.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a
+relationship), here--_here_ is your letter. Why is it not better
+worth such tears, and such tenderly exaggerating faith?"
+
+Curious, characteristic manoeuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter
+on the floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it
+up. He had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had
+wrought with a whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would
+ever have acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree
+cooler than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.
+
+Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing
+torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it
+broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.
+
+"Are you satisfied now?" asked Dr. John.
+
+I replied that I was--satisfied and happy.
+
+"Well then," he proceeded, "how do you feel physically? Are you
+growing calmer? Not much: for you tremble like a leaf still."
+
+It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I
+felt no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.
+
+"You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was
+quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only
+spoke of 'something,' not defining _what_. Was it a man? Was it
+an animal? What was it?"
+
+"I never will tell exactly what I saw," said I, "unless some one else
+sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but
+otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming."
+
+"Tell me," said Dr. Bretton; "I will hear it in my professional
+character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I
+read, perhaps, all you would conceal--in your eye, which is curiously
+vivid and restless: in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in
+your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me."
+
+"You would laugh--?"
+
+"If you don't tell me you shall have no more letters."
+
+"You are laughing now."
+
+"I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I
+have a right to reclaim it."
+
+I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded
+up the letter and covered it from sight.
+
+"You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don't
+know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I
+liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property
+of tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me--did you, Lucy?"
+
+"Indeed--indeed--when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more
+then than now--for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with
+subtlety. But still,--Dr. John, you have what they call in this
+country 'un air fin,' that nobody can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it,
+and---"
+
+"And liked it," said he, laughing, "because she has it herself. But,
+Lucy, give me that letter--you don't really care for it"
+
+To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood
+must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile
+playing about his lips--very sweet, but it grieved me somehow--a new
+sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring.
+I rose to go--I bid him good-night a little sadly.
+
+His sensitiveness--that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of
+his--felt in a moment the unspoken complaint--the scarce-thought
+reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as
+implying a negative.
+
+"Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go.
+You are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent
+in your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone
+this evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret--that dungeon
+under the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and
+catarrh: a place you never ought to enter--that you saw, or
+_thought_ you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to
+impress the imagination. I know that you _are_ not, nor ever
+were, subject to material terrors, fears of robbers, &c.--I am not so
+sure that a visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake
+your very mind. Be calm now. This is all a matter of the nerves, I
+see: but just specify the vision."
+
+"You will tell nobody?"
+
+"Nobody--most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did
+Père Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the
+two, though he has not grey hair."
+
+"You will not laugh?"
+
+"Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a
+friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust."
+
+He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were
+gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were
+depressed; repose marked his attitude--attention sobered his aspect.
+Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had
+narrated to him the legend of the house--whiling away with that
+narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when be and I
+rode through Bois l'Etang.
+
+He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming
+down-stairs.
+
+"Are they going to interrupt?" said he, glancing at the door with an
+annoyed expression.
+
+"They will not come here," I answered; for we were in the little salon
+where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance
+that heat was still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and
+went on to the salle-à-manger.
+
+"Now," he pursued, "they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on:
+let them do so--mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of
+describing your nun to nobody. She may appear to you again: don't
+start."
+
+"You think then," I said, with secret horror, "she came out of my
+brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour
+and a day when I look not for her?"
+
+"I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and
+resulting from long-continued mental conflict."
+
+"Oh, Doctor John--I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an
+illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?--no preventive?"
+
+"Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate
+both."
+
+No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being
+told to _cultivate_ happiness. What does such advice mean?
+Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with
+manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven.
+She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings,
+feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of
+Paradise.
+
+"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do _you_
+cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
+
+"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged
+me. Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but
+we defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
+
+"There is no cultivation in all this."
+
+"I do not give way to melancholy."
+
+"Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling."
+
+"About Ginevra Fanshawe--eh?"
+
+"Did she not sometimes make you miserable?"
+
+"Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now."
+
+If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming
+and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he
+certainly was.
+
+"You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition," I allowed.
+
+"And why, Lucy, can't you look and feel as I do--buoyant, courageous,
+and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give
+gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the
+manoeuvre."
+
+"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"
+
+"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by
+one thing--true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness
+at no less a price."
+
+"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
+since."
+
+"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
+but I am a free man now!"
+
+He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
+his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
+more than ease--a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling
+which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
+disposed to exact love for love--passion for passion--and good measure
+of it, too."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
+difficulties--to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".
+
+He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
+sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his
+gloves), "will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"
+
+"I don't think she will."
+
+"Give her my compliments, if she does--Dr. John's compliments--and
+entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
+she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that
+yet; and _that_ is the really important point."
+
+"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes
+glittered."
+
+"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at
+least she had handsome eyes--bright and soft."
+
+"Cold and fixed," was the reply.
+
+"No, no, we'll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
+that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand
+_that_, do you think?"
+
+I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
+smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
+believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to
+very little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
+Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual:
+and as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture
+was rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a
+heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very
+closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
+clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word "nun," certain
+that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance
+and unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any
+servant, pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in
+coming to her private salle-à-manger, instead of carrying the tale of
+horror to the school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left
+secretly and sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange
+thing was of this world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether
+indeed it was only the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+VASHTI.
+
+
+To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
+life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
+dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist:
+its turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes
+a wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
+down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
+pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
+which till now the starved hollow never saw.
+
+A new creed became mine--a belief in happiness.
+
+It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
+in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
+four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
+the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
+seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
+enough--pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
+two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
+"by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued." Time, dear reader,
+mellowed them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first
+tasted their elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice
+of a divine vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very
+gods approve.
+
+Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to
+ask how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting
+check of Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
+
+To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
+down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine.
+I wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
+for Graham's perusal.
+
+To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
+her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the
+ink an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere
+heart. When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the
+language of a strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active
+gratitude--(once, for all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the
+utmost scorn, every sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer
+feelings:" women do not entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from
+the commencement, through the whole progress of an acquaintance, they
+have never once been cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be
+to commit a mortal absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he
+has seen or dreamed the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled
+waters)--when, then, I had given expression to a closely-clinging and
+deeply-honouring attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to
+itself and take to its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of
+its object; that would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away
+all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of
+solicitude--then, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would
+shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and
+revengeful, snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up,
+re-write, fold, seal, direct, and send a terse, curt missive of a page.
+She did right.
+
+I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after;
+once a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of.
+Dr. Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep
+away the nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her
+prey. He had taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly
+on account of that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the
+moment he heard of those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate
+disgust had incited him to oppose her; he was determined to try
+whether he or she was the cleverest, and he only wished she would once
+more look in upon me when he was present:" but _that_ she never
+did. In short, he regarded me scientifically in the light of a
+patient, and at once exercised his professional skill, and gratified
+his natural benevolence, by a course of cordial and attentive
+treatment.
+
+One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
+carré; it was six o'clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
+the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
+counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carré was quite dark, except a
+red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
+the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
+here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
+scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
+night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
+darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
+thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
+behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
+landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
+leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
+in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still--a shape that
+moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
+glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant door-
+bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was too
+round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.
+
+"Mademoiselle Lucy!" cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
+corridor, "on est là pour vous au salon."
+
+Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
+recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
+anticipated I should find--Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.
+
+"The carriage is at the door," said he; "my mother has sent it to take
+you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has
+prevented her: she immediately said, 'Take Lucy in my place.' Will you
+go?"
+
+"Just now? I am not dressed," cried I, glancing despairingly at my
+dark merino.
+
+"You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
+only determined on going since five o'clock, when I heard there was to
+be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress."
+
+And he mentioned a name that thrilled me--a name that, in those days,
+could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are
+all still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and
+oblivion long since closed above her; but _then_ her day--a day
+of Sirius--stood at its full height, light and fervour.
+
+"I'll go; I will be ready in ten minutes," I vowed. And away I flew,
+never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this
+moment checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without
+Mrs. Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much
+less have expressed to Graham, such thought--such scruple--without
+risk of exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire
+of shame so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon
+have licked up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother,
+knowing her son, and knowing me, would as soon have thought of
+chaperoning a sister with a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over
+our incomings and outgoings.
+
+The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
+suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
+dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
+changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
+crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier--my crape
+amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
+fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
+reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
+garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point
+there shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it
+shone, that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the
+tarnished scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before
+my eyes, it vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of
+the garret became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not
+time nor will; snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily
+near the door, I rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste,
+and darted downwards to the dormitory.
+
+But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
+fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed
+her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed
+and plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the
+lace collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately--
+in short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when
+she those. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the
+candle and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my
+shawl; she ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the
+vestibule, waiting.
+
+"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is
+the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"
+
+But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a
+second illusion. He was sceptical.
+
+"She has been, as sure as I live," said he; "her figure crossing your
+eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be
+mistaken."
+
+"She has _not_ been," I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her
+apparition with truth.
+
+"The old symptoms are there," he affirmed: "a particular pale, and
+what the Scotch call a 'raised' look."
+
+He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really
+_had_ seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect
+of the same cause: it was all optical illusion--nervous malady, and so
+on. Not one bit did I believe him; but I dared not contradict: doctors
+are so self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.
+
+Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The theatre was full--crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there:
+palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so
+thronged and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having
+a place before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I
+had heard reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I
+wondered if she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with
+feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She
+was a study of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great
+and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.
+
+She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her
+come. She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but
+that star verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a
+chaos--hollow, half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing--half lava,
+half glow.
+
+I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness
+and grimness--something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the
+shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale
+now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.
+
+For awhile--a long while--I thought it was only a woman, though an
+unique woman, Who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-
+and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something
+neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These
+evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength
+--for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir
+deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit!
+They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to
+the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask.
+Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.
+
+It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.
+
+It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.
+
+Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand;
+bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the
+public--a milder condiment for a people's palate--than Vashti torn by
+seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they
+haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.
+
+Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her
+audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure,
+resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She
+stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular
+like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest
+crimson threw her out, white like alabaster--like silver: rather, be
+it said, like Death.
+
+Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and
+study this different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the
+muscle, the abounding blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all
+materialists draw nigh and look on.
+
+I have said that she does not _resent_ her grief. No; the
+weakness of that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes
+immediately embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked,
+worried down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she
+grapples to conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a
+tigress; she rends her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence.
+Pain, for her, has no result in good: tears water no harvest of
+wisdom: on sickness, on death itself, she looks with the eye of a
+rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong; and her
+strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at
+her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile as fair. Even in the
+uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement royally,
+imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in revel or
+war, is still an angel's hair, and glorious under a halo. Fallen,
+insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she rebelled.
+Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines, and
+discloses their forlorn remoteness.
+
+Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
+and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin
+clove the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let
+him rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the
+army of his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that
+slight rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
+spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
+sea-ramparts.
+
+Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look
+good: though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so
+much of unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of
+sacred essence descend one day from above?
+
+What thought Dr. Graham of this being?
+
+For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
+question what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart
+out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a
+fierce light, not solar--a rushing, red, cometary light--hot on vision
+and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like
+this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which
+outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely
+irritating imagination with the thought of what _might_ be done,
+at the same time fevering the nerves because it was _not_ done,
+disclosed power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in
+cataract, and bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly
+sweep of its descent.
+
+Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
+Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
+in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
+charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
+mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water,
+but, almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved
+him--metal could not grave, nor fire brand.
+
+Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
+action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his
+way, but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
+influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
+beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing
+summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, what was wild and intense,
+dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, and held with it
+no communion. When I took time and regained inclination to glance at
+him, it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching
+that sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor
+yet dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain
+him, her wild moan--worse than a shriek--did not much move him; her
+fury revolted him somewhat, but not to the point of horror. Cool young
+Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the
+tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian
+inspiration of that night.
+
+Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last
+I put a question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he
+awoke as if out of a dream; for he had been thinking, and very
+intently thinking, his own thoughts, after his own manner. "How did he
+like Vashti?" I wished to know.
+
+"Hm-m-m," was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and
+then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so
+critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order
+his sympathies _were_ callous. In a few terse phrases he told me
+his opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a
+woman, not an artist: it was a branding judgment.
+
+That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but
+with a deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other
+memoranda were destined to be set down in characters of tint
+indelible.
+
+Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the death-
+scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his under-lip,
+and knit his brow, and sat still and struck--when the whole theatre
+was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point, when all
+ears listened towards one quarter--nothing being seen but the white
+form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her worst-
+hated, her visibly-conquering foe--nothing heard but her throes, her
+gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as it
+seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame, bent
+it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground, sold
+every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every faculty,
+_would_ see, _would_ hear, _would_ breathe, _would_ live, up to,
+within, well-nigh _beyond_ the moment when death says to all
+sense and all being--"Thus far and no farther!"--
+
+Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes--feet
+ran, voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a
+smell of smoke replied.
+
+"Fire!" rang through the gallery. "Fire!" was repeated, re-echoed,
+yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came
+panic, rushing, crushing--a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.
+
+And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage
+and cordial calm.
+
+"Lucy will sit still, I know," said he, glancing down at me with the
+same serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in
+him when sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother's
+hearth. Yes, thus adjured, I think I would have sat still under a
+rocking crag: but, indeed, to sit still in actual circumstances was my
+instinct; and at the price of my very life, I would not have moved to
+give him trouble, thwart his will, or make demands on his attention.
+We were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there was a most
+terrible, ruthless pressure about us.
+
+"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not
+almost equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I
+see fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near,
+I could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some
+men. There is one yonder--Good God!"
+
+While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and
+steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from
+her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under
+the feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance.
+Graham rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though
+grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head
+and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
+
+"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.
+
+"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her,
+and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."
+
+"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor
+incumbrance."
+
+He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to
+rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I
+could not get between or over.
+
+"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.
+
+Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a
+wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the flesh-and-
+blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to the
+fresh, freezing night.
+
+"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when
+we got into the street.
+
+"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.
+
+"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my
+carriage."
+
+"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"
+
+"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."
+
+"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder!
+They trod just here."
+
+"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no
+worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."
+
+And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position
+for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay
+in his arms quietly and patiently.
+
+"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my
+ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"
+
+"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient,
+demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I
+get anxious."
+
+The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange
+from one bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again.
+
+"My darling!" said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, "You
+said, sir, you are a medical man?"
+
+"I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse."
+
+"Good. Will you step into my carriage?"
+
+"My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you."
+
+"Be pleased, then, to follow us." And he named his address: "The Hôtel
+Crécy, in the Rue Crécy."
+
+We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent.
+This seemed like an adventure.
+
+Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached
+the hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an
+hotel in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an
+inn--a vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading
+through a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.
+
+We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped
+at Numéro 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the
+abode of I know not what "prince Russe," as Graham informed me. On
+ringing the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite
+of very handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we
+entered a drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and
+whose walls gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a
+little group: a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women
+busy about it, the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.
+
+"Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me," said the girlish
+voice, faintly.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Hurst?" demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat
+sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.
+
+"I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave
+her leave till to-morrow."
+
+"Yes--I did--I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might
+go: I remember now," interposed the young lady; "but I am so sorry,
+for Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me
+without meaning to do so."
+
+Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they
+passed a few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and
+seeing what the faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it
+for her.
+
+I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was
+no less skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found
+that no further advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of
+the present case. He ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and
+whispered to me:--"Go with the women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you
+can at least direct their movements, and thus spare her some pain. She
+must be touched very tenderly."
+
+The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with
+curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like snow-
+drift and mist--spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand
+apart, I undressed their mistress, without their well-meaning but
+clumsy aid. I was not in a sufficiently collected mood to note with
+separate distinctness every detail of the attire I removed, but I
+received a general impression of refinement, delicacy, and perfect
+personal cultivation; which, in a period of after-thought, offered in
+my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained of Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe's appointments.
+
+The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a
+model. As I folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and
+soft, and so exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young,
+pale, weary, but high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the
+eyebrows were distinct, but soft, and melting to a mere trace at the
+temples; the eyes were a rich gift of nature--fine and full, large,
+deep, seeming to hold dominion over the slighter subordinate features
+--capable, probably, of much significance at another hour and under
+other circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering.
+Her skin was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the
+petals of a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this
+delicate exterior, and her lip wore a curl--I doubt not inherent and
+unconscious, but which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments
+of health and state, would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving
+in the little lady a quite mistaken view of life and her own
+consequence.
+
+Her demeanour under the Doctor's hands at first excited a smile; it
+was not puerile--rather, on the whole, patient and firm--but yet, once
+or twice she addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that
+he hurt her, and must contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large
+eyes, too, settle on his face like the solemn eyes of some pretty,
+wondering child. I know not whether Graham felt this examination: if
+be did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it by any
+retaliatory look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and
+gentleness, sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as
+much, when he had done, by the words:--"Thank you, Doctor, and good-
+night," very gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it
+was with a repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar
+in its gravity and intentness.
+
+The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her
+father received with a smile that almost made one his friend--it was
+so glad and gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with
+as much earnestness as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who
+has served him, but is yet a stranger; he also begged him to call the
+next day.
+
+"Papa," said a voice from the veiled couch, "thank the lady, too; is
+she there?"
+
+I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now
+at comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was
+delicately designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I
+believe custom might prove it to be soft.
+
+"I thank the lady very sincerely," said her father: "I fancy she has
+been very good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst
+who has been her substitute and done her work; she will feel at once
+ashamed and jealous."
+
+And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were
+interchanged; and refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by
+us, as it was late, refused, we withdrew from the Hôtel Crécy.
+
+On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness:
+the roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone--the damps, as well
+as the incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning's papers
+explained that it was but some loose drapery on which a spark had
+fallen, and which had blazed up and been quenched in a moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.
+
+
+Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the
+seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are
+liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory
+of their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably,
+perhaps, and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse--
+some congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural
+sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of
+communication--there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long
+blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and
+unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the
+visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other
+token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.
+
+Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but
+knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without
+are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which
+passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the
+wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest
+at milestones--that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and
+pants with hurry for his friends.
+
+The hermit--if he be a sensible hermit--will swallow his own thoughts,
+and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He
+will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the
+dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself,
+creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift
+which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the
+season.
+
+Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is."
+And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness
+will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of
+hedges, and carolling of birds, and singing of liberated streams, will
+call him to kindly resurrection. _Perhaps_ this may be the case,
+perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more;
+when spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his
+dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to
+be supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go
+the way of all flesh, "As well soon as syne."
+
+Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven
+weeks as bare as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on
+one of them; not a visit, not a token.
+
+About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had
+happened to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a
+beclouded point for the solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of
+long expectancy; the doubts hitherto repelled gather now to a mass
+and--strong in accumulation--roll back upon him with a force which
+savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an unkindly time, and
+sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and struggles harass
+his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of calamity,
+and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league
+against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a
+poor, pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best.
+
+Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through
+the other six I had jealously excluded--the conviction that these
+blanks were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate,
+a part of my life's lot and--above all--a matter about whose origin no
+question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever
+uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I
+had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile
+extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence,
+in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged
+them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for
+better days.
+
+I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I
+commenced an elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty
+hard, I undertook a course of regular reading of the driest and
+thickest books in the library; in all my efforts I was as orthodox as
+I knew how to be. Was there error somewhere? Very likely. I only know
+the result was as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank
+brine to quench thirst.
+
+My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
+well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
+knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
+disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that well-
+recognised ring.
+
+I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
+upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter. Oh!
+--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
+sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
+bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
+hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
+sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it
+like a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at
+my heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--
+the well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness
+in life I had to look for.
+
+In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
+the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
+month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
+was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every
+evening for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches
+to light it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and
+feasted on my crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me:
+I pined on it, and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.
+
+Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
+read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were
+losing all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves
+before my eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a
+quick tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step:
+she had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would
+come here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.
+
+Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
+her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
+drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
+recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
+humour seemed none of the best.
+
+"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people," she began.
+
+"Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house
+charming?"
+
+"I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley's."
+
+"Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?"
+
+"My uncle de Bassompierre is come."
+
+"Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?--I thought he was a
+favourite."
+
+"You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him."
+
+"Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?"
+
+"He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and
+had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a
+foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have
+left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man
+now."
+
+"Do you hate him for that reason?"
+
+"Don't I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but
+married mamma's sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt
+Ginevra with unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!"
+she went on. "I'll go no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into
+a room alone, and a great man fifty years old coming forwards, and
+after a few minutes' conversation actually turning his back upon me,
+and then abruptly going out of the room. Such odd ways! I daresay his
+conscience smote him, for they all say at home I am the picture of
+aunt Ginevra. Mamma often declares the likeness is quite ridiculous."
+
+"Were you the only visitor?"
+
+"The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little
+spoiled, pampered thing."
+
+"M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?"
+
+"Yes, yes: don't tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired."
+
+She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, "It
+seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the
+theatre some weeks ago."
+
+"Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crécy?"
+
+"Justement. How do _you_ know?"
+
+"I have been there."
+
+"Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose
+Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the _entrée_ of
+the de Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy
+on the occasion of her accident--Accident? Bah! All affectation! I
+don't think she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her
+airs. And now there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something
+about 'auld lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!"
+
+"_All!_ You said you were the only visitor."
+
+"Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her
+boy."
+
+"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"
+
+"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
+conceited doll it is!"
+
+Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the
+causes of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of
+incense, a diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention
+coquetry had failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She
+lay fuming in the vapours.
+
+"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.
+
+"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
+and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see
+the old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
+prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite
+sickening."
+
+"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been
+changed: if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."
+
+"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"
+
+"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
+mother never calls him so."
+
+"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."
+
+"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience
+is now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from
+that bed, and vacate this room."
+
+"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
+what always makes you so mighty testy à l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
+Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"
+
+Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly
+to have given vent--for there was no contending with that
+unsubstantial feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my
+taper, locked my bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me.
+Small-beer as she was, she had turned insufferably acid.
+
+The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
+withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
+nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
+spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
+would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
+lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
+me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
+entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
+so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and
+east owned a terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all
+sorrow sadder. The south could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless,
+indeed, they brought on their wings the burden of thunder-clouds,
+under the weight and warmth of which all energy died.
+
+Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the
+classe, and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long
+garden, and then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn
+hope that the postman's ring might occur while I was out of hearing,
+and I might thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or
+nerves, almost gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed
+idea, were becoming wholly unfit to support. I lingered as long as I
+dared without fear of attracting attention by my absence. I muffled my
+head in my apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing
+clang, sure to be followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum
+for me. At last I ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it
+was not yet nine o'clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing
+seen was a white object on my black desk, a white, flat object. The
+post had, indeed, arrived; by me unheard. Rosine had visited my cell,
+and, like some angel, had left behind her a bright token of her
+presence. That shining thing on the desk was indeed a letter, a real
+letter; I saw so much at the distance of three yards, and as I had but
+one correspondent on earth, from that one it must come. He remembered
+me yet. How deep a pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart.
+
+Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but
+almost certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on
+the contrary, an autograph for the moment deemed unknown--a pale
+female scrawl, instead of a firm, masculine character. I then thought
+fate was _too_ hard for me, and I said, audibly, "This is cruel."
+
+But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs:
+our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of
+what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be
+quite silenced.
+
+I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as
+perfectly familiar. It was dated "La Terrasse," and it ran thus:--
+
+"DEAR LUCY,--It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with
+yourself for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have
+the least difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I
+daresay you have been just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La
+Terrasse. As to Graham, his professional connection extends daily: he
+is so much sought after, so much engaged, that I tell him he will grow
+quite conceited. Like a right good mother, as I am, I do my best to
+keep him down: no flattery does he get from me, as you know. And yet,
+Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother's heart dances at the sight of
+him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and passing the
+ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices,
+and sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings--perhaps, occasionally, as I
+tell him, inflicting them--at night he still comes home to me in such
+kindly, pleasant mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral
+antipodes, and on these January evenings my day rises when other
+people's night sets in.
+
+"Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and
+I do him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such
+thing as vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him
+to the sullens, he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you
+know him and all his iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to
+make him the subject of this epistle.
+
+"As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have
+been plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to
+regain for Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He
+laughs to scorn my anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how
+he can provide for himself and me too, and asking what the old lady
+can possibly want that she has not; hinting about sky-blue turbans;
+accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, keep livery servants,
+have an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English clan in
+Villette.
+
+"Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other
+evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his
+tea, he threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To
+my great delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about
+being drowsy; I, who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.)
+While he slept, I thought he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to
+be so proud of him; but who can help it? Show me his peer. Look where
+I will, I see nothing like him in Villette. Well, I took it into my
+head to play him a trick: so I brought out the sky-blue turban, and
+handling it with gingerly precaution, I managed to invest his brows
+with this grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all misbecome
+him; he looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody,
+however, can accuse him of having red hair _now_--it is genuine
+chestnut--a dark, glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere
+about him, there was as fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as
+you would wish to see.
+
+"It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone:
+you should have been there.
+
+"In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon
+intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under
+threat and dread of vengeance.
+
+"But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a half-
+holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the afternoon,
+at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La Terrasse.
+Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by, my wise,
+dear, grave little god-daughter.--Very truly yours,
+
+"LOUISA BRETTON.".
+
+Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after
+reading that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered,
+perhaps, but relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no
+accident had occurred to Graham; no illness had seized his mother-
+calamities that had so long been my dream and thought. Their feelings
+for me too were--as they had been. Yet, how strange it was to look on
+Mrs: Bretton's seven weeks and contrast them with my seven weeks!
+Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional position
+to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position galls
+them! The world can understand well enough the process of perishing
+for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or follow out
+that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the long-buried
+prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!--how his senses left him--
+how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and then
+sunk to palsy--is a subject too intricate for examination, too
+abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might almost as
+well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings
+in that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial
+hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may
+the minds to whom such themes are no mystery--by whom their bearings
+are sympathetically seized--be few in number, and rare of rencounter.
+Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit
+compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When the world was younger
+and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper mystery still: perhaps
+in all the land of Israel there was but one Saul--certainly but one
+David to soothe or comprehend him.
+
+The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day,
+by a sharp breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over
+the temperate zone, and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and
+thick with snow, sailed up from the north, and settled over expectant
+Europe. Towards afternoon began the descent. I feared no carriage
+would come, the white tempest raged so dense and wild. But trust my
+godmother! Once having asked, she would have her guest. About six
+o'clock I was lifted from the carriage over the already blocked-up
+front steps of the château, and put in at the door of La Terrasse.
+
+Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room,
+there I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been
+twice as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have
+warmed me. Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards,
+black benches, desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me
+gorgeous. In its Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and
+crimson splendour which quite dazzled me.
+
+When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted
+with me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last
+saw me, she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my
+hair, and sent me up-stairs to make it neat and remove my shawl.
+
+Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright
+fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the
+great looking glass; but between the candles, and before the glass,
+appeared something dressing itself--an airy, fairy thing--small,
+slight, white--a winter spirit.
+
+I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral
+illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new
+vision. It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its
+girdle was red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining--a
+little wreath with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was
+nothing frightful, and I advanced.
+
+Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over
+me, the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened
+with their pencilling the orb they guarded.
+
+"Ah! you are come!" she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she
+smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
+
+I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that
+cast of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
+
+"Miss de Bassompierre," I pronounced.
+
+"No," was the reply, "not Miss de Bassompierre for _you!_" I did
+not inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
+
+"You are changed, but still you are yourself," she said, approaching
+nearer. "I remember you well--your countenance, the colour of your
+hair, the outline of your face...."
+
+I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me;
+and as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive
+of thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear
+vision.
+
+"It makes me almost cry to look so far back," said she: "but as to
+being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am
+quite pleased and glad."
+
+Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I
+stammered, "I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago,
+when you were hurt...?"
+
+She smiled. "You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee,
+been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer
+remember the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as
+I was, to your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the
+comfort and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back
+to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home."
+
+At last I saw it all. "And you are little Polly?"
+
+"I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre."
+
+How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features,
+her fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of
+interest and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful--not with
+the beauty that strikes the eye like a rose--orbed, ruddy, and
+replete; not with the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her
+blond cousin Ginevra; but her seventeen years had brought her a
+refined and tender charm which did not lie in complexion, though hers
+was fair and clear; nor in outline, though her features were sweet,
+and her limbs perfectly turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow
+from the soul outward. This was not an opaque vase, of material
+however costly, but a lamp chastely lucent, guarding from extinction,
+yet not hiding from worship, a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of
+her attractions, I would not exaggerate language; but, indeed, they
+seemed to me very real and engaging. What though all was on a small
+scale, it was the perfume which gave this white violet distinction,
+and made it superior to the broadest camelia--the fullest dahlia that
+ever bloomed.
+
+"Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?"
+
+"Better," said she, "better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with
+minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and
+the hours of the days."
+
+"You must have forgotten some things?"
+
+"Very little, I imagine."
+
+"You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere
+this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief,
+affection and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago."
+
+"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked
+them when a child?"
+
+"The sharpness must be gone--the point, the poignancy--the deep
+imprint must be softened away and effaced?"
+
+"I have a good memory for those days."
+
+She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can
+remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose
+youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and
+incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on
+another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement,
+and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I
+could not quite admit the conviction that _all_ the pictures
+which now crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond
+attachments, her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the
+patient, true devotion of her child's heart, her fears, her delicate
+reserves, her little trials, the last piercing pain of separation....
+I retraced these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted.
+"The child of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen," said
+she.
+
+"You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton," I remarked,
+intending to test her. She set me right at once.
+
+"Not _excessively_ fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her
+as I should do now: she seems to me very little altered."
+
+"She is not much changed," I assented.
+
+We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, "There
+are several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that
+pincushion and that looking-glass."
+
+Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not,
+at least, so far.
+
+"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.
+
+"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive
+complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."
+
+"Dr. Bretton, of course," I pursued, "would be out of the question:
+and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that
+he appeared to you as a stranger."
+
+"That first night I was puzzled," she answered.
+
+"How did the recognition between him and your father come about?"
+
+"They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de
+Bassompierre gave rise to questions and explanations. That was on the
+second day; but before then I was beginning to know something."
+
+"How--know something?"
+
+"Why," she said, "how strange it is that most people seem so slow to
+feel the truth--not to see, but _feel_! When Dr. Bretton had
+visited me a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had
+observed the look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the
+form of his chin, the carriage of his head, and all that we _do_
+observe in persons who approach us--how could I avoid being led by
+association to think of Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he,
+and not grown so tall, and had a smoother face, and longer and lighter
+hair, and spoke--not so deeply--more like a girl; but yet _he_ is
+Graham, just as _I_ am little Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe."
+
+I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are
+certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it
+seems a miracle when that chance befalls.
+
+"You and Graham were once playmates."
+
+"And do you remember that?" she questioned in her turn.
+
+"No doubt he will remember it also," said I.
+
+"I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find
+that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?"
+
+"Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?"
+
+"I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was
+studious; sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or
+disposed for play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not
+much heeding those with whom he read or amused himself."
+
+"Yet to you he was partial."
+
+"Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates--his school-fellows; I
+was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind
+on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary's,
+and his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still
+he was on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so
+patient with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be
+depended on, for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a
+constant fear that he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but
+he never did, nor seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it
+can be no more. I suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton's dining-out
+day....?"
+
+"Children, come down!" here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina
+would still have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
+
+
+Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our
+sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that
+evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winter-
+night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while women
+and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and imaginations
+are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons,
+forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of
+weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and
+stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the
+father, the son, the husband coming home.
+
+Father and son came at last to the château: for the Count de
+Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of
+our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the
+weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the
+two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance:
+both were white--two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton,
+seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen;
+prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted
+staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas
+they now affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help
+following them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and
+pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a circle about her
+equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying, "Papa, papa, you
+look like an enormous Polar bear."
+
+The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen
+shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing
+the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought,
+threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
+
+"Come, then," said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was
+playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some
+little chamois.
+
+Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten;
+her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took
+her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach
+his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving
+delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men
+_do_ look on what is the apple of their eye.
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said he: "what am I to do with this daughter or
+daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature.
+Don't you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten
+years ago?"
+
+"She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine," said Mrs.
+Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress
+she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against
+the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm's length.
+
+"Come, mamma," said he, "by way of compromise, and to secure for us
+inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup,
+and toast Old England here, on the hearth."
+
+So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced
+to and fro--happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen--Mrs.
+Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl,
+and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round,
+reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as
+Graham's christening-cup.
+
+"Here's to Auld Lang Syne!" said the Count; holding the glancing cup
+on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.--
+
+  "We twa ha' paidlet i' the burn
+      Fra morning sun till dine,
+  But seas between us braid ha' roared
+      Sin' auld lane syne.
+
+  "And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
+      And surely I'll be mine;
+  And we'll taste a cup o' kindness yet
+      For auld lang syne."
+
+"Scotch! Scotch!" cried Paulina; "papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch
+he is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and
+Gallic."
+
+"And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked
+her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in
+the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being
+quite cannie: she is a strange little mortal."
+
+"Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe."
+
+Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as
+of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying
+kindly, "he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less
+trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter's lips, and he had
+listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old
+acquaintance."
+
+Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de
+fée, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so
+profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked
+of her mortal privileges.
+
+"Let me taste," said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the
+shelf of the dresser out of her reach.
+
+Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John
+had not been unobservant of the fairy's dance; he had watched it, and
+he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the
+movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in
+his mother's house charmed him, for it set _him_ at ease: again
+she seemed a child for him--again, almost his playmate. I wondered how
+he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first
+words proved that the old days of "little Polly" had been recalled to
+his mind by this evening's child-like light-heartedness.
+
+"Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?"
+
+"I think I said so. I think I intimated as much."
+
+"Couldn't consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it,
+but couldn't do it."
+
+"Why? I am quite well now: it can't break my collar-bone again, or
+dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?"
+
+"No; nor dew."
+
+"I don't want dew; I don't like dew: but what is it?"
+
+"Ale--strong ale--old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born."
+
+"It must be curious: is it good?"
+
+"Excessively good."
+
+And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this
+mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment
+with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.
+
+"I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any
+'old October:' is it sweet?"
+
+"Perilously sweet," said Graham.
+
+She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that
+longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it
+down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste
+from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of
+pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it
+_was_ a gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the
+position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy,
+sipping lips by which its brim was courted.
+
+"A little more--a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand
+with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and
+yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your
+wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy."
+
+He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: "Don't tell my
+mother or Lucy; they wouldn't approve."
+
+"Nor do I," said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as
+she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her
+like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find
+it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath.
+Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no
+more."
+
+And, with a slight bend--careless, but as graceful as her dance--she
+glided from him and rejoined her father.
+
+I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of
+seventeen.
+
+Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye
+was on her a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not
+seem to notice him.
+
+As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father's arm:
+her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were
+dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our
+little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely
+to all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait
+or adventure.
+
+"And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then?
+And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion." Thus she drew
+him out.
+
+She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine
+sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and
+docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham
+was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke
+the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend
+responsive. I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas
+the dancing fairy and delicate dame.
+
+Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table,
+shivering and fresh from the morning's chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton
+pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity,
+should quit her house that day.
+
+Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower
+panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air
+vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall
+now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth,
+whirled round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred
+fantastic forms.
+
+The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Papa shall not go out," said she, placing a seat for herself beside
+her father's arm-chair. "I will look after him. You won't go into
+town, will you, papa?"
+
+"Ay, and No," was the answer. "If you and Mrs. Bretton are _very_
+good to me, Polly--kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a
+very nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to
+wait an hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind
+settles. But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing:
+you let me starve."
+
+"Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee," entreated
+Paulina, "whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other
+respects: since he grew into a Count, he has needed _so_ much
+attention."
+
+She separated and prepared a roll.
+
+"There, papa, are your 'pistolets' charged," said she. "And there is
+some marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at
+Bretton, and which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in
+Scotland--"
+
+"And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy--do you
+remember that?" interposed Mrs. Bretton. "Have you forgotten how you
+would come to my elbow and touch my sleeve with the whisper, 'Please,
+ma'am, something good for Graham--a little marmalade, or honey, or
+jam?"'
+
+"No, mamma," broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; "it surely
+was not so: I could not have cared for these things."
+
+"Did he or did he not, Paulina?"
+
+"He liked them," asserted Paulina.
+
+"Never blush for it, John," said Mr. Home, encouragingly. "I like them
+myself yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for
+a friend's material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of
+such good manners--nor do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a
+small slice of that tongue."
+
+"There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this
+assiduity; on condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself
+to La Terrasse for the day."
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said the Count, "I want to get rid of my daughter--to
+send her to school. Do you know of any good school?"
+
+"There is Lucy's place--Madame Beck's."
+
+"Miss Snowe is in a school?"
+
+"I am a teacher," I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of
+saying this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a
+false position. Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the
+Count and his daughter did not. They might choose to vary by some
+shades their hitherto cordial manner towards me, when aware of my
+grade in society. I spoke then readily: but a swarm of thoughts I had
+not anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, making me sigh
+involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his breakfast-plate
+for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not caught the
+words--perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature,
+politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud;
+and homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I
+have all along intimated that he was not without his share of the
+national quality. Was his a pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave
+the question undecided in its wide sense. Where it concerned me
+individually I can only answer: then, and always, he showed himself a
+true-hearted gentleman.
+
+By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his
+reflections spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing:
+in trouble and bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much
+about Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend:
+indeed his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he
+saw my walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave
+me credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight;
+he would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping,
+he still wished me well. When he did look at me, his eye was kind;
+when he did speak, his voice was benevolent.
+
+"Yours," said he, "is an arduous calling. I wish you health and
+strength to win in it--success."
+
+His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so
+composedly: she fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder--almost
+with dismay.
+
+"Are you a teacher?" cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable
+idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking:
+for me, you were always Lucy Snowe."
+
+"And what am I now?" I could not forbear inquiring.
+
+"Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?"
+
+"I really do."
+
+"And do you like it?"
+
+"Not always."
+
+"And why do you go on with it?"
+
+Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he
+only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism--prove
+yourself the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and
+look confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and
+I would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only
+smiles, so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. Well, Miss
+Snowe, why do you go on with it?"
+
+"Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get."
+
+"Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging
+to that hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your
+eccentricity."
+
+"No--no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep
+over my head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that
+while I can work for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to
+anybody."
+
+"Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy."
+
+"Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as
+you might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without
+leave; put it back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and
+receive in your ear this whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by
+experience the uncertain nature of this world's goods, I should like
+her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, that she might burden
+neither kith nor kin."
+
+"Yes, papa," said she, pensively and tractably. "But poor Lucy! I
+thought she was a rich lady, and had rich friends."
+
+"You thought like a little simpleton. _I_ never thought so. When
+I had time to consider Lucy's manner and aspect, which was not often,
+I saw she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not
+be served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience
+for which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she
+may yet bless Providence. But this school," he pursued, changing his
+tone from grave to gay: "would Madame Beck admit my Polly, do you
+think, Miss Lucy?"
+
+I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was
+fond of English pupils. "If you, sir," I added, "will but take Miss de
+Bassompierre in your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can
+answer for it that Rosine, the portress, will not be very slow in
+answering your ring; and Madame, I am sure, will put on her best pair
+of gloves to come into the salon to receive you."
+
+"In that case," responded Mr. Home, "I see no sort of necessity there
+is for delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady's
+'things' after her; Polly can settle down to her horn-book before
+night; and you, Miss Lucy, I trust, will not disdain to cast an
+occasional eye upon her, and let me know, from time to time, how she
+gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, Countess de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+The Countess hemmed and hesitated. "I thought," said she, "I thought I
+had finished my education--"
+
+"That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts I hold a
+far different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of
+your profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou
+hast much to learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he
+has done! Come, there is nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and
+the weather seems settling, and I have finished my breakfast--"
+
+"But, papa!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see an obstacle."
+
+"I don't at all."
+
+"It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you
+in your greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top."
+
+"And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?"
+
+"No! it is of too--too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss
+Lucy, warn Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me,
+because, in the end, it would turn out that she would have to take
+papa too: as he is so teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs.
+Bretton and all of you listen: About five years ago, when I was twelve
+years old, he took it into his head that he was spoiling me; that I
+was growing unfitted for the world, and I don't know what, and nothing
+would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I cried, and so
+on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and flinty,
+and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable
+manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see
+me. Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last,
+papa and I were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame
+Beck this little trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has
+to expect."
+
+Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this
+statement. As he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and
+Paulina triumphed.
+
+But she had other moods besides the arch and naïve. After breakfast;
+when the two elders withdrew--I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs.
+Bretton's business matters--and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were
+for a short time alone together--all the child left her; with us, more
+nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her
+very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look,
+which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round,
+yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and less
+_mobile_.
+
+No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some
+minutes near the window, looking out at the snow; presently he,
+approached the hearth, and entered into conversation, but not quite
+with his usual ease: fit topics did not seem to rise to his lips; he
+chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and consequently
+infelicitously: he spoke vaguely of Villette--its inhabitants, its
+notable sights and buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre
+in quite womanly sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed
+wholly disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there,
+rather animated and quick than measured and stately, still recalled
+little Polly; but yet there was so fine and even a polish, so calm and
+courteous a grace, gilding and sustaining these peculiarities, that a
+less sensitive man than Graham would not have ventured to seize upon
+them as vantage points, leading to franker intimacy.
+
+Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was
+still observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks
+escaped him. He did not miss one characteristic movement, one
+hesitation in language, or one lisp in utterance. At times, in
+speaking fast, she still lisped; but coloured whenever such lapse
+occurred, and in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite as amusing
+as the slight error, repeated the word more distinctly.
+
+Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they
+conversed, the restraint on each side slackened: might the conference
+have but been prolonged, I believe it would soon have become genial:
+already to Paulina's lip and cheek returned the wreathing, dimpling
+smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct herself. And Dr. John, I
+know not how _he_ changed, but change he did. He did not grow
+gayer--no raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect--but his
+position seemed to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he
+spoke his augmented comfort in readier language, in tones more suave.
+Ten years ago this pair had always found abundance to say to each
+other; the intervening decade had not narrowed the experience or
+impoverished the intelligence of either: besides, there are certain
+natures of which the mutual influence is such, that the more they say,
+the more they have to say. For these out of association grows
+adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation.
+
+Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are
+neither to be ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he
+could leave the house there was a return. I am sure he came back--not
+for the paper, or card in his desk, which formed his ostensible
+errand--but to assure himself, by one more glance, that Paulina's
+aspect was really such as memory was bearing away: that he had not
+been viewing her somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a
+fond mistake. No! he found the impression true--rather, indeed, he
+gained than lost by this return: he took away with him a parting look
+--shy, but very soft--as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn
+could lift out of its cover of fern, or any lamb from its meadow-bed.
+
+Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both
+took out some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood
+workbox of old days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious
+mosaic, and furnished with implements of gold; the tiny and trembling
+fingers that could scarce guide the needle, though tiny still, were
+now swift and skilful: but there was the same busy knitting of the
+brow, the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick turns and
+movements--now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the
+silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust--some clinging fibre of
+thread.
+
+That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the
+winter-day had on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of
+January, so white and so bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had
+raved itself hoarse, but seemed no nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra
+Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, she would not have
+suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence just gone
+from us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the
+changes on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with
+questions and surmises--worried and oppressed me with comments and
+confidences I did not want, and longed to avoid.
+
+Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating
+glance of her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the
+impulse of coming utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my
+inclination for silence.
+
+"This will not hold long," I thought to myself; for I was not
+accustomed to find in women or girls any power of self-control, or
+strength of self-denial. As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip
+about their usually trivial secrets, their often very washy and paltry
+feelings, was a treat not to be readily foregone.
+
+The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was
+tired of sewing, and then she took a book.
+
+As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton's own
+compartment of the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton book--
+some illustrated work of natural history. Often had I seen her
+standing at Graham's side, resting that volume on his knee, and
+reading to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, begging, as a
+treat, that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched her
+keenly: here was a true test of that memory she had boasted would her
+recollections now be faithful?
+
+Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her
+face passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of
+which was a full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the
+title-page, and looked at the name written in the schoolboy hand. She
+looked at it long; nor was she satisfied with merely looking: she
+gently passed over the characters the tips of her fingers,
+accompanying the action with an unconscious but tender smile, which
+converted the touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the
+peculiarity of this little scene was, that she _said_ nothing:
+she could feel without pouring out her feelings in a flux of words.
+
+She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking
+down volume after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each.
+This done, she seated herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her
+hand, and thought, and still was mute.
+
+The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her
+father's voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at
+last. She sprang up: she was down-stairs in one second.
+
+"Papa! papa! you are not going out?"
+
+"My pet, I must go into town."
+
+"But it is too--_too_ cold, papa."
+
+And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well
+provided against the weather; and how he was going to have the
+carriage, and to be quite snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving
+that she need not fear for his comfort.
+
+"But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is
+quite dark;--you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit
+to ride."
+
+"Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her
+commands to take care of his precious health and come home early under
+my escort."
+
+"Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be
+obedient And, papa, mind to come soon, for I _shall_ watch and
+listen."
+
+The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and
+back returned the Countess, pensive and anxious.
+
+She _did_ listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in
+stillest sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She
+checked at intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted
+the night sounds: I should rather say, the night silence; for now, at
+last, the wind was fallen. The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay
+naked and pale: through the barren boughs of the avenue we could see
+it well, and note also the polar splendour of the new-year moon--an
+orb white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw also the
+return of the carriage.
+
+Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort
+of gravity that she took immediate possession of her father, as he
+entered the room; but she at once made him her entire property, led
+him to the seat of her choice, and, while softly showering round him
+honeyed words of commendation for being so good and coming home so
+soon, you would have thought it was entirely by the power of her
+little hands he was put into his chair, and settled and arranged; for
+the strong man seemed to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to
+this dominion-potent only by love.
+
+Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half
+turned when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two;
+their fingers met a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina
+remained beside her father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the
+other side of the room.
+
+It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to
+each other-almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old
+recollections; otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a
+still one that evening.
+
+After tea, Paulina's quick needle and pretty golden thimble were
+busily plied by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes
+seemed reluctant to raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-
+fringed. Graham, too, must have been tired with his day's work: he
+listened dutifully to his elders and betters, said very little
+himself, and followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina's
+thimble; as if it had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden
+head of some darting little yellow serpent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A BURIAL.
+
+
+From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
+with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
+grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
+first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that
+I was liable to frequent invitations from a château and a great hotel,
+respect improved into distinction.
+
+Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
+in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
+self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
+without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
+a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
+with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
+cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
+depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
+was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
+the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
+asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
+gracious sort:--
+
+"Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de coeur et de
+gré. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours été admirable, rempli de
+zèle et de discrétion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
+donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant à votre choix de connaissances, j'en
+suis contente; c'est sage, digne, laudable."
+
+She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.
+
+The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
+about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
+disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
+sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
+grace.
+
+"Patience!" whispered I to myself. "Let me say nothing, but wait
+peaceably; they will come back again."
+
+And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to
+Madame's chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly
+and truly: I found them all right the next day.
+
+I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
+form of Dr. John Bretton's epistolary powers? In what light did the
+often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
+opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
+style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous
+vein, which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few
+kind words scattered here and there-not thickly, as the diamonds were
+scattered in the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in
+unfabled beds? Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?
+
+I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
+One day after she had _borrowed_ them of me (in speaking of so
+suave a little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her
+examining me with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but
+not at all malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons,
+when the pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's
+recreation; she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met
+her eye, her thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.
+
+"Il y a," said she, "quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le
+caractère Anglais."
+
+"How, Madame?"
+
+She gave a little laugh, repeating the word "how" in English.
+
+"Je ne saurais vous dire 'how;' mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idées
+à eux, en amitié, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n'est pas besoin
+de les surveiller," she added, getting up and trotting away like the
+compact little pony she was.
+
+"Then I hope," murmured I to myself, "you will graciously let alone my
+letters for the future."
+
+Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
+vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
+winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
+had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river
+on whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops
+had trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving
+my little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of
+waters far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could
+be said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my
+Ganges, and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged,
+should vanish like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a
+stoic; drops streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry
+shower, heavy and brief.
+
+But soon I said to myself, "The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
+me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
+agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."
+
+Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience
+a habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face,
+and composed its limbs with great calm.
+
+The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
+undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
+mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
+by sharp revival of regret.
+
+One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
+intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
+a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
+the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
+untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had
+been visited.
+
+This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
+discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
+ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
+casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
+inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
+understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
+ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
+had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents,
+in my eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the
+case I now saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her
+kinsman, M. Paul Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she
+was much in the habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him
+matters she broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that
+gentleman had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have
+borrowed from Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment
+comprehended that blue, yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I
+read its meaning now. _He_, I believed, was not apt to regard
+what concerned me from a fair point of view, nor to judge me with
+tolerance and candour: I had always found him severe and suspicious:
+the thought that these letters, mere friendly letters as they were,
+had fallen once, and might fall again, into his hands, jarred my very
+soul.
+
+What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
+was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
+safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?
+
+In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
+boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
+gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
+the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
+Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
+certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
+grenier would not do--but where then?
+
+While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
+was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
+pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allée défendue." One
+great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
+skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
+queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
+put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.
+
+Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
+and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
+moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a
+half deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of
+broker's shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted
+was a metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or
+bottle which might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst
+miscellaneous heaps, I found and purchased the latter article.
+
+I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
+bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
+Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
+directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
+frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed
+on hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a
+sad, lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
+controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
+induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained
+the pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.
+
+At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils
+and teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
+children in the salle-à-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
+home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
+myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
+door, into the berceau and thence into the "allée défendue."
+
+Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
+my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
+Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
+there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
+was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
+round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
+going to hide a treasure--I meant also to bury a grief. That grief
+over which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-
+sheet, must be interred.
+
+Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
+to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
+bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
+masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
+thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured
+it with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally,
+replaced the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree;
+lingering, like any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.
+
+The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
+which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
+mist, there was some quality--electrical, perhaps--which acted in
+strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in England--on
+a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping round
+heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch that
+mustering of an army with banners--that quivering of serried lances--
+that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to the dark,
+high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far otherwise, but
+strong with reinforced strength.
+
+If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
+pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters--to leave an
+encampment where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this
+change, another pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I
+had a mind to the encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to
+gain. But what road was open?--what plan available?
+
+On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
+seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
+me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly,
+to make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
+suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye:
+it took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three
+yards from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.
+
+Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
+I spoke.
+
+"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"
+
+She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
+masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.
+
+I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
+often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
+one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She
+seemed to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became
+swift. A mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
+intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that
+obstacle, I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have
+any errand to men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or
+re-appeared.
+
+This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
+one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crécy. In the old
+Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
+society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
+to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
+trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
+little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by
+yourself? You must come into the parlour."
+
+In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
+said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
+Madame Beck gives you."
+
+Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present salary--
+if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined.
+I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with
+scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect.
+I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to
+be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me.
+Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
+deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
+gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks,
+in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have
+made shirts and starved.
+
+I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
+enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
+dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
+at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
+Beck's fist classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
+in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
+qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
+made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
+any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
+understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
+children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
+herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
+been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
+all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something
+in her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had
+proceeded much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring
+neglect--she made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of
+steadiness. To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and
+told me she had no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous
+to the St. Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to
+you, there will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation.
+One thing, however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone
+with your liberty: c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every
+slight shackle she had ever laid on me, she, from that time, with
+quiet hand removed. Thus I had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her
+rules: gratification in devoting double time, in taking double pains
+with the pupils she committed to my charge.
+
+As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I
+would not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely
+even my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable
+to her. M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this
+conjecture, blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the
+signs, the likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to
+an end, he might not approve.
+
+Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
+Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests;
+keen, intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
+pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
+life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling"
+as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion
+that others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of
+what should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown
+up; and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and
+take his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-
+grey locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls:
+but she never said, "Papa, I _am_ grown up."
+
+She had different moods for different people. With her father she
+really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
+playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and
+feeling could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant,
+but not expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at
+moments she tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him.
+His step made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her
+answers failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed
+and disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
+
+"My little Polly," he said once, "you live too retired a life; if you
+grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
+for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
+this? Don't you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
+partial to him?"
+
+"_Rather_, papa," echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle
+and simple tone.
+
+"And you don't like him now? What has he done?"
+
+"Nothing. Y--e--s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to
+each other."
+
+"Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
+away when he is here, and have no fear of him?"
+
+"_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think,
+papa?"
+
+"Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
+lady?"
+
+"Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
+way, and that I have no unfriendly intention."
+
+"Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
+only your whim!"
+
+"Well, I'll improve, papa."
+
+And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
+keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
+John on general topics. The attention called into her guest's face a
+pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
+softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
+the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
+Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could
+not be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.
+
+When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father's chair.
+
+"Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?"
+
+"My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
+this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
+guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
+look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
+should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
+flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
+as you lisped when you were six years old."
+
+"No, papa," interrupted she indignantly, "that can't be true."
+
+"I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton's
+question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
+Bois l'Etang, say, 'yeth,' she had been there 'theveral' times?"
+
+"Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the
+letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you
+are very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like
+him yourself?"
+
+"To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
+good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
+in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough."
+
+"_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the
+Aberdeen accent you have?"
+
+"Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
+is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
+always succeeds well at the French."
+
+"_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
+schooling."
+
+"Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
+me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical."
+
+The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded "Miss Snowe,"
+used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
+attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
+the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
+blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
+teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat
+conventional, perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still
+the pink and pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person,
+Professor Paul Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of
+intimating his opinion that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature--
+adventurous, indocile, and audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one
+knew me it was little Paulina Mary.
+
+As I would not be Paulina's nominal and paid companion, genial and
+harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to
+join her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
+communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
+she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
+Rue Crécy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
+some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
+perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
+associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear
+child.
+
+That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
+Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was
+no longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
+hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
+surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
+Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
+manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
+more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would
+analyze his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and
+forthwith indulge in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not
+whether I was more amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one
+morning and whispering solemnly that he "had his eye on me: _he_
+at least would discharge the duty of a friend, and not leave me
+entirely to my own devices. My, proceedings seemed at present very
+unsettled: he did not know what to make of them: he thought his cousin
+Beck very much to blame in suffering this sort of fluttering
+inconsistency in a teacher attached to her house. What had a person
+devoted to a serious calling, that of education, to do with Counts and
+Countesses, hotels and châteaux? To him, I seemed altogether 'en
+l'air.' On his faith, he believed I went out six days in the seven."
+
+I said, "Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage
+of a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and
+the privilege was by no means exercised in excess."
+
+"Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
+Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
+'religieuses,' and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change."
+
+I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
+but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
+worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
+for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no "dévouement," no
+"récueillement" in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
+or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
+mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.
+
+"He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
+revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism."
+
+I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
+silence.
+
+A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
+"juron:" he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
+word _sacré_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated,
+with the unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed
+him about two hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and
+take my German lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was a better little man,
+in some points, than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little
+despot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
+of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
+Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
+breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
+nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
+called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial
+with her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented
+to kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive
+smack. These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably;
+still, on the whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct
+foreign girls, who hardly ever will think and study for themselves--
+who have no idea of grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by
+dint of reflection or application--our progress, which in truth was
+very leisurely, seemed to astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of
+glacial prodigies, cold, proud, and preternatural.
+
+The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
+perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
+feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
+never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
+could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
+in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
+and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its
+steelly glisten.
+
+Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while
+she half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--
+an Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of
+easier mood.
+
+A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
+Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fräulein would
+listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice
+sounded like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of
+language, and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek
+would flush, her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or
+melt as she went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often
+recite them when we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des
+Mädchens Klage:" that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she
+found plaintive melody in the sound; the sense she would criticise.
+She murmured, as we sat over the fire one evening:--
+
+  Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,
+  Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
+    Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!
+
+"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
+the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme
+of mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture
+of feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have
+come nearer the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"
+
+"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
+you? What do you know about it?"
+
+She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
+
+"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
+papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
+me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am
+verging on my nineteenth year."
+
+"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no
+feelings by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said she--all in hurry and heat--"you may think to
+check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I _have_ talked
+about it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
+disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve."
+
+And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
+discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
+Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance--combined
+with some transient perverseness and petulance--I said at last,--
+
+"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
+that has near access to you would dare to do it?"
+
+"Lucy," replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me
+miserable sometimes; and I wish she would keep away--I don't want
+her."
+
+"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much."
+
+"It is--it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit
+Mrs. Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she
+begins to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all
+she has to say about love."
+
+"Oh, I have heard it," said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole,
+perhaps it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be
+regretted, it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra's mind cannot
+influence yours. You can look over both her head and her heart."
+
+"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
+happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the
+feelings and people dearest to me."
+
+"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
+counteraction of the damage done."
+
+"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She
+does not spare Mrs. Bretton--she does not spare.... Graham."
+
+"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and
+her...._love_? She does mix them, I suppose?"
+
+"Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton.
+We both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever
+mean or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her
+feet, pursuing her like her shadow. She--repulsing him with insult,
+and he imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it
+true?"
+
+"It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him
+out as still her suitor?"
+
+"She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent."
+
+"It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner
+towards Graham which your father noticed."
+
+"They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As
+Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed
+truth: I believe she exaggerates--perhaps invents--but I want to know
+how far."
+
+"Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity
+of displaying the power she boasts."
+
+"I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner,
+all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant,
+too--skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science--is among
+the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported,
+amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A---- and Z----,
+the Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put
+in peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a
+word, will join you."
+
+"Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have
+the chance of justifying her character for veracity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE HÔTEL CRÉCY.
+
+
+The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I,
+at least-had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the
+young princes of Labassecour-the eldest, I think, the Duc de
+Dindonneau, and a general holiday was given in his honour at the
+schools, and especially at the principal "Athénée," or college. The
+youth of that institution had also concocted, and were to present a
+loyal address; for which purpose they were to be assembled in the
+public building where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the
+prizes distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
+"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.
+
+Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends-the savants-being more or less
+connected with the Athénée, they were expected to attend on this
+occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
+Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
+Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
+accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
+and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
+early that we might join her.
+
+As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
+Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.
+
+"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
+her attire, and was gazing at me.
+
+"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest half-
+insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a level,
+visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."
+
+"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
+chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
+have suited me at all."
+
+"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
+undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my
+turn.
+
+"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
+here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have
+seen you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few
+governesses would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats
+you with more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and
+that proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"
+
+"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
+indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
+character."
+
+"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
+take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
+thought you, you must be a cool hand."
+
+"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a
+little hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-
+girl's crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
+therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and
+asked "what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
+confusion?"
+
+"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
+
+"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
+
+"Yes; let me take your arm."
+
+"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
+
+When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
+as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
+
+"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
+intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
+as a compliment."
+
+"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
+be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
+fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
+teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
+quite blush for your companion?"
+
+"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
+gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
+was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
+character otherwise not formed to keep.
+
+I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
+or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
+reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
+gave her.
+
+"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
+square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
+Rue Crécy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you
+are!"
+
+"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
+will let you alone."
+
+"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
+mysterious!"
+
+"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
+brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
+of my sight."
+
+"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in
+spite of me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with
+inhospitable closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the
+intruder.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
+then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."
+
+"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged,
+adhering with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito
+she had got hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now
+obtained full possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged
+to pause in the park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most
+fanciful changes on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity,
+or incredulity, her incapacity to conceive how any person not
+bolstered up by birth or wealth, not supported by some consciousness
+of name or connection, could maintain an attitude of reasonable
+integrity. As for me, it quite sufficed to my mental tranquillity that
+I was known where it imported that known I should be; the rest sat on
+me easily: pedigree, social position, and recondite intellectual
+acquisition, occupied about the same space and place in my interests
+and thoughts; they were my third-class lodgers--to whom could be
+assigned only the small sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even
+if the dining and drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to
+them, as thinking minor accommodations better suited to their
+circumstances. The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate:
+and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe
+also that I am not quite wrong in mine.
+
+There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom
+loss of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified
+in placing the highest value on that station and association which is
+their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
+contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
+were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
+capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
+fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
+chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
+experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
+conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
+small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
+man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.
+
+We reached the Hôtel Crécy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
+her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were
+soon conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at
+a convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athénée were
+marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
+places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
+conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with
+the aristocracy and first burghers of the town.
+
+Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
+be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
+vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
+formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
+princes.
+
+The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
+was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms
+grew above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape,
+port, expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the
+blackness and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of
+brow, the blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in
+the memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost
+by this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
+confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
+head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
+of my mirth.
+
+I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
+otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
+candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
+His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
+him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
+college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither
+formalism nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed
+us, for what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads
+--I own I was not prepared.
+
+He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the
+burghers, with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed,
+choleric earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three
+divisions of the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as
+schoolboys, but as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times
+which have since come on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M.
+Emanuel's spirit seemed new to me. Who would have thought the flat and
+fat soil of Labassecour could yield political convictions and national
+feelings, such as were now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his
+opinions I need here give no special indication; yet it may be
+permitted me to say that I believed the little man not more earnest
+than right in what he said: with all his fire he was severe and
+sensible; he trampled Utopian theories under his heel; he rejected
+wild dreams with scorn;--but when he looked in the face of tyranny--
+oh, then there opened a light in his eye worth seeing; and when he
+spoke of injustice, his voice gave no uncertain sound, but reminded me
+rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at twilight from the park.
+
+I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing
+his flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as
+he eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in
+their country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud,
+ringing cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their
+favourite professor.
+
+As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
+me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered
+the words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
+reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
+restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-
+control, which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just
+then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_
+care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his
+wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his
+_naiveté_. I would have praised him: I had plenty of praise in my
+heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who _has_ words at the
+right moment? I stammered some lame expressions; but was truly glad
+when other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my
+deficiency by their redundancy.
+
+A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
+had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
+the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
+Hôtel Crécy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
+at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
+independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
+pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
+character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
+a French Academician, in the course of the evening.
+
+At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
+very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
+charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
+and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
+winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson
+relieved well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like
+bloom. Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat,
+but in texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate
+life of her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for
+the tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow
+of her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
+eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
+Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
+hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
+them to a high and delicate finish.
+
+Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she
+conversed modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true
+a sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more
+than once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an
+eye of proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very
+learned, but quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I
+was charmed with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct,
+the idioms true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life
+on the Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed
+Miss Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor
+in any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre
+was gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.
+
+Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
+exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
+were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
+at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
+arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
+now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
+rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
+mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
+disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
+pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
+thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
+keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
+regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the
+demand on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required:
+his manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his
+neighbour, and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined
+his notice. She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in
+very good spirits.
+
+Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
+became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
+both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
+her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
+her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
+move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
+dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
+up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
+post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
+him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while
+_he_ looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina
+charmed these thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the
+soft courtesy of her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact,
+pleased their national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to
+talk science; which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many
+subjects in letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon
+appeared that she had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure
+that though Graham stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well
+as his vision was very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered
+the conversation; I felt that the mode in which it was sustained
+suited him exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.
+
+In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
+most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
+show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader,
+there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable
+refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as
+trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit and blossom on a
+rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble
+and relaxed nature. For a little while, the blooming semblance of
+beauty may flourish round weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it
+soon fades, even in serenest sunshine. Graham would have started had
+any suggestive spirit whispered of the sinew and the stamina
+sustaining that delicate nature; but I who had known her as a child,
+knew or guessed by what a good and strong root her graces held to the
+firm soil of reality.
+
+While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
+his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by
+chance on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother
+and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home
+called "a two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as
+a tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me
+how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
+thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
+me-a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
+silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
+were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
+forms--studied both faces.
+
+Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
+since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst
+the gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
+glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
+inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the
+gentlemen present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies,
+excepting myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see
+me, and naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr.
+Bretton also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all,
+there would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with
+holding back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and
+looked so ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle.
+M. Joseph Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at
+this very moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-
+touch succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones
+the instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
+
+"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
+glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe
+is certainly a fine girl."
+
+Of course I assented.
+
+"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"
+
+"I think there is not another as handsome."
+
+"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in
+taste, I think; or at least in judgment."
+
+"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
+god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
+our opinions would have melted into each other."
+
+He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
+shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
+solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
+Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the
+same but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station,
+would your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what
+they actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously
+infer blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then
+mine was a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if
+a cloud crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I
+should stand more at fault than you.
+
+Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
+heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
+others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
+more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
+calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"
+
+"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
+for the possession; yet I have it."
+
+"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
+estimate them differently?"
+
+"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
+to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in
+the room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs
+A---- and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
+A---- and Z----."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
+now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."
+
+"You don't remember her as a child?"
+
+"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."
+
+"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
+persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may,
+under certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's
+mind, revive."
+
+"That is possible enough."
+
+"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
+partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one
+of a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
+corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
+Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
+stay with mamma?"
+
+"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."
+
+"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
+I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or
+kindly about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't
+recollect me, of course?"
+
+"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
+personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."
+
+"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity.
+What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"
+
+"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."
+
+"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
+instance."
+
+"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured
+brutality."
+
+"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted
+nothing of my grace."
+
+"As little of your cruelty."
+
+"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
+inoffensive as a shadow."
+
+I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let
+me alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
+from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
+back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
+coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
+weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.
+
+"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
+deceive me, we were not foes--"
+
+"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
+definite?"
+
+"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
+Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
+nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
+in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
+horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."
+
+"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"
+
+"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
+restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
+preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
+me!"
+
+"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.
+
+"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember
+_now_. She liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."
+
+"You thought so."
+
+"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
+rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
+it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
+watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
+you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"
+
+"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
+not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt,
+too, an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
+disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
+realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
+wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
+did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
+gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me
+coaxingly, he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."
+
+And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
+enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
+part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his,
+soft, eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_
+content me, Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
+
+"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden boa-
+constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, rêveur, mais vous
+ne l'êtes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme à l'âme,
+l'éclair aux yeux!"
+
+"Oui; j'ai la flamme à l'âme, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
+in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was
+gone.
+
+The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
+said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he
+put his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
+
+"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
+Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe
+it is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really,
+by my word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so
+savage with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is
+frantic at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease
+him."
+
+And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
+whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
+
+Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
+Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve.
+This movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant,
+even while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed
+the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his
+whole life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he
+had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed
+action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion
+dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How
+well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he
+reached her side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering
+glance, animated, yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became
+half a blush, half a glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful:
+subdued and unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his
+ardour. I gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my
+observation--time failed me, had inclination served: the night wore
+late; Ginevra and I ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I
+rose, and bade good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
+
+I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
+acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
+was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
+of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
+Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
+whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
+_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked
+apologetic and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a
+word, nor meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never
+hitherto had I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or
+freeze before his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I
+considered unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding
+must be marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
+attendance."
+
+Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
+and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
+be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.
+
+Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
+there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.
+
+"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
+frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
+act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
+grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
+effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
+had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from
+the pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
+misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
+experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
+sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
+took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
+lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
+aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
+folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
+painting darkening the wall.
+
+Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
+still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
+nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
+uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
+thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
+is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
+an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
+M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
+Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
+denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your
+cheeks so hot as they are even now?"
+
+"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
+such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I
+again surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.
+
+"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
+forgotten my words; what were they?"
+
+"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
+
+"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid:
+permit my retractation; accord my pardon."
+
+"I am not angry, Monsieur."
+
+"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
+
+"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."
+
+"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
+alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
+
+He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
+simplicity, his earnestness?
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "Voilà que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."
+
+"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
+
+"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
+you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my
+friend!"
+
+Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy
+than "_mon ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic
+and intimate affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M.
+Paul; "my friend," I could, and did say without difficulty. This
+distinction existed not for him, however, and he was quite satisfied
+with the English phrase. He smiled. You should have seen him smile,
+reader; and you should have marked the difference between his
+countenance now, and that he wore half an hour ago. I cannot affirm
+that I had ever witnessed the smile of pleasure, or content, or
+kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his eyes before. The ironic, the
+sarcastic, the disdainful, the passionately exultant, I had hundreds
+of times seen him express by what he called a smile, but any
+illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me as wholly new
+in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep lines
+left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher;
+that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood,
+became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in
+any other human face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He
+now took me to the carriage: at the same moment M. de Bassompierre
+came out with his niece.
+
+In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
+grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
+uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the carriage-
+door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something venomous
+in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or sting him,
+hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed in terms
+so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after listening for a
+while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of justice at last and
+suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I could be passionate,
+too; especially with my present fair but faulty associate, who never
+failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well that the carriage-
+wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty Choseville pavement,
+for I can assure the reader there was neither dead silence nor calm
+discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half in seeming, I
+made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set out rampant
+from the Rue Crécy; it was necessary to tame her before we reached the
+Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up her sterling
+value and high deserts; and this must be done in language of which the
+fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with the
+compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
+discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
+that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
+all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE WATCHGUARD.
+
+
+M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of
+interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to
+pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the
+teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to
+be as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.
+
+Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry"
+through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable
+estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress--on
+whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils
+out of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their
+music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the salle-à-
+manger, or some other piano-station--she would, upon her second or
+third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of
+consternation--a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled
+at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.
+
+One morning I was sitting in the carré, at work upon a piece of
+embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to
+finish, and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled
+themselves with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice
+haranguing in the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily
+more unquiet, more ominously varied. There was a good strong
+partition-wall between me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile
+means of flight through the glass-door to the court, in case it swept
+this way; so I am afraid I derived more amusement than alarm from
+these thickening symptoms. Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that
+blessed morning had she made the passage of peril; and now, for the
+fifth time, it became her dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a
+brand from the burning--a pupil from under M. Paul's nose.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried she. "Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me
+tuer, je suis sûre; car il est d'une colère!"
+
+Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!" was her cry.
+
+Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this
+voice uttered itself:--
+
+"Dès ce moment!--la classe est défendue. La première qui ouvrira cette
+porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue--fut-ce Madame Beck
+elle-même!"
+
+Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when
+Rosine's French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the
+corridor.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into
+that classe again just now: Monsieur's lunettes are really terrible;
+and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athénée. I
+have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to
+charge you with it."
+
+"Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come,
+come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave--charge once more!"
+
+"I, Mademoiselle?--impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day.
+Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n'en puis
+plus!"
+
+"Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?"
+
+"Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered:
+an urgent summons to go directly to the Athénée, as there is an
+official visitor--inspector--I know not what--arrived, and Monsieur
+_must_ meet him: you know how he hates a _must_."
+
+Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb:
+against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt.
+However, I accepted the responsibility--not, certainly, without fear,
+but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I
+opened the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and
+quietly as a rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or
+bustling, to rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were
+aggravations of crime often more disastrous in result than the main
+crime itself. There I stood then, and there he sat; his humour was
+visibly bad--almost at its worst; he had been giving a lesson in
+arithmetic--for he gave lessons on any and every subject that struck
+his fancy--and arithmetic being a dry subject, invariably disagreed
+with him: not a pupil but trembled when he spoke of figures. He sat,
+bent above his desk: to look up at the sound of an entrance, at the
+occurrence of a direct breach of his will and law, was an effort he
+could not for the moment bring himself to make. It was quite as well:
+I thus gained time to walk up the long classe; and it suited my
+idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near burst of anger like his,
+than to bear its menace at a distance.
+
+At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of
+immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not
+do: he must hear and he must answer my message.
+
+Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated
+upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I
+ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a
+better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing
+a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow
+tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and
+receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the
+obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its
+very pupil--transfixed by the "lunettes." Rosine was right; these
+utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile
+wrath of the wearer's own unglazed eyes.
+
+I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted "lunettes"
+were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur's nose;
+accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.
+
+I am glad I was not really much afraid of him--that, indeed, close in
+his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and
+gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to
+furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such
+accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of
+his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy
+before public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the
+desk, and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the
+Professor's chair.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said he in a growl of which the music was wholly
+confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and
+seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly
+should wring from him a smile.
+
+My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux
+l'impossible, des choses inouïes;" and thinking it best not to mince
+matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but
+quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating
+its urgency.
+
+Of course, he would not hear a word of it. "He would not go; he would
+not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send
+for him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the
+bidding of king, cabinet, and chambers together."
+
+I knew, however, that he _must_ go; that, talk as he would, both
+his duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance
+with the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had
+not yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.
+
+"Only Monsieur's answer to deliver to the commissionaire."
+
+He waved an impatient negative.
+
+I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim
+repose on the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his
+eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.
+
+"Ah!" he muttered, "if it came to that--if Miss Lucy meddled with his
+bonnet-grec--she might just put it on herself, turn garçon for the
+occasion, and benevolently go to the Athénée in his stead."
+
+With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel
+seemed to give me an awful nod.
+
+"I'll write a note of apology--that will do!" said he, still bent on
+evasion.
+
+Knowing well it would _not_ do, I gently pushed the bonnet
+towards his hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of
+the varnished and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-
+framed "lunettes," and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A
+score of times ere now had I seen them fall and receive no damage--
+_this_ time, as Lucy Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so
+fell that each clear pebble became a shivered and shapeless star.
+
+Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
+these "lunettes": M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
+these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as
+I picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
+through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I
+think I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not
+look the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.
+
+"Là!" said he: "me voilà veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle
+Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she
+trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You
+are resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!"
+
+I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and
+furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I
+had seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crécy. He was not
+angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
+clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event,
+which seemed so untoward--which I thought had ruined at once my chance
+of successful persuasion--proved my best help. Difficult of management
+so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon
+as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.
+
+Still gently railing at me as "une forte femme--une Anglaise terrible
+--une petite casse-tout"--he declared that he dared not but obey one
+who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it was
+absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire
+dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and
+taking his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon
+and encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athénée in
+first-rate humour and spirits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to
+hear that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it
+was, and I could not help it.
+
+It was his occasional custom--and a very laudable, acceptable custom,
+too--to arrive of an evening, always à l'improviste, unannounced,
+burst in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism
+over us and our occupations, cause books to be put away, work-bags to
+be brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful
+of pamphlets, substitute for the besotted "lecture pieuse," drawled by
+a sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by
+fiery action--some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the
+intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring,
+and filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a
+vital brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness
+a reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current
+literature of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or
+the last witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons
+of Paris; taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand,
+whether from tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage,
+phrase, or word, could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes
+filles." I noticed more than once, that where retrenchment without
+substitute would have left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness,
+he could, and did, improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than
+irreproachable; the dialogue--the description--he engrafted was often
+far better than that he pruned away.
+
+Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a
+"retreat," the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my
+work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it
+had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when
+finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste
+was requisite, and my fingers were busy.
+
+We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step
+familiar to each ear: the words "Voilà Monsieur!" had scarcely broken
+simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as
+split it always did for his admission--such a slow word as "open" is
+inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of
+us.
+
+There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over
+the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the
+table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and
+the left; the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics;
+the idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles.
+Monsieur's habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher,
+generally Zélie St. Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her
+vacated seat; and thus avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or
+Capricorn, which, owing to his near sight, he needed.
+
+As usual, Zélie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her
+mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth--that
+strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a
+sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and
+neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose Monsieur did
+not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for
+he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his "lunettes" (he
+had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little
+oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed
+by Zélie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could
+start up to clear the way, whispered, "Ne bougez pas," and established
+himself between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my
+neighbour, and have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to
+her, "Ginevra, I wish you were at Jericho."
+
+It was easy to say, "Ne bougez pas;" but how could I help it? I must
+make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that _I_
+might recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me,
+"keeping herself warm," as she said, on the winter evenings, and
+harassing my very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me,
+indeed, sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle by way of
+protection against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be
+subjected to the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working
+materials, to clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make
+room for his person; not, however, leaving more than a yard of
+interval, just what any reasonable man would have regarded as a
+convenient, respectful allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never
+_was_ reasonable; flint and tinder that he was! he struck and
+took fire directly.
+
+"Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin," he growled: "vous vous donnez
+des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria;" he scowled. "Soit! je
+vais arranger la chose!" And he set to work.
+
+"Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!" cried he.
+
+The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then
+placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and
+carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my
+implements, he fixed himself quite at the other end.
+
+At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room
+dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle.
+As for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and
+cut off from human intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was
+quiet, and not at all unhappy.
+
+"Est ce assez de distance?" he demanded.
+
+"Monsieur en est l'arbitre," said I.
+
+"Vous savez bien que non. C'est vous qui avez crée ce vide immense:
+moi je n'y ai pas mis la main."
+
+And with this assertion he commenced the reading.
+
+For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he
+called "un drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu," he further
+announced, "de ces sots païens, les Anglais." How far otherwise he
+would have characterized him had his temper not been upset, I scarcely
+need intimate.
+
+Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did
+I make any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its
+forlorn lapses were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or
+beseemed me to say anything: but one can occasionally _look_ the
+opinion it is forbidden to embody in words. Monsieur's lunettes being
+on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; I don't think he lost
+one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a screen, that their
+blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north pole to
+which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general
+temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under
+the vertical ray of Cancer itself.
+
+The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with
+his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
+was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
+definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered
+a sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or
+penalty for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the
+muscles about my eyes and mouth.
+
+The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water,
+was brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor's
+presence, the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
+immediately handed round.
+
+"Take your supper, ladies," said he, seeming to be occupied in making
+marginal notes to his "Williams Shackspire." They took it. I also
+accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
+my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
+bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_;
+with a certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits,
+and pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
+nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
+feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
+such as were placid and harmonious.
+
+He rose. "Will he go away without saying another word?" Yes; he turned
+to the door.
+
+No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
+pencil-case, which had been left on the table.
+
+He took it--shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
+wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.
+
+The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
+pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
+habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue
+their voices much.
+
+M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and
+I said I was making a watchguard.
+
+He asked, "For whom?" And I answered, "For a gentleman--one of my
+friends."
+
+M. Paul stooped down and proceeded--as novel-writers say, and, as was
+literally true in his case--to "hiss" into my ear some poignant words.
+
+He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
+herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
+least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a "caractère
+intraitable," and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
+possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever
+pacific and amicable intentions a person accosted me--crac! I turned
+concord to discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he--M. Paul--
+wished me well enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of;
+he might, at least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a
+neutral acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I
+behaved to him! With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of
+mutiny--what a "fougue" of injustice!
+
+Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even
+slipping in a slight interjectional observation: "Vivacities? Impetus?
+Fougue? I didn't know...."
+
+"Chut! à l'instant! There! there I went--vive comme la poudre!" He was
+sorry--he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
+peculiarity. This "emportement," this "chaleur"--generous, perhaps,
+but excessive--would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity:
+I was not--he believed, in his soul--wholly without good qualities:
+and would I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less "en
+l'air," less "coquette," less taken by show, less prone to set an
+undue value on outside excellence--to make much of the attentions of
+people remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, "des couleurs
+de poupée," "un nez plus ou moins bien fait," and an enormous amount
+of fatuity--I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary
+character. But, as it was--And here, the little man's voice was for a
+minute choked.
+
+I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
+word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
+odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.
+
+I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
+at his ease.
+
+"While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my
+anger for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change
+he had noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first
+knew me--or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of
+me from time to time--I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
+austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to
+inspire the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence
+had impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my
+bonnet, to wear 'des cols brodés,' and even to appear on one occasion
+in a _scarlet gown_--he might indeed conjecture, but, for the
+present, would not openly declare."
+
+Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
+indignant and horror-struck.
+
+"Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale
+pink to: and further subdued by black lace."
+
+"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
+one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
+talked of, _that_ was but a 'colifichet de plus.'" And he sighed
+over my degeneracy. "He could not, he was sorry to say, be so
+particular on this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact
+names of these 'babioles,' he might run into small verbal errors which
+would not fail to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily
+sudden and passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general
+terms--and in these general terms he knew he was correct--that my
+costume had of late assumed 'des façons mondaines,' which it wounded
+him to see."
+
+What "façons mondaines" he discovered in my present winter merino and
+plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked
+him, he said it was all made with too much attention to effect--and
+besides, "had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?"
+
+"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
+necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"--holding
+up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
+groan--I suppose over my levity.
+
+After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of
+the chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he
+inquired: "Whether what he had just said would have the effect of
+making me entirely detest him?"
+
+I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don't
+think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
+friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he
+turned back just to explain, "that he would not be understood to speak
+in entire condemnation of the scarlet dress" ("Pink! pink!" I threw
+in); "that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_
+rather well" (the fact was, M. Emanuel's taste in colours decidedly
+leaned to the brilliant); "only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I
+wore it, to do so in the same spirit as if its material were 'bure,'
+and its hue 'gris de poussière.'"
+
+"And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?" I asked. "They are very
+little ones--?"
+
+"Keep them little, then," said he. "Permit them not to become full-
+blown."
+
+"And the bow, Monsieur--the bit of ribbon?"
+
+"Va pour le ruban!" was the propitious answer.
+
+And so we settled it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
+pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
+your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
+You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
+there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
+day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
+the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
+uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
+creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
+say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
+manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own
+and your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little
+man, differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with
+being too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
+coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
+your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose-
+colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
+your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
+each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
+Life's sunshine: it its a new thing to see one testily lifting his
+hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+MONSIEUR'S FÊTE.
+
+
+I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
+guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for
+the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its
+last watch.
+
+All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up
+before the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had
+wrought it double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit
+the particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
+appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
+little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
+fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it,
+then coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small
+box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the
+colour called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling
+blue stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my
+scissors' point certain initials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
+fête; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
+present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance
+of this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
+modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the
+latter case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and
+contrived beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many
+others, of the estimation in which--despite his partialities,
+prejudices, and irritabilities--the professor of literature was held
+by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him: he distinctly
+gave it to be understood, that he would accept neither plate nor
+jewellery. Yet he liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value,
+did not touch him: a diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with
+pomp, would have pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered
+simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man,
+not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with
+"the dayspring on high."
+
+M. Paul's fête fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
+fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
+customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
+half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping,
+or paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations
+induced a general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were
+in vogue; the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for
+something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zélie St. Pierre, on this
+particular Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in
+economical Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury;
+nay, it was remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair
+that morning; there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had
+bedewed her handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable
+perfume. Poor Zélie! It was much her wont to declare about this time,
+that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that
+she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some
+one to work for her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was
+woefully encumbered with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at
+liberty, as she said, to "goûter un peu les plaisirs." It had long
+been rumoured, that her eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's
+eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her
+perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a
+quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while the class was silently composing,
+and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of
+this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered,
+half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes
+looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible
+unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding-place the
+last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings
+the bare; barren places of the spirit: yes, and its perverted
+tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all that men and women would
+not have known--the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born
+with them, and far worse, the stain or disfigurement they have perhaps
+brought on themselves. No calamity so accursed but M. Emanuel could
+pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged candidly; but where his
+questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where his ruthless researches
+found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could be cruel, and I
+thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen from poor
+shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the mount
+of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor living
+lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
+unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
+has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
+visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
+not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it
+was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
+righteous and needed.
+
+Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
+rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
+and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing
+in her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers
+all fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no
+bouquet. I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered,
+they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and
+perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers
+to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I
+had been so remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me:
+surely I must have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small
+knot of violets, something to win myself praise for taste,
+commendation for ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better
+than the Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of
+bloom or leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zélie smiled, well
+pleased.
+
+"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
+"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-
+house flowers!"
+
+And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.
+
+But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with
+a promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by
+other feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of
+intent. We thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically)
+had in it a friendly promise this morning; and so it had.
+
+He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
+already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
+plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M.
+Paul's all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't
+know why I should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor
+Labassecourien), he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion.
+Not by the vague folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-
+dark paletôt were the outlines of his person obscured; on the
+contrary, his figure (such as it was, I don't boast of it) was well
+set off by a civilized coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold.
+The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec had vanished: bare-headed, he came
+upon us, carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. The little man
+looked well, very well; there was a clearness of amity in his blue
+eye, and a glow of good feeling on his dark complexion, which passed
+perfectly in the place of beauty: one really did not care to observe
+that his nose, though far from small, was of no particular shape, his
+cheek thin, his brow marked and square, his mouth no rose-bud: one
+accepted him as he was, and felt his presence the reverse of damping
+or insignificant.
+
+He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
+jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
+amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund, good-
+fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice he
+had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the words
+to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an irritable,
+it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place, tender beyond a
+man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little children, that
+bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would, he could not
+disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he was better
+with them than with his own sex.
+
+"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
+congratulations on the anniversary of his fête," said Mademoiselle
+Zélie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
+with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
+the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
+bowed over it.
+
+The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
+with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
+went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that
+when the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a
+blooming pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with
+such exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This
+ceremony over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence,
+expectant of a speech.
+
+I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
+unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.
+
+Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
+well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he
+kept his station behind the pile of flowers.
+
+At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
+a hollow:--
+
+"Est-ce là tout?"
+
+Mademoiselle Zélie looked round.
+
+"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.
+
+Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
+youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
+signified as much.
+
+"Est-ce là tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
+had now descended some notes lower.
+
+"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
+speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you
+that, with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
+bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
+foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
+their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
+frivolous to be honoured by her observance."
+
+"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zélie,
+when you begin."
+
+The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
+given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
+manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.
+
+A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his
+eclipse; and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing
+straight and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the
+wall opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic
+tones--
+
+"Est-ce là tout?"
+
+I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping
+into his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight
+in my own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the
+comic side of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now,
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity.
+The reader not having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss
+Snowe's character the most distant pretensions to perfection, will be
+scarcely surprised to learn that she felt too perverse to defend
+herself from any imputation the Parisienne might choose to insinuate
+and besides, M. Paul was so tragic, and took my defection so
+seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I kept, then, both my box and my
+countenance, and sat insensate as any stone.
+
+"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
+uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
+wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
+lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
+his customary "discours."
+
+I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
+it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his
+mortification or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-
+counteracted the ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce là tout?"
+
+Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
+attention was again amusingly arrested.
+
+Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
+on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
+against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
+me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
+became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
+the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
+to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
+give him ease.
+
+I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
+to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
+when I began to listen.
+
+Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which
+scathed, or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with
+fury upon "les Anglaises."
+
+Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
+handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
+nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
+stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress,
+their pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their
+insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his
+teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
+singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
+consequence, detestably ugly.
+
+"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
+with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
+you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
+pyramid"
+
+I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
+time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
+bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
+cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at last--
+fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names and
+best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
+jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
+most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
+nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zélie, and the whole class,
+became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
+how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
+struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
+cry:--
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Héros! A bas la France, la
+Fiction et les Faquins!"
+
+The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
+Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
+folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the
+victory, since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-
+humoured. With great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers;
+talked poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume,
+purity, etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes
+filles" and the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre a very full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet;
+and ended by announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy
+morning in spring, he intended to take the whole class out to
+breakfast in the country. "Such of the class, at least," he added,
+with emphasis, "as he could count amongst the number of his friends."
+
+"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
+
+"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
+flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
+and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't
+know whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess
+that _I_ did.
+
+Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
+of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
+smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that
+the box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would
+not have it so.
+
+In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
+by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well
+to secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E.,
+for Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
+foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
+schoolroom.
+
+It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
+boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of
+the week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions
+was vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe
+hanging in the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its
+horizontal grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath.
+I rather wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being
+usually locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save
+Madame Beck and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered
+still more, on approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a
+step, a chair stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.
+
+"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
+following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
+opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
+inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
+coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
+chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
+amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
+moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
+discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletôt was resumed; the
+perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
+hand, culpably busy.
+
+Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was
+on the most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered
+the lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as
+my own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left
+signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I
+had never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect
+the hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in
+exercises left overnight full of faults, and found next morning
+carefully corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans
+full welcome and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out
+grammar would magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a
+classic, mellow and sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would
+laughingly peep a romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the
+magazine, whence last evening's reading had been extracted. Impossible
+to doubt the source whence these treasures flowed: had there been no
+other indication, one condemning and traitor peculiarity, common to
+them all, settled the question--_they smelt of cigars_. This was
+very shocking, of course: _I_ thought so at first, and used to
+open the window with some bustle, to air my desk, and with fastidious
+finger and thumb, to hold the peccant brochures forth to the purifying
+breeze. I was cured of that formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at
+it one day, understood the inference, instantly relieved my hand of
+its burden, and, in another moment, would have thrust the same into
+the glowing stove. It chanced to be a book, on the perusal of which I
+was bent; so for once I proved as decided and quicker than himself;
+recaptured the spoil, and--having saved this volume--never hazarded a
+second. With all this, I had never yet been able to arrest in his
+visits the freakish, friendly, cigar-loving phantom.
+
+But now at last I had him: there he was--the very brownie himself; and
+there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian
+darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him.
+Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him--pleased,
+that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last
+her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn--I
+softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his
+shoulder.
+
+My heart smote me to see that--after this morning's hostility, after
+my seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings,
+and the ruffling undergone by his temper--he, all willing to forget
+and forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the
+title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat
+bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with
+gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not harming. My
+heart smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me
+what good he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my
+morning's anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.
+
+I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was
+nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour: there was
+something hardy about him.
+
+"I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers," said he,
+taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half-escaped him--
+"It is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not
+I. I often visit your desk."
+
+"Monsieur, I know it."
+
+"You find a brochure or tome now and then; but you don't read them,
+because they have passed under this?"--touching his cigar.
+
+"They have, and are no better for the process; but I read them."
+
+"Without pleasure?"
+
+"Monsieur must not be contradicted."
+
+"Do you like them, or any of them?--are they acceptable?" "Monsieur
+has seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many
+recreations as to undervalue those he provides."
+
+"I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little
+amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?"
+
+"A fatalist would say--because we cannot."
+
+"This morning," he continued, "I awoke in a bright mood, and came into
+classe happy; you spoiled my day."
+
+"No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally."
+
+"Unintentionally! No. It was my fête-day; everybody wished me
+happiness but you. The little children of the third division gave each
+her knot of violets, lisped each her congratulation:--you--nothing.
+Not a bud, leaf, whisper--not a glance. Was this unintentional?"
+
+"I meant no harm."
+
+"Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You
+would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me
+pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is
+forgotten, and the pain soothed."
+
+"I did know that it was expected: I _was_ prepared; yet I laid
+out no centimes on flowers."
+
+"It is well--you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you
+had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once 'Paul Carl Emanuel
+--je te déteste, mon garçon!'--than smile an interest, look an
+affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold I don't
+think you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I
+believe; I think your judgment is warped--that you are indifferent
+where you ought to be grateful--and perhaps devoted and infatuated,
+where you ought to be cool as your name. Don't suppose that I wish you
+to have a passion for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do
+you start for? Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is
+such a word, and there is such a thing--though not within these walls,
+thank heaven! You are no child that one should not speak of what
+exists; but I only uttered the word--the thing, I assure you, is alien
+to my whole life and views. It died in the past--in the present it
+lies buried--its grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old:
+in the future there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls
+consolation; but all will then be changed--form and feeling: the
+mortal will have put on immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but
+heaven. All I say to _you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought
+to treat Professor Paul Emanuel decently."
+
+I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.
+
+"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fête-day, and I will
+not grudge a few centimes for a small offering."
+
+"You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes,
+and I did not grudge its price."
+
+And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.
+
+"It lay ready in my lap this morning," I continued; "and if Monsieur
+had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less
+interfering--perhaps I should say, too, if _I_ had been calmer
+and wiser--I should have given it then."
+
+He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure
+circlet, pleased his eyes. I told him to open it.
+
+"My initials!" said he, indicating the letters in the lid. "Who told
+you I was called Carl David?"
+
+"A little bird, Monsieur."
+
+"Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing
+when needful.",
+
+He took out the chain--a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with
+silk and sparkling with beads. He liked that too--admired it
+artlessly, like a child.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you."
+
+"This is the thing you were working at last night?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You finished it this morning?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"And offered on my fête-day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This purpose continued as you wove it?"
+
+Again I assented.
+
+"Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion--saying,
+this part is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the
+adornment of another?"
+
+"By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just."
+
+"This object is _all_ mine?"
+
+"That object is yours entirely."
+
+Straightway Monsieur opened his paletôt, arranged the guard splendidly
+across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he
+could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought
+decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonnière--he
+was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
+others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragées" as freely as
+he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie's gifts left in my desk, I
+forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in
+these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple
+lunch consisted frequently of a "brioche," which, as often as not, to
+shared with some child of the third division.
+
+"A présent c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletôt;
+and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two
+volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife
+(he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were
+novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his
+censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose,
+politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good-day.
+
+"We are friends now," thought I, "till the next time we quarrel."
+
+We _might_ have quarrelled again that very same evening, but,
+wonderful to relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our
+opportunity.
+
+Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having
+seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence
+at night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he
+appeared. I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help
+greeting his arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the
+same seat about which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly
+arisen, I took good care not to make too much room for him; he watched
+with a jealous, side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I
+did not, though the bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early
+impulse to recoil from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletôt and bonnet-
+grec, the neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer
+uncomfortable or very formidable. I did not now sit restrained,
+"asphyxiée" (as he used to say) at his side; I stirred when I wished
+to stir, coughed when it was necessary, even yawned when I was tired--
+did, in short, what I pleased, blindly reliant upon his indulgence.
+Nor did my temerity, this evening at least, meet the punishment it
+perhaps merited; he was both indulgent and good-natured; not a cross
+glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty word left his lips. Till the
+very close of the evening, he did not indeed address me at all, yet I
+felt, somehow, that he was full of friendliness. Silence is of
+different kinds, and breathes different meanings; no words could
+inspire a pleasanter content than did M. Paul's worldless presence.
+When the tray came in, and the bustle of supper commenced, he just
+said, as he retired, that he wished me a good night and sweet dreams;
+and a good night and sweet dreams I had.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+M. PAUL.
+
+
+Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly
+conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that
+day M. Paul became a changed character--easy to live with, and no
+longer apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.
+
+No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When over-
+wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and,
+besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the
+essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the
+heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment whose seat is in the head.
+
+I used to think, as I Sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting
+his brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had
+not as many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a
+knot of blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had
+points of resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.
+
+In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
+Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women,
+would have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and
+recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling
+himself about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty
+Madame de Staëls, if, they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or
+opposed him.
+
+I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache--a
+lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history.
+She was clever--that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides,
+thoroughly possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of
+words and confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal
+appearance was far from destitute of advantages; I believe many people
+would have pronounced her "a fine woman;" and yet there were points in
+her robust and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and
+demonstrative presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious
+tastes of M. Paul could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing
+through the carré, would put him into a strange taking; her long free
+step--almost stride--along the corridor, would often make him snatch
+up his papers and decamp on the instant.
+
+With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her
+class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it
+differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less
+courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he
+expected submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid
+opposition, accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly
+unjustifiable interference.
+
+Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he
+threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a
+Penthesilea, picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the
+intermeddler's face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M.
+Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of
+fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his
+fair foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, M.
+Paul detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his
+earnest fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to
+rest peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or
+even serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of
+the establishment. The Professor conquered, but I cannot say that the
+laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I
+ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might
+be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men
+or women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame
+Panache was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an
+unspeakable and active aversion impelled him to a war of
+extermination.
+
+Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with
+reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of
+employment, he forgot his hatred, and alike active in good and evil,
+he moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming
+to make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness,
+the old voice--a little loud--the old manner--a little forward--so
+acted upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or
+rather himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.
+
+To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an
+eager grasp after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a
+man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist;
+it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him
+that his requirements went beyond reason--that his absolutism verged
+on tyranny.
+
+The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing
+within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even
+disturbed him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held
+back his hand--perhaps said, "Come on if you have strength," but would
+not aid the birth.
+
+When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
+breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
+when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
+yet offer to foster.
+
+"Prove yourself true ere I cherish you," was his ordinance; and how
+difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
+strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
+tearlessly--ordeals that he exacted should be passed through--
+fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached the
+bourne, were sometimes marked in blood--followed them grimly, holding
+the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And when at
+last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he
+opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed
+deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart,
+to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest
+forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at
+last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him
+suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he
+was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the
+health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied and
+endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed
+to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded
+silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
+
+I speak not ignorant of these evils.
+
+Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been
+my professor--he had not given me lessons, but about that time,
+accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some
+branch of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have
+disgraced a charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me
+in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly
+deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks.
+
+He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed
+exultation, condescending to say that he believed I was "bonne et pas
+trop faible" (i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of
+parts), but, owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, "as yet in a
+state of wretchedly imperfect mental development."
+
+The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a
+preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common
+acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A
+depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have
+turned in life.
+
+So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
+forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty
+humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can
+hardly do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes
+would moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened
+as he was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation
+to give to me.
+
+But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
+yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free,
+and my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
+trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
+kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam
+to a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more
+I did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of
+which the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then
+flowed out the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I
+was vaguely threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed
+the limits proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for
+unfeminine knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it
+joyed me by any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in
+the abstract--the godlike thirst after discovery--these feelings were
+known to me but by briefest flashes.
+
+Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
+his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes--it imparted a strong
+stimulus--it gave wings to aspiration.
+
+In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
+uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
+warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
+Whatever my powers--feminine or the contrary--God had given them, and
+I felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.
+
+The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's
+affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he
+would insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he
+called "faible"--that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false
+incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the
+most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that
+I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard of--
+and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down in
+a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus.
+
+Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him--I
+rose against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I
+filled my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his
+feet.
+
+"Take them away, M. Paul," I said, "and teach me no more. I never
+asked to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly
+that learning is not happiness."
+
+And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
+to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
+affection had been very sweet and dear--a pleasure new and
+incomparable: now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his
+lessons.
+
+The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
+careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He
+made his peace somehow--too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood
+out longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand
+with amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
+moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!
+
+On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
+attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
+before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
+delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
+steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
+presence, stand "carrément" before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
+rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words,
+"Qu'il est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux--
+quel regard! Tenez! J'en ai le coeur tout ému!"
+
+When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered "cette
+fille effrontée, cette créature sans pudeur," to address me in such
+terms.
+
+I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
+Rosine--a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and
+reserve were not largely developed--was in the constant habit of
+using. Besides, what she said about the young doctor was true enough.
+Graham _was_ handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling: glance.
+An observation to that effect actually formed itself into sound on my
+lips.
+
+"Elle ne dit que la vérité," I said.
+
+"Ah! vous trouvez?"
+
+"Mais, sans doute."
+
+The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
+very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released, pupils
+rushed out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A
+mandate to remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air
+sadly--the stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable
+voice merely recommended silence; and this salamander--for whom no
+room ever seemed too hot--sitting down between my desk and the stove--
+a situation in which he ought to have felt broiled, but did not--
+proceeded to confront me with--a Greek quotation!
+
+In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both
+Greek and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if
+they would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in
+fear of its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a
+fund of knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to
+conceal. The privileges of a "classical education," it was insinuated,
+had been mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store,
+hived in memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily
+nurtured my wits.
+
+A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret--to
+wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
+Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's
+jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait
+for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
+and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic
+tones fell musically from his lips--for he had a good voice--
+remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he
+would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was
+evident he sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never
+occurred, however; not comprehending, of course I could neither be
+charmed nor annoyed.
+
+Baffled--almost angry--he still clung to his fixed idea; my
+susceptibilities were pronounced marble--my face a mask. It appeared
+as if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me
+for what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort;
+if not made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for
+themselves.
+
+At moments I _did_ wish that his suspicions had been better
+founded. There were times when I would have given my right hand to
+possess the treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign
+punishment for his testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing
+home to him his worst apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could
+have exulted to burst on his vision, confront and confound his
+"lunettes," one blaze of acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to
+make me clever while I was young enough to learn, that I might, by one
+grand, sudden, inhuman revelation--one cold, cruel, overwhelming
+triumph--have for ever crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl
+David Emanuel!
+
+Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
+fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.
+
+"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
+of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
+accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
+creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
+the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
+passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
+and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
+mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?
+
+This "hein?" was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
+contradiction or objection. However, I only said--"Cela ne me regarde
+pas: je ne m'en soucie pas;" and presently added--"May I go, Monsieur?
+They have rung the bell for the second déjeuner" (_i.e._ luncheon).
+
+"What of that? You are not hungry?"
+
+"Indeed I was," I said; "I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
+and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell."
+
+"Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him."
+
+And he broke in two the "brioche" intended for his own refreshment,
+and gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the
+really formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I
+could not forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of
+which he accused me.
+
+"Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?" he asked, in a
+softened tone.
+
+If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
+would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
+the spot, but I answered--
+
+"Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
+me, but I _sometimes_, not _always_, feel a knowledge of my
+own."
+
+"What did I mean?" he inquired, sharply.
+
+Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
+subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche feeling sure that
+on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
+indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
+apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
+not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
+said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
+run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
+believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
+baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
+a glass or two of vin blanc--might I go?
+
+"Petite gourmande!" said he, smiling, "I have not forgotten how
+pleased you were with the pâté â la crême I once gave you, and you
+know very well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will
+be the same as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back
+quickly."
+
+And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and
+return with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and
+then to vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future
+settlement.
+
+That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
+scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and
+fixed me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from
+my hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered
+me to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I
+suppose, by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery.
+All he had yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying
+nothing: not so of the present attack.
+
+It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
+afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
+engage--foreigner as I was--to take my place on the first form of
+first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French,
+on any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar
+or lexicon.
+
+I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
+nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
+a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not
+under the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or
+the recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one
+evidence of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that
+Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the most
+maddening of masters (him before me always excepted)--a deity which
+sometimes, under circumstances--apparently propitious, would not speak
+when questioned, would not hear when appealed to, would not, when
+sought, be found; but would stand, all cold, all indurated, all
+granite, a dark Baal with carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast
+like the stone face of a tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some
+sound, some long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an
+unseen stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake
+unsolicited, would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal
+like a perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice,
+whatever the hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath,
+whatever the circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously
+promising vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum
+of oracles, but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds,
+and grudging to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--
+yielding it sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the
+deathless ichor of its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel
+into bondage, and make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade,
+between a Mathilde and a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for
+the pleasure, and to the inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!
+
+Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
+battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
+repulse.
+
+On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
+sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable."
+I feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or
+not? Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me
+good to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one
+minute he paused to take breath.
+
+"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"
+
+"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
+compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
+write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."
+
+"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
+sake?"
+
+"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
+had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would
+harass me thus."
+
+He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
+his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
+there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
+form it was not for him to make use.
+
+"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois
+d'ici," said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately
+arming for the effort."
+
+"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
+hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."
+
+And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
+to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.
+
+"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away;
+_he_ was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I
+suffer, thoroughly screened by his person?"
+
+"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
+history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
+and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step
+to the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
+thirsty?"
+
+"If that was all, he would do my errand."
+
+He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
+behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
+prey had escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DRYAD.
+
+
+The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
+This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for
+many others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this
+time left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid
+days.
+
+One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
+the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
+refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
+down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
+
+Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
+watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
+foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
+entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
+centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
+and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
+
+My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
+in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
+a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
+she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
+between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers,
+and the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul
+was not of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl
+with him ere now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to
+judge, she seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an
+indulgent guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through
+his, and hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had
+struck through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the
+family of presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell
+upon it. While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and
+following the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly
+dressed, for she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the
+glancing leaves of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they
+closed; my lassitude, the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and
+birds, all lulled me, and at last I slept.
+
+Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight
+behind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees
+had gone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests,
+too, had vanished; each alley was void.
+
+On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have been
+after sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were
+not benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of
+the bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,
+carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (both
+taken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round
+me.
+
+Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of
+the pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of
+them had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?
+Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have
+heard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?
+
+As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at
+all, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had
+meddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; she
+has come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. She
+considers me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which it
+was hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"
+methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very
+chill."
+
+So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.
+
+I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have
+hardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious
+illusion of vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place
+some months ago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey
+crown of Jean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet
+vanished into their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-
+ivy. I paced up and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had
+pondered that night when I buried my glass jar--how I should make some
+advance in life, take another step towards an independent position;
+for this train of reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by
+me been wholly abandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from
+me, and a certain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice,
+into that track of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little
+by little, I had laid half a plan.
+
+"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town of
+Villette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are in
+dear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and less
+emulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite
+as homely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a
+prudently chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved
+one thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and
+two or three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and
+desks, a black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and
+table, with a sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-
+pupils, and so work my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as
+I have often heard her say--from no higher starting-point, and where
+is she now? All these premises and this garden are hers, bought with
+her money; she has a competency already secured for old age, and a
+flourishing establishment under her direction, which will furnish a
+career for her children.
+
+"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady
+exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not
+to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks
+interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,
+by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is
+there nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearer
+to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me
+better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at
+whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism,
+and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for
+others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so
+rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a
+huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see
+that a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on
+conditions of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be
+of the few favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine
+sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all;
+neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust
+while I weep."
+
+So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts
+bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is
+a poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items,
+and sets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Call
+anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong
+characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to
+Doom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written
+"pain;" and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass,
+or accept the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the
+strongest--if the darkest angel of God's host--water, when he has
+asked blood--will he take it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I
+settled another account.
+
+Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--and
+leaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone
+sealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of
+feeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for
+him; my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was
+become of that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and
+half life; only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?
+
+Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I
+thought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth,
+and of hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.
+
+Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would
+occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with
+Dr. John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice
+still kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so
+well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity,
+this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part
+of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his
+mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness
+the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their
+perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is
+the sweetbriar enamoured of the air?
+
+"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are
+not mine. Good-night, and God bless you!"
+
+Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heard
+the words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.
+
+"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarce
+set; I hope you slept well?"
+
+I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and
+speaker.
+
+"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"
+
+"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,
+and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"
+
+"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen, gift-
+bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how I
+fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."
+
+"Did the shawls keep you warm?"
+
+"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"
+
+"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"
+
+"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."
+
+"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,
+Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very
+faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,
+and keeping down."
+
+This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the most
+habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of
+it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not
+trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been
+gone had I left him nothing to "keep down."
+
+"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well
+for you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I
+watch you and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and
+oftener than you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in
+it?"
+
+He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.
+
+"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for a study--
+virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read for hours
+together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; its contents
+are human nature--female human nature. I know you all by heart. Ah! I
+know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cette maîtresse-femme, my
+cousin Beck herself."
+
+"It is not right, Monsieur."
+
+"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin
+or Luther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich
+father (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a year
+in a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and
+sometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was a
+good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. I
+retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they not
+aided me!"
+
+"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."
+
+"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. You
+know the St. Pierre?"
+
+"Partially."
+
+He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know
+her _thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me
+the amiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned
+on me. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against
+my reason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young,
+or knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art
+of dressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which
+spared me the pain of embarrassment--"
+
+"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you
+embarrassed in my life."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite
+pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"
+
+"Monsieur, I never saw it."
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."
+
+"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,
+before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in
+the third division."
+
+"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and
+publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it
+quite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into
+action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.
+If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may
+spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at
+the thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could
+look upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved
+that I am as I say--modest"
+
+I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a
+sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.
+
+"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voice
+had altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I
+don't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little
+lattice with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery
+hast thou wrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her
+vanities, her levities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed
+what bucklers me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zélie."
+
+"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunes
+filles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp like
+boys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the
+trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early
+preference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched
+her well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you
+recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of
+white violets when we were strangers?"
+
+"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."
+
+"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without
+prudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when
+it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return.
+Not only did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--
+another guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after
+night my cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly
+pursued your movements when you did not see her."
+
+"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see
+what passed in this garden at night?"
+
+"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but the
+garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a
+door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of
+that door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This
+afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again
+this evening I have availed myself of the same entrance."
+
+I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, how
+terrible would all this be!"
+
+His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the
+subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a
+tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour
+was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often
+lectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speak
+my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his Jesuit-
+system.
+
+"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming
+and going by stealth degrades your own dignity."
+
+"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble my
+head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' How
+often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in
+trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,
+scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with
+such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a
+third-rate London actor."
+
+"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a
+wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human
+heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.
+I wish you were a Protestant."
+
+Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet
+thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen other
+things."
+
+"What other things?"
+
+Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the
+shrubs, where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
+
+"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you
+and me?"
+
+He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I
+have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me
+watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."
+
+The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
+
+"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye
+just winking itself out?"
+
+"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it
+is time to go in."
+
+"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only
+this question."
+
+Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk
+had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the
+trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too
+much absorbed to be sensible of the change.
+
+"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"
+
+"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst
+Protestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do
+you ask such a question?"
+
+"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"
+
+"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such
+subjects. I dislike it the more because--"
+
+"You believe?"
+
+"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"
+
+"Since you came here?"
+
+"Yes; not many months ago."
+
+"Here?--in this house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
+conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
+choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
+strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are alike--
+there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when you
+look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
+mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
+of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
+perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
+you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
+mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
+knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
+But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too,
+have had my 'impressions.'"
+
+"Monsieur, tell me them."
+
+"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
+house and garden?"
+
+"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
+here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
+bears us."
+
+"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."
+
+"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"
+
+"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this
+house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I
+have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its
+conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to
+any other living being. A nun!"
+
+"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."
+
+"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
+that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
+as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
+has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"
+
+Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
+the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--
+the high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its
+boughs on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
+inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had
+swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and
+crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,
+and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood
+still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and
+heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more
+solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the
+boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?
+What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell
+rang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there
+came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a
+sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the very
+NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of
+stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing;
+the rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE FIRST LETTER.
+
+
+Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my
+intercourse with the sumptuous Hôtel Crécy? That intercourse had, for
+an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre
+had been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and
+capital of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly
+after it took place.
+
+I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering
+slowly on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not
+unpleasing, when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if
+they had just encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of
+the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged
+gentleman and young lady, on the other--a young and handsome man. Very
+graceful was the lady's mien, choice her appointments, delicate and
+stately her whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known
+to me, and, drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the
+Count Home de Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.
+
+How animated was Graham's face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring
+the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the
+combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to
+subdue and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of
+great price and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in
+appreciating the gem, could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina
+with the same youth, beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded,
+and in simple attire, a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would
+have thought her a pretty little creature, and would have loved with
+his eye her movements and her mien, but it required other than this to
+conquer him as he was now vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion
+as now, without loss, and even with gain to his manly honour, one saw
+that he was reduced; there was about Dr. John all the man of the
+world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve--the
+world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and
+futile. In his victrix he required all that was here visible--the
+imprint of high cultivation, the consecration of a careful and
+authoritative protection, the adjuncts that Fashion decrees, Wealth
+purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these conditions his spirit
+stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to the utmost fulfilled;
+and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did homage to Paulina as
+his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling, rather than of
+conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.
+
+They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he
+skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome;
+mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.
+
+"Papa, there is Lucy!" cried a musical, friendly voice. "Lucy, dear
+Lucy--_do_ come here!"
+
+I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her
+saddle to kiss me.
+
+"I was coming to see you to-morrow," said she; "but now to-morrow you
+will come and see me."
+
+She named the hour, and I promised compliance.
+
+The morrow's evening found me with her--she and I shut into her own
+room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were
+brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so
+signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the
+interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tête-à-
+tête, a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear
+soft voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My
+own attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she
+herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up
+her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an
+abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed--a restless
+silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in
+a diffident, half-appealing voice--"Lucy--"
+
+"Well, I am at your side."
+
+"Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck's?"
+
+"Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her."
+
+"No--not much."
+
+"You want to invite her to spend another evening?"
+
+"No... I suppose she still talks about being married?"
+
+"Not to any one you care for."
+
+"But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have
+changed her mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months
+ago."
+
+"Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they
+stood."
+
+"There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she
+seem unhappy?"
+
+"Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or
+from. Graham during your absence?"
+
+"Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He
+undertook the management of some affair which required attention while
+we were away. Dr. Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure
+in obliging him."
+
+"Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to
+judge from his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious
+about his health?"
+
+"Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is
+not particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of
+other things than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr.
+Bretton rode away, `Really it does a man good to see the spirit and
+energy of that boy.' He called Dr. Bretton a boy; I believe he almost
+thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little girl; he was not speaking
+to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy...."
+
+Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her
+chair, and came and sat on the stool at my feet.
+
+I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my
+acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it
+for once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina
+only what was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard
+for her lay deep. An admiration more superficial might have been more
+demonstrative; mine, however, was quiet.
+
+"What have you to ask of Lucy?" said I; "be brave, and speak out"
+
+But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and
+there was no coolness on her cheek--not a transient surface-blush, but
+a gathering inward excitement raised its tint and its temperature.
+
+"Lucy, I _do_ wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do,
+_do_ give me your real opinion of his character, his disposition."
+
+"His character stands high, and deservedly high."
+
+"And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition," she urged; "you
+know him well."
+
+"I know him pretty well."
+
+"You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of
+him as a son."
+
+"He is a fine-hearted son; his mother's comfort and hope, her pride
+and pleasure."
+
+She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a
+little caressing stroke.
+
+"In what other way is he good, Lucy?"
+
+"Dr. Bretton is benevolent--humanely disposed towards all his race,
+Dr. Bretton would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst
+criminal."
+
+"I heard some gentlemen, some of papa's friends, who were talking
+about him, say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the
+hospitals, who tremble before some pitiless and selfish surgeons,
+welcome him."
+
+"They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a
+hospital; I saw how he was received: your father's friends are right."
+
+The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She
+had yet more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk
+was beginning to reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight
+ruddiness; but I thought she wished the room dimmer, the hour later.
+
+"How quiet and secluded we feel here!" I remarked, to reassure her.
+
+"Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to
+tea; papa is dining out."
+
+Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously,
+dressed them, now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine
+of her beautiful hair; she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and
+at last, having cleared a voice that was naturally liquid as a lark's,
+she said:--
+
+"You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr.
+Bretton, ask so many questions, take such an interest, but--".
+
+"Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him."
+
+"And if I did," said she, with slight quickness, "is that a reason why
+I should talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?"
+
+"If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here
+waiting for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about
+the room, and anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go
+on."
+
+"I mean to go on," retorted she; "what else do you suppose I mean to
+do?"
+
+And she looked and spoke--the little Polly of Bretton--petulant,
+sensitive.
+
+"If," said she, emphatically, "if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to
+die for liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise
+than dumb--dumb as the grave--dumb as you, Lucy Snowe--you know it--
+and you know you would despise me if I failed in self-control, and
+whined about some rickety liking that was all on my side."
+
+"It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either
+in boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of
+feelings. But as to you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear
+you. Tell me all it will give you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no
+more."
+
+"Do you care for me, Lucy?"
+
+"Yes, I do, Paulina."
+
+"And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I
+was a little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me
+then to lavish on you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable
+to me, and I like to talk with and trust you. So listen, Lucy."
+
+And she settled herself, resting against my arm--resting gently, not
+with honest Mistress Fanshawe's fatiguing and selfish weight.
+
+"A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham
+during our absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on
+business; this was true, but I did not tell you all."
+
+"You evaded?"
+
+"I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak
+the truth now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one's ease. Papa
+often lets me open the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One
+morning, about three weeks ago, you don't know how surprised I was to
+find, amongst a dozen letters for M. de Bassompierre, a note addressed
+to Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, amidst all the rest; the
+handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. I was going to
+say, 'Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;' but the 'Miss'
+struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman
+before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read
+it first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa's ideas
+about me: he forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is
+not aware that other people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be;
+so, with a curious mixture of feelings, some of them self-reproachful,
+and some so fluttering and strong, I cannot describe them, I gave papa
+his twelve letters--his herd of possessions--and kept back my one, my
+ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during breakfast, looking up at me with an
+inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself a thing double-existent--a
+child to that dear papa, but no more a child to myself. After
+breakfast I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured myself by
+turning the key in the door, I began to study the outside of my
+treasure: it was some minutes before I could get over the direction
+and penetrate the seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind
+by instant storm--one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say.
+Graham's hand is like himself, Lucy, and so is his seal--all clear,
+firm, and rounded--no slovenly splash of wax--a full, solid, steady
+drop--a distinct impress; no pointed turns harshly pricking the optic
+nerve, but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, that soothes you as
+you read. It is like his face--just like the chiselling of his
+features: do you know his autograph?"
+
+"I have seen it: go on."
+
+"The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my
+scissors. On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew
+back voluntarily; it was too soon yet to drink that draught--the
+sparkle in the cup was so beautiful--I would watch it yet a minute.
+Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my prayers that
+morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a little earlier than
+usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had hastened to
+join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers till
+afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and
+then man; but I don't think heaven could be jealous of anything I
+might do for papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to
+say that another feeling than filial affection was in question--to
+urge me to pray before I dared to read what I so longed to read--to
+deny myself yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I have had
+these impulses ever since I can remember. I put the letter down and
+said my prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that whatever
+happened, I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and
+might never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of
+such a possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But
+still, Lucy, I felt that in time papa would have to be taught the
+truth, managed, and induced to hear reason.
+
+"I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment.
+_I_ was not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart
+did more than throb--it trembled fast--every quiver seemed like the
+pant of an animal athirst, laid down at a well and drinking; and the
+well proved quite full, gloriously clear; it rose up munificently of
+its own impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and not a mote, Lucy,
+no moss, no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden gurgle.
+
+"Life," she went on, "is said to be full of pain to some. I have read
+biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to
+suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near,
+or lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing
+grasp. I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so
+far from being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was
+borne off by sudden whirlwind; and, alas! some of these met the winter
+with empty garners, and died of utter want in the darkest and coldest
+of the year."
+
+"Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?"
+
+"Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I
+am not endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow
+in sun, due moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered,
+taught, by my dear father; and now--now--another comes. Graham loves
+me."
+
+For some minutes we both paused on this climax.
+
+"Does your father know?" I inquired, in a low voice.
+
+"Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not
+approach that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added
+that he must have some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere
+he ventured to risk a step in the matter elsewhere."
+
+"How did you reply?"
+
+"I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled
+for fear of making the answer too cordial: Graham's tastes are so
+fastidious. I wrote it three times--chastening and subduing the
+phrases at every rescript; at last, having confected it till it seemed
+to me to resemble a morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest
+of fruit or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch it."
+
+"Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr.
+Bretton."
+
+"But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain."
+
+"Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further
+correspondence till your father knows all, and gives his sanction."
+
+"Will he ever give it?"
+
+"Time will show. Wait."
+
+"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm,
+brief note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my
+sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my fathers
+knowledge, write again."
+
+"You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it
+will increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable
+of increase. Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so
+much pure, fine flame, is a priceless privilege of nature."
+
+"You see I feel Graham's disposition," said she. "I feel that no
+delicacy can be too exquisite for his treatment."
+
+"It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then--whatever
+Dr. Bretton's disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly
+met--you would still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your
+father."
+
+"Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake
+papa from his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!"
+
+"Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and
+your kind Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for
+you: doubt not she will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly
+appoint the hour. Yes: I have thought over your life just as you have
+yourself thought it over; I have made comparisons like those to which
+you adverted. We know not the future, but the past has been
+propitious.
+
+"As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more
+susceptible than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect,
+neither your outward nor your inward self would have ripened to what
+they now are. Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled
+the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have
+harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation you would
+have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness.
+Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake,
+but I believe for Graham's. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop
+fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there
+you are, ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you
+together at La Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham
+there seems to me promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny
+youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is
+deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy--not as
+angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives _are_
+thus blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and
+lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another
+course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and
+variable--breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early
+closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of
+God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored
+the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures
+contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.
+
+
+On the first of May, we had all--i.e. the twenty boarders and the
+four teachers--notice to rise at five o'clock of the morning, to be
+dressed and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le
+Professeur Emanuel, who was to head our march forth from Villette, for
+it was on this day he proposed to fulfil his promise of taking us to
+breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the reader may perhaps
+remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this excursion
+was first projected--rather the contrary; but on my now making
+allusion to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear
+received a pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the
+repetition by raising, further difficulties.
+
+"Je vous conseille de vous faire prier," said M. Emanuel, imperially
+menacing the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was
+enough, so I made up my mind to be of the party.
+
+The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden,
+and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm,
+and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in
+assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print
+dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French
+workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly
+unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume.
+Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best article.
+
+At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase,
+through the carré, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood
+our Professor, wearing, not his savage-looking paletôt and severe
+bonnet-grec, but a young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat.
+He had for us all the kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had
+a thanksgiving smile. We were marshalled in order and soon started.
+
+The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful
+as fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief
+of ours had the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when
+he would; just as, in an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to
+fear.
+
+He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a
+word to every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly
+neglecting even those he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason
+I had, to keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with
+Ginevra Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel's
+not unsubstantial limb--(she continued in excellent case, and I can
+assure the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of
+her loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to
+goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)--however,
+having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her
+always between myself and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I
+heard him coming up to the right hand or the left. My private motive
+for this manoeuvre might be traced to the circumstance of the new
+print dress I wore, being pink in colour--a fact which, under our
+present convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in a
+shawl with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where
+pastured a bull.
+
+For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in
+the arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but, by-
+and-by, he found out, that whether he came to this side or to that,
+Miss Fanshawe was still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance
+between Ginevra and him had never run so smooth that his temper did
+not undergo a certain crisping process whenever he heard her English
+accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; they jarred if they came
+in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed him bearish,
+meddling, repellent.
+
+At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time,
+finding still the same untoward result to the experiment--he thrust
+his head forward, settled his eyes on mine, and demanded with
+impatience, "Qu'est-ce que c'est? Vous me jouez des tours?"
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his
+customary quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I
+shook out the long fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf.
+"A-h-h! c'est la robe rose!" broke from his lips, affecting me very
+much like the sudden and irate low of some lord of the meadow.
+
+"It is only cotton," I alleged, hurriedly; "and cheaper, and washes
+better than any other colour."
+
+"Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes," he
+answered. "A-t-on jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutôt son
+chapeau, et ses gants, et ses brodequins!" These articles of dress
+were just like what my companions wore; certainly not one whit
+smarter--perhaps rather plainer than most--but Monsieur had now got
+hold of his text, and I began to chafe under the expected sermon. It
+went off, however, as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes passes
+on a summer day. I got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape
+of a single bantering smile from his eyes; and then he said,
+"Courage!--à vrai dire je ne suis pas fâché, peut-être même suis je
+content qu'on s'est fait si belle pour ma petite fête."
+
+"Mais ma robe n'est pas belle, Monsieur--elle n'est que propre."
+
+"J'aime la propreté," said he. In short, he was not to be
+dissatisfied; the sun of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious
+morning; it consumed scudding clouds ere they sullied its disk.
+
+And now we were in the country, amongst what they called "les bois et
+les petits sentiers." These woods and lanes a month later would offer
+but a dusty and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May
+greenness and morning repose, they looked very pleasant.
+
+We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour,
+with an orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the
+green swell of ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be
+seated, Monsieur taking his place in our midst, and suffering us to
+gather in a knot round him. Those who liked him more than they feared,
+came close, and these were chiefly little ones; those who feared more
+than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom much affection had
+given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, observed the
+greatest distance.
+
+He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction
+as children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its
+strength, and strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches
+in that little tale; sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description
+that, while I listened, sunk into my mind, and since have never faded.
+He tinted a twilight scene--I hold it in memory still--such a picture
+I have never looked on from artist's pencil.
+
+I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps
+that very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it
+in perfection. M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have
+heard him lavish, with careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental
+wealth as books seldom boast; his mind was indeed my library, and
+whenever it was opened to me, I entered bliss. Intellectually
+imperfect as I was, I could read little; there were few bound and
+printed volumes that did not weary me--whose perusal did not fag and
+blind--but his tomes of thought were collyrium to the spirit's eyes;
+over their contents, inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to
+think what a delight it would be for one who loved him better than he
+loved himself, to gather and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so
+recklessly flung to heaven's reckless winds.
+
+His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat
+apart. In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence
+to wait till it was voluntarily offered) he asked, "Were you
+interested?"
+
+According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply answered--
+"Yes."
+
+"Was it good?"
+
+"Very good."
+
+"Yet I could not write that down," said he.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur?"
+
+"I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could
+dictate it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me.
+Would Mademoiselle Lucy write for me if I asked her?"
+
+"Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my
+pen did not keep pace with his lips."
+
+"Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the
+circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean
+to make you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?"
+
+"Surrounded with trees? Yes.".
+
+"There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermière makes the café
+au lait in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will
+spread with butter half a hundred rolls."
+
+Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on
+the farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without
+capitulation.
+
+Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen
+of us, chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to
+prepare for breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had
+been ordered to provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming.
+Coffee and chocolate were already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs
+were added to the treat, and M. Emanuel, always generous, would have
+given a large order for "jambon" and "confitures" in addition, but
+that some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our influence, insisted
+that it would be a most reckless waste of victual. He railed at us for
+our pains, terming us "des ménagères avares;" but we let him talk, and
+managed the economy of the repast our own way.
+
+With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth
+looking on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he
+liked to have movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him.
+We asked where he would sit. He told us, we knew well he was our
+slave, and we his tyrants, and that he dared not so much as choose a
+chair without our leave; so we set him the farmer's great chair at the
+head of the long table, and put him into it.
+
+Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he
+could be so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed,
+at the worst, it was only his nerves that were irritable, not his
+temper that was radically bad; soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he
+was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. Only to the very stupid,
+perverse, or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest degree dangerous.
+
+Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say
+a little prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as
+devotedly as a woman. I had never seen him pray before, or make that
+pious sign; he did it so simply, with such child-like faith, I could
+not help smiling pleasurably as I watched; his eyes met my smile; he
+just stretched out his kind hand, saying, "Donnez-moi la main! I see
+we worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different
+rites."
+
+Most of M. Emanuel's brother Professors were emancipated free-
+thinkers, infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would
+not bear scrutiny; he was more like a knight of old, religious in his
+way, and of spotless fame. Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were
+safe at his side. He had vivid passions, keen feelings, but his pure
+honour and his artless piety were the strong charm that kept the lions
+couchant.
+
+That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant
+clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his
+social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only
+by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he
+had his own way, and a pleasant way it was.
+
+The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a
+few stayed to help the farmer's wife to put away her earthenware. M.
+Paul called me from among these to come out and sit near him under a
+tree--whence he could view the troop gambolling, over a wide pasture--
+and read to him whilst he took his cigar. He sat on a rustic bench,
+and I at the tree-root. While I read (a pocket-classic--a Corneille--I
+did not like it, but he did, finding therein beauties I never could be
+brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of calm the more
+impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature; the deepest
+happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad forehead. I, too,
+was happy--happy with the bright day, happier with his presence,
+happiest with his kindness.
+
+He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than
+sit there? I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked
+whether, if I were his sister, I should always he content to stay with
+a brother such as he. I said, I believed I should; and I felt it.
+Again, he inquired whether, if he were to leave Villette, and go far
+away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, and made no reply.
+
+"Petite soeur," said he; "how long could you remember me if we were
+separated?"
+
+"That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it
+will be before I shall cease to remember everything earthly."
+
+"If I were to go beyond seas for two--three--five years, should you
+welcome me on my return?"
+
+"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?"
+
+"Pourtant j'ai été pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant."
+
+I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked
+him why he talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and
+cheered me again with the kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness
+with which he treated me during the rest of the day, went somehow to
+my heart. It was too tender. It was mournful. I would rather he had
+been abrupt, whimsical, and irate as was his wont.
+
+When hot noon arrived--for the day turned out as we had anticipated,
+glowing as June--our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture,
+and proceeded to lead us all softly home. But we had a whole league to
+walk, thus far from Villette was the farm where he had breakfasted;
+the children, especially, were tired with their play; the spirits of
+most flagged at the prospect of this mid-day walk over chaussées
+flinty, glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been foreseen and
+provided for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two spacious
+vehicles coming to fetch us--such conveyances as are hired out
+purposely for the accommodation of school-parties; here, with good
+management, room was found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made
+safe consignment of his charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a
+pleasant day: it would have been perfect, but for the breathing of
+melancholy which had dimmed its sunshine a moment.
+
+That tarnish was renewed the same evening.
+
+Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door,
+accompanied by Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an
+hour, talking earnestly: he--looking grave, yet restless; she--wearing
+an amazed, expostulatory, dissuasive air.
+
+I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered
+the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in
+the garden, I said to myself--"He called me 'petite soeur' this
+morning. If he were really my brother, how I should like to go to him
+just now, and ask what it is that presses on his mind. See how he
+leans against that tree, with his arms crossed and his brow bent. He
+wants consolation, I know: Madame does not console: she only
+remonstrates. What now----?"
+
+Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and
+quick down the garden. The carré doors were yet open: I thought he was
+probably going to water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his
+occasional custom; on reaching the court, however, he took an abrupt
+turn and made for the berceau and the first-classe glass door. There,
+in that first classe I was, thence I had been watching him; but there
+I could not find courage to await his approach. He had turned so
+suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within
+me grew pale, shrank and--not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing
+the shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance--she was gone on
+the wings of panic.
+
+Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty.
+Listening there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined
+apprehension, I heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing
+the doors impatiently as he went; I heard him invade the refectory
+which the "lecture pieuse" was now holding under hallowed constraint;
+I heard him pronounce these words--"Où est Mademoiselle Lucie?"
+
+And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do
+what, after all, I most wished to do in the world--viz., meet him--the
+wiry voice of St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, "Elle est au
+lit." And he passed, with the stamp of vexation, into the corridor.
+There Madame Beck met, captured, chid, convoyed to the street-door,
+and finally dismissed him.
+
+As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse
+proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me
+he wanted--me he was seeking--and had not I wanted him too? What,
+then, had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had
+something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear
+strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence
+impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience
+and solace beyond hope's reach--no sooner did opportunity suddenly and
+fully arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled
+shaft of mortality.
+
+Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort,
+the certain satisfaction, I might have won--could I but have put
+choking panic down, and stood firm two minutes--here was dead blank,
+dark doubt, and drear suspense.
+
+I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MALEVOLA.
+
+
+Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
+any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
+little commissions for her at the shops.
+
+Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
+furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
+etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
+manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I
+was just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue
+forth, when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-à-manger.
+
+"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
+thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
+good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
+
+Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
+Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
+filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
+amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
+know not what, exotic plant.
+
+"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
+toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
+favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
+with my felicitations on her fête. She lives down in the old town,
+Numéro 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long,
+but you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you
+are not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved,
+or Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing
+up some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten,
+ma bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure
+to insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket
+into her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is
+rather a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
+
+And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to
+execute, that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a
+tedious business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for
+the slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
+tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was
+off my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to
+be attended to.
+
+I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
+Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
+city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
+and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
+
+I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength
+and use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall,
+the thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--
+the quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In
+return, it sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a
+quiet path through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as
+if by eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor.
+Let, then, the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first
+get rid of this basket of fruit.
+
+An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
+too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
+when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
+the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
+square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
+houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
+of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
+region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
+quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
+dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable
+and formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had
+long since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving
+these their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or
+perhaps to stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course
+of winters.
+
+As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
+large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
+whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given
+in the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and
+propped on a staff--the type of eld and decay.
+
+He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
+paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
+turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
+thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
+age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a
+young ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have
+thought such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I
+found myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique
+peasant costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of
+native lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like
+little boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in
+character.
+
+The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
+costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
+scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
+would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
+priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
+message with which I was charged.
+
+His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
+understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit
+into her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that
+such were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
+Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
+of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
+inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
+ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
+
+The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
+windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
+coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller
+room; there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed;
+through the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These
+few I amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
+attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
+
+By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it
+shook, it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an
+opening arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding
+stair; both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and
+unpainted. Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick;
+soon there fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of
+a substance.
+
+Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
+obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
+
+It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
+Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might
+the three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic
+sages of a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell
+had opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing
+picture, that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of
+a fairy tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the
+chief figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How
+was she?
+
+She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
+rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
+staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
+breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
+hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
+malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
+all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull
+displeasure!
+
+This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as
+the gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large
+pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so
+large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her
+chief points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing
+with a lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on
+her skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green,
+and blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like
+a barbarian queen.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of
+male than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her
+chin.
+
+I delivered my basket and my message.
+
+"Is that all?" she demanded.
+
+"It is all," said I.
+
+"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame
+Beck, and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant à ses
+félicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her
+back.
+
+Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
+blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
+proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
+into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
+tempest.
+
+What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
+acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
+inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
+There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
+incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and
+muttering venomously as she vanished.
+
+Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
+while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale,
+as if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a
+shower, I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the
+gleams of lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near;
+this storm had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have
+burst at the zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts
+pierced athwart vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent
+blanched as white metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its
+swollen abundance.
+
+Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
+cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
+Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
+priest.
+
+"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
+displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in
+this house."
+
+And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
+discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
+furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced
+me. Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more
+like an oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking
+as if it were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than
+designed for present use and comfort.
+
+The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
+conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
+employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
+A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
+remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
+seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
+bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then,
+it was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
+awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
+thoughts and observations were free.
+
+To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
+that Père Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
+Béguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in
+dusk and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought
+also I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one
+lifted look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that
+too had its half mystic interest.
+
+Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
+sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich
+missal and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn
+my eyes before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and
+let in phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna;
+revealed by clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a
+nun's dress. The face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale,
+young, and shaded with the dejection of grief or ill health. I say
+again it was not beautiful; it was not even intellectual; its very
+amiability was the amiability of a weak frame, inactive passions,
+acquiescent habits: yet I looked long at that picture, and could not
+choose but look.
+
+The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
+yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
+his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as
+I knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
+attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped,
+concerning it, these four observations:--
+
+"She was much beloved.
+
+"She gave herself to God.
+
+"She died young.
+
+"She is still remembered, still wept."
+
+"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I
+had discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that
+same aged lady's desperate ill-humour.
+
+The father shook his head with half a smile.
+
+"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
+children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it
+is only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have
+trebly denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as
+Justine Marie is still mourned."
+
+I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
+inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
+reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively,
+with the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say
+it might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been
+less French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and
+rather more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father
+was obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more
+persuaded of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of
+Rome; when he did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners,
+with more and sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could
+survive the wear and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a
+good old man.
+
+The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
+his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine
+Marie, the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly
+prospects were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand.
+The pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left
+behind him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to
+think of Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen,
+Madame Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper
+which deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither
+the treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her
+lover; she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second
+with a heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her
+noviciate.
+
+Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
+which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
+shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
+
+Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house
+too: her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a
+good deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial
+transactions which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of
+grief for the loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked
+mother and his bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died
+too of want; but their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-
+hearted suitor, hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with
+singular devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride
+the revenge of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending
+them, so as no son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently.
+The mother--on the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange,
+godless, loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely
+supported by this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of
+his life, blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic
+happiness, long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the
+respect a good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to
+this house, "and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to
+his eyes, "here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a
+superannuated servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and
+to other charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income,
+keeping only the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most
+modest accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it
+impossible to himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and
+to his angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
+
+The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last
+words, and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to
+mine. I caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the
+momentary gleam shot a meaning which struck me.
+
+These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
+know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
+China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
+to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
+impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
+that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and
+such circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
+apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency.
+Madame Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless
+embassy to the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally
+descending the steps and crossing the square, his interposition on my
+behalf with the bonne who would have sent me away, his reappearance on
+the staircase, my introduction to this room, the portrait, the
+narrative so affably volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as
+they fell out, seemed each independent of its successor; a handful of
+loose beads: but threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance
+of a Jesuit-eye, they dropped pendent in a long string, like that
+rosary on the prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the
+little clasp of this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could
+not yet find the spot, or detect the means of connection.
+
+Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
+somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
+inundated streets?"
+
+"More than half a league."
+
+"You live----?"
+
+"In the Rue Fossette."
+
+"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaître mon noble
+élève, mon Paul?"
+
+"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
+
+"He and none other."
+
+A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
+become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
+
+"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
+he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
+
+"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
+emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal,
+of that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
+
+"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I
+accentuated the question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I
+was ere this quite prepared for the answer which actually came.
+
+"I, daughter, am Père Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
+once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the
+core of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn
+truth, I coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor
+have I for a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in
+you a rooted interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by
+her high training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by
+the zeal she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual
+rank, your practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
+
+This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
+that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
+inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
+deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
+
+"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
+which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
+
+"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
+his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
+mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
+and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
+splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
+a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
+her son the jeweller's wealth."
+
+"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
+seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
+great things!"
+
+I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
+act of confession, or the saint-worship.
+
+"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
+Marie.
+
+"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then
+very young, for he is not much beyond forty."
+
+"Does he yet weep her?"
+
+"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature is--
+constancy."
+
+This was said with marked emphasis.
+
+And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
+there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured
+out its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
+return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his
+tale, was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made
+kindly welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but
+I liked less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
+
+"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle
+that made me shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door.
+Few of us know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had
+happened yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded
+Protestant: there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy
+Church" which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering
+many things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this
+man, Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition,
+influenced by priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious
+devotion, for sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to
+see how Rome, by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she
+cherished them for their own sake and for God's, or put them out to
+usury and made booty of the interest.
+
+By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me
+a portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the
+little cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
+appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
+
+"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
+Walravens give you? Elle est drôle, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
+with which I had been charged.
+
+"Oh la singulière petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous
+qu'elle me déteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin
+Paul; ce petit dévot qui n'ose pas bouger, à moins que son confesseur
+ne lui donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to
+marry ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he
+has too large a family already on his hands: Mère Walravens, Père
+Silas, Dame Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never
+was a man like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can
+bear, voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he
+harbours a romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--
+personnage assez niaise à ce que je pense" (such was Madame's
+irreverent remark), "who has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere,
+this score of years, and to whom he means to go, free from all earthly
+ties, pure comme un lis, à ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you
+but know half M. Emanuel's crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder
+you from taking refreshment, ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat
+your supper, drink your wine, oubliez les anges, les bossues, et
+surtout, les Professeurs--et bon soir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+FRATERNITY.
+
+
+"Oubliez les Professeurs." So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a
+wise woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was
+a mistake. That night she should have left me calm--not excited,
+indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
+others--not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I
+was to forget.
+
+Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him--the
+wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
+man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
+of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
+he could love at all or not?
+
+I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
+tendernesses, fitfulnesses--a softness which came like a warm air, and
+a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
+irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Père Silas
+and Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
+doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart--showed me one grand love,
+the child of this southern nature's youth, born so strong and perfect,
+that it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of
+matter, clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had
+watched beside a tomb twenty years.
+
+This had been done--not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
+sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
+energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless
+personal sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized--he had laid
+down vengeance, and taken up a cross.
+
+Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had
+seen her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in
+Madame Beck's school--phlegmatics--pale, slow, inert, but kind-
+natured, neutral of evil, undistinguished for good.
+
+If she wore angels' wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
+her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
+fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.
+
+Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
+pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
+which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to
+virginity?
+
+Madame Beck--Père Silas--you should not have suggested these
+questions. They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest
+obstruction, and the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of
+nights and days I fell asleep--I dreamt, and I woke upon these two
+questions. In the whole world there was no answer to them, except
+where one dark little man stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the
+head-piece of a bandit bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry
+paletôt, much be-inked, and no little adust.
+
+After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him
+again. I felt as if--knowing what I now knew--his countenance would
+offer a page more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing
+to trace in it the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of
+that half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest's narrative
+imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
+character I wanted to view him.
+
+Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
+test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my "Christian
+hero"--an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
+lively enough in its way.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first classe--
+safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of Madame
+Beck, who, _in propriâ personâ_ was giving one of her orderly and
+useful lessons--this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by the
+wild inburst of a paletôt.
+
+Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
+by Madame Beck's presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
+edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
+taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing--that is, copying an
+elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish
+of the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange
+to say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
+curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint plates--
+things about as valuable as so many achievements in worsted-work, but
+I thought pretty well of them in those days.
+
+What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy,
+gathered into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I
+myself appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary
+and withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited
+cook. That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletôt, one under
+each sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture;
+in two minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle
+--a vast adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
+singing-lessons--fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
+remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.
+
+Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
+presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say--one dark, the
+other light--one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
+braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
+careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
+full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
+stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
+strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "your business is to prove to these gentlemen
+that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
+questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
+shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
+unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
+sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You
+will disprove this charge."
+
+Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a
+thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering
+personages, were none other than dandy professors of the college--
+Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte--a pair of cold-blooded fops and
+pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been rashly
+exhibiting something I had written--something, he had never once
+praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed
+forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only _seemed_
+remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign school-
+girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce
+noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to
+question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my
+testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their
+examination.
+
+A memorable scene ensued.
+
+They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French
+history. I hardly knew Mérovée from Pharamond. They tried me in
+various 'ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an
+unchanging "Je n'en sais rien."
+
+After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general
+information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well,
+and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood
+looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he
+thought I should now show myself at least no fool.
+
+He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up
+fast, my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words.
+I either _could_ not, or _would_ not speak--I am not sure which:
+partly, I think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was
+crossed.
+
+I heard one of my examiners--he of the braided surtout--whisper to his
+co-professor, "Est-elle donc idiote?"
+
+"Yes," I thought, "an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as
+you."
+
+But I suffered--suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul's
+brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not
+believe in my total lack of popular cleverness; he thought I
+_could_ be prompt if I _would_.
+
+At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:
+
+"Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as
+you say, I am an idiot."
+
+I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense
+had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped,
+faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of
+triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I
+burst in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger
+than grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that
+pair on the spot--but it _was_ emotion, and I would rather have
+been scourged than betrayed it.
+
+The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice
+in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical.
+When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I
+heard it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no
+material for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts,
+laboriously constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real,
+and then clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in
+this last aim I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious
+time till my facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor
+could I rest from research and effort till I was satisfied of correct
+anatomy; the strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or
+falsity sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the
+knowledge was not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been
+sown in Spring, grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered
+through Winter; whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh;
+glean of wild herbs my lapful, and shred them green into the pot.
+Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook
+my work for the work of a ripe scholar.
+
+They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them.
+As I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the
+white paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges
+began mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.
+
+"Nous agissons dans l'intérêt de la vérité. Nous ne voulons pas vous
+blesser," said he.
+
+Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,--
+
+"Dictate, Monsieur."
+
+Rochemorte named this theme: "Human Justice."
+
+Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction,
+unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel,
+sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.
+
+At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I
+would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction,
+that their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and
+that, notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M.
+Emanuel's honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced
+themselves the--champions: I _meant_ to utter all this, I say,
+when suddenly, a light darted on memory.
+
+Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and
+whisker--those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages--
+were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full gaslight
+from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death
+on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally
+certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner
+beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless over a
+whole quarter of the town.
+
+"Pious mentors!" thought I. "Pure guides for youth! If `Human Justice'
+were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present
+post, or enjoy your present credit."
+
+An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me
+in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in
+her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or
+help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and
+starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled
+round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy,
+cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She
+had a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a
+short black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she
+smoked and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a
+cry of the suffering souls about her 'pierced her ears too keenly--my
+jolly dame seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was
+weak, wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was
+strong, lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand
+in her deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.
+
+Such was the sketch of "Human Justice," scratched hurriedly on paper,
+and placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M.
+Emanuel read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to
+the trio, and withdrew.
+
+After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting
+did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that
+forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed
+dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et sans-
+coeur," and in Monsieur's temporary departure.
+
+Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that
+such a transport as he had that day given way to, could not be
+indulged with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon
+after, gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew
+near also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by
+Monsieur laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation,
+passed to other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.
+
+Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a
+charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted,
+too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some
+allowance ought to be made for him. "But," said he, "I can hardly
+expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my
+position, nor my history."
+
+His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.
+
+"No, Monsieur," I rejoined. "Of course, as you say, I know neither
+your history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your
+sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know
+nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger."
+
+"Hein?" he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.
+
+"You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe--stern, dogmatic, hasty,
+imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to
+originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A
+man like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without
+dependants, no duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are
+machines, which you thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their
+feelings. You seek your recreations in public, by the light of the
+evening chandelier: this school and yonder college are your workshops,
+where you fabricate the ware called pupils. I don't so much as know
+where you live; it is natural to take it for granted that you have no
+home, and need none."
+
+"I am judged," said he. "Your opinion of me is just what I thought it
+was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of
+affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by
+principle or faith. It is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in
+this life."
+
+"You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher" (and I looked
+at his paletôt, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with
+his hand), "despising the foibles of humanity--above its luxuries--
+independent of its comforts."
+
+"Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous êtes proprette et douillette, et
+affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marché."
+
+"But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you _must_ live
+somewhere? Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you
+keep?"
+
+With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of
+scorn the most decided, he broke out--
+
+"Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss--a cavern, where you would
+not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole
+truth, I talked about my 'study' in that college: know now that this
+'study' is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As
+for my 'establishment of servants'" (mimicking my voice) "they number
+ten; les voilà."
+
+And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.
+
+"I black my boots," pursued he savagely. "I brush my paletôt."
+
+"No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that," was my
+parenthesis.
+
+"Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my
+supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless;
+nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and
+nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn
+like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in
+purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to
+whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the
+kingdom of heaven."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur; but I know!"
+
+"What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!"
+
+"I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of
+the Basse-Ville--why don't you go and live there?"
+
+"Hein?" muttered he again.
+
+"I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the
+grey flags in front, the nodding trees behind--real trees, not shrubs
+--trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the boudoir-oratoire--you
+should make that room your study; it is so quiet and solemn."
+
+He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. "Where did you pick
+up all that? Who told you?" he asked.
+
+"Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?"
+
+"Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman's waking thoughts,
+much less her sleeping fantasies?"
+
+"If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I
+saw a priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic--old, too, and
+picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce
+reach to my elbow--her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a
+gown bright as lapis-lazuli--a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was
+decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a
+beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in
+two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years
+of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and
+sorrow. She was become morose--almost malevolent; yet _somebody_,
+it appears, cared for her in her infirmities--somebody forgave her
+trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived
+together, these three people--the mistress, the chaplain, the servant
+--all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing."
+
+He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not
+conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.
+
+"I see you have entered into my secrets," said he, "but how was it
+done?"
+
+So I told him how--the commission on which I had been sent, the storm
+which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the
+priest.
+
+"As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Père Silas whiled away the
+time with a story," I said.
+
+"A story! What story? Père Silas is no romancist."
+
+"Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?"
+
+"Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy's French--
+her best or her worst--I don't much care which: let us have a good
+poignée of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent."
+
+"Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious
+proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the
+midst. But I will tell him the title--the 'Priest's Pupil.'"
+
+"Bah!" said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. "The
+good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak
+point. But what of the 'Priest's Pupil?'"
+
+"Oh! many things."
+
+You may as well define _what_ things. I mean to know."
+
+"There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his
+ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil,
+Monsieur!--so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!
+
+"Et puis?" said he, taking a cigar.
+
+"Et puis," I pursued, "he underwent calamities which one did not pity
+--bore them in a spirit one did not admire--endured wrongs for which
+one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of heaping
+coals of fire on his adversary's head."
+
+"You have not told me all," said he.
+
+"Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Père Silas's
+chapters."
+
+"You have forgotten one-that which touched on the pupil's lack of
+affection--on his hard, cold, monkish heart."
+
+"True; I remember now. Père Silas _did_ say that his vocation was
+almost that of a priest--that his life was considered consecrated."
+
+"By what bonds or duties?"
+
+"By the ties of the past and the charities of the present."
+
+"You have, then, the whole situation?"
+
+"I have now told Monsieur all that was told me."
+
+Some meditative minutes passed.
+
+"Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I
+believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise
+your eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust
+me--I am a man to be trusted."
+
+I raised my eyes.
+
+"Knowing me thoroughly now--all my antecedents, all my
+responsibilities--having long known my faults, can you and I still be
+friends?"
+
+"If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in
+him."
+
+"But a close friend I mean--intimate and real--kindred in all but
+blood. Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered,
+burdened, encumbered man?"
+
+I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I _did_ answer
+him; he took my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his.
+_His_ friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit--a cold,
+distant hope--a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a
+finger: I at once felt (or _thought_ I felt) its support like
+that of some rock.
+
+"When I talk of friendship, I mean _true_ friendship," he
+repeated emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so
+earnest had blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of
+that kind, anxious look he gave. If he _really_ wished for my
+confidence and regard, and _really_ would give me his--why, it
+seemed to me that life could offer nothing more or better. In that
+case, I was become strong and rich: in a moment I was made
+substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix and seal it, I
+asked--
+
+"Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can
+take an interest in me as a sister?"
+
+"Surely, surely," said he; "a lonely man like me, who has no sister,
+must be but too glad to find in some woman's heart a sister's pure
+affection."
+
+"And dare I rely on Monsieur's regard? Dare I speak to him when I am
+so inclined?"
+
+"My little sister must make her own experiments," said he; "I will
+give no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she
+has drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile
+material in some hands."
+
+While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now
+affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never
+felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her
+husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend.
+If he would but prove reliable, and he _looked_ reliable, what,
+beyond his friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a
+dream, as once before had happened--?
+
+"Qu'est-ce donc? What is it?" said he, as this thought threw its
+weight on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and
+after a moment's pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an
+equal fear--lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult
+and fitful--had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.
+
+On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of
+re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was
+courted. I grew quite happy--strangely happy--in making him secure,
+content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth
+held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing.
+Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close
+darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and
+grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.
+
+"Lucy," said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did
+you see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"
+
+"I did; a picture painted on a panel."
+
+"The portrait of a nun?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You heard her history?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"
+
+"I shall never forget it."
+
+"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"
+
+"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait," said I; which
+was true enough.
+
+"You did not, nor will you fancy," pursued he, "that a saint in heaven
+perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely
+superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset _you?_"
+
+"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly
+natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at."
+
+"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman--much less a
+pure, happy spirit-would trouble amity like ours n'est-il pas vrai?"
+
+Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out
+that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some
+English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were
+needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable:
+sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good
+sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid
+fancies," against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE APPLE OF DISCORD.
+
+
+Besides Fifine Beck's mother, another power had a word to say to M.
+Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We
+were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously
+her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to
+which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the
+confessional.
+
+"Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?" asks the reader.
+"Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof
+of a certain partiality in his feelings?"
+
+Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly--that he
+was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender
+deference--that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when
+taught how. He had called me "sister." It was well. Yes; he might call
+me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be
+his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that
+relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to
+celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.
+
+Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening's
+interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for
+the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and
+breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last
+which brought me the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more
+thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how
+much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to
+prove how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover
+whether I could summon a sister's courage, and he a brother's
+frankness.
+
+He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will
+not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His
+lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also
+more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly
+to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I
+got neither: to my portion fell one nod--hurried, shy.
+
+This distance, I argued, is accidental--it is involuntary; patience,
+and it will vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it
+increased. I suppressed my surprise, and swallowed whatever other
+feelings began to surge.
+
+Well might I ask when he offered fraternity--"Dare I rely on you?"
+Well might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True,
+he had bid me make my own experiments--tease and try him. Vain
+injunction! Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use
+it! Nothing in my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave
+band. Left alone, I was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my
+lips would not utter, nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had
+been an error somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to
+disclose it.
+
+But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One
+evening in seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to
+the examination of what had been done in various studies during the
+past week, and to the preparation of work for the week in prospect. On
+these occasions my schoolroom was anywhere, wherever the pupils and
+the other teachers happened to be, or in their close vicinage, very
+often in the large second division, where it was easy to choose a
+quiet nook when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the few
+boarders gathered in a knot about the surveillante's estrade.
+
+On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I
+collected my books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large
+division.
+
+In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but
+through the open double doors was seen the carré, filled with pupils
+and with light; over hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It
+blushed so ruddily and vividly, that the hues of the walls and the
+variegated tints of the dresses seemed all fused in one warm glow.
+The, girls were seated, working or studying; in the midst of their
+circle stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. His
+dark paletôt, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of
+crimson; his Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the
+sun's animated kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk.
+
+The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom,
+basked also in the sun's laughing bounty; they had partaken it the
+whole day, and now asked water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening;
+he liked to tend and foster plants. I used to think that working
+amongst shrubs with a spade or a watering-pot soothed his nerves; it
+was a recreation to which he often had recourse; and now be looked to
+the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous cactuses, and revived
+them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His lips meantime
+sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and prime
+luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the
+flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor
+to the mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small
+spanieless (if one may coin a word), that nominally belonged to the
+house, but virtually owned him as master, being fonder of him than any
+inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and lovable little doggie she was,
+trotting at his side, looking with expressive, attached eyes into his
+face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his handkerchief,
+which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the air of
+a miniature lion guarding a kingdom's flag.
+
+There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the
+water from the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work
+spun on to some length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour
+struck. The carré and the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset.
+Day was drooping. My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very short;
+but the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Was
+it my turn?
+
+Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,--favourite
+rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and
+whine followed the receding paletôt down the alleys. I put up some of
+my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited,
+involuntarily deprecating the creeping invasion of twilight.
+
+Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the
+returning paletôt; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it
+had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in
+a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere
+long the prayer-bell must ring; but still we should meet; he would
+speak; a chance would be offered of reading in his eyes the riddle of
+his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly re-arranging his
+cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the opal sky,
+and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched the
+mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to
+break it. He looked down.
+
+"Petite exigeante," said he; "you must not be forgotten one moment, it
+seems."
+
+He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within
+a yard of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered
+lingeringly, fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender
+names in a tender voice. On the front-door steps he turned; once again
+he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires
+and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the
+sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he
+suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white
+façade of the classes, swept the long line of croisées. I think he
+bowed; if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he
+was gone; the moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the
+closed front door.
+
+Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I
+carried back the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The
+prayer-bell rang; I obeyed its summons.
+
+The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being
+devoted entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over
+the intermediate hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself
+for its heavy ennuis. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates,
+or to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter
+alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart
+or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the
+lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some
+book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black
+fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with
+a weary hand I turned up its contents.
+
+One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers,
+were taken out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could
+not comfort. Is this something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not
+seen it before, and I re-arranged my desk this very day--this very
+afternoon; the tract must have been introduced within the last hour,
+while we were at dinner.
+
+I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me?
+
+It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither
+sung, nor related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it
+preached and it persuaded.
+
+I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed
+its own spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism;
+it persuaded to conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a
+honeyed voice; its accents were all unction and balm. Here roared no
+utterance of Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her
+displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, not so much in fear of
+the heretic's hell, as on account of the comfort, the indulgence, the
+tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten or to
+coerce; her wish was to guide and win. _She_ persecute? Oh dear
+no! not on any account!
+
+This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was
+not even strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild
+effluence of a mother's love towards her tenderest and her youngest;
+intended wholly and solely for those whose head is to be reached
+through the heart. Its appeal was not to intellect; it sought to win
+the affectionate through their affections, the sympathizing through
+their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his orphans about
+him, never spoke more sweetly.
+
+I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact
+that the Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the
+unspeakable solace of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did
+not touch on the firmer peace of those whose belief dispenses with
+purgatory altogether: but I thought of this; and, on the whole,
+preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. The little book
+amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting,
+sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my
+gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this
+unlicked wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a
+guileless lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan
+Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; they were flavoured
+with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had
+written it was no bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained
+cunning--the cloven hoof of his system--I should pause before accusing
+himself of insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props;
+it was rickety.
+
+I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the
+ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own
+disinclination, not to say disability, to meet these melting favours.
+Glancing at the title-page, I found the name of "Père Silas." A fly-
+leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known pencil characters: "From
+P. C. D. E. to L--y." And when I saw this I laughed: but not in my
+former spirit. I was revived.
+
+A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the
+solution of the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two
+names, Père Silas and Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent
+had been with his director; permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to
+keep no corner of his heart sacred to God and to himself; the whole
+narrative of our late interview had been drawn from him; he had avowed
+the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted sister. How
+could such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church?
+Fraternal communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Père Silas
+annulling the unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils;
+entreating, enjoining reserve, nay, by the authority of his office,
+and in the name, and by the memory of all M. Emanuel held most dear
+and sacred, commanding the enforcement of that new system whose frost
+had pierced to the marrow of my bones.
+
+These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were
+welcome. The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background,
+was as nothing, matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in
+M. Paul himself.
+
+At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above
+conjectures were self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their
+origin and confirmation to another quarter. Help was not wanting.
+
+This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud;
+no summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a
+clammy fog from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the
+watering-pot might rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had
+been drizzling all the afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly.
+This was no weather for rambling in the wet alleys, under the dripping
+trees; and I started to hear Sylvie's sudden bark in the garden--her
+bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied and yet this glad,
+quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one presence.
+
+Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep
+vista of the allée défendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through
+its gloom like a white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining,
+springing, harassing little birds amongst the bushes. I watched five
+minutes; no fulfilment followed the omen. I returned to my books;
+Sylvie's sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I looked up. She was
+standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery tail as
+fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of
+a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel,
+bent over the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden
+and streaming shrubs, working as hard as if his day's pittance were
+yet to earn by the literal sweat of his brow.
+
+In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow
+on the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion,
+whether of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He
+would dig by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his
+head, or open his lips.
+
+Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding
+here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last
+discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as
+if to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she
+had seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and I
+doubt not, considered it my duty to join him now, wet as it was.
+
+She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course
+perceived why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off;
+she only barked the louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the
+glass door opened. Tired, I suppose, with her importunity, he threw
+down his spade, approached, and pushed the door ajar. Sylvie burst in
+all impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her paws at my neck, and her
+little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy about my face,
+mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and
+scattered books and papers far and wide.
+
+M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the
+disarrangement. Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and
+stowed her away under his paletôt, where she nestled as quiet as a
+mouse, her head just peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the
+prettiest little innocent face, the silkiest long ears, the finest
+dark eyes in the world. I never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de
+Bassompierre: forgive the association, reader, it _would_ occur.
+
+M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not
+to be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her
+vivacious life.
+
+While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books
+just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he
+half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to
+address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more
+honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second
+effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It
+is not sufficiently inviting?"
+
+I replied that I had read it.
+
+He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked.
+Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any
+concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was
+the affair of the very docile pupil of Père Silas, not mine. His eye
+settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue
+ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings
+composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment
+probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I
+could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed
+confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my
+desk, and begin soberly to mend them.
+
+I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to
+see me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was
+unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own finger
+--half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state, to set
+him at his ease, to get him to chide.
+
+"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."
+
+He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
+depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
+point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.
+
+"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.
+
+Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.
+
+"Had it moved me?"
+
+"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."
+
+(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
+him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my
+faults at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilité
+et de sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so
+touching."
+
+"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
+all--not a whit."
+
+And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief,
+still clean and in its folds.
+
+Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather
+piquant than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of
+unnatural silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing
+again just in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself
+and Sylvie with the contents of a bonbonnière, which M. Emanuel's
+gifts kept well supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see
+even a small matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me
+and the spaniel while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife.
+Touching my hand with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites
+donc, petite soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during
+the last two days?"
+
+But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport
+made my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--
+over the desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he
+said: "I hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know
+I think of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you
+are to be feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper
+caution."
+
+"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."
+
+"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
+whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
+panoply. You are good--Père Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
+your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
+expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it gives you certain
+tones and certain gestures that make my flesh creep. You are not
+demonstrative, and yet, just now--when you handled that tract--my God!
+I thought Lucifer smiled."
+
+"Certainly I don't respect that tract--what then?"
+
+"Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love,
+charity! I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted
+that it could not fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must
+indeed be a sinner: Heaven will not hear the petitions that come
+warmest from my heart. You scorn my little offering. Oh, cela me fait
+mal!"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't scorn it--at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit
+down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am
+not unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not
+trouble your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and
+so do I."
+
+"But _do_ you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation?
+What limits are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and
+sect. Père Silas dropped dark hints."
+
+By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they
+amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked
+seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. _I_ could not
+argue--a fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical
+opposition to effect all the director wished to be effected; but I
+could talk in my own way--the way M. Paul was used to--and of which he
+could follow the meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the
+strange stammerings, strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I
+could defend my creed and faith in my own fashion; in some degree I
+could lull his prejudices. He was not satisfied when he went away,
+hardly was he appeased; but he was made thoroughly to feel that
+Protestants were not necessarily the irreverent Pagans his director
+had insinuated; he was made to comprehend something of their mode of
+honouring the Light, the Life, the Word; he was enabled partly to
+perceive that, while their veneration for things venerable was not
+quite like that cultivated in his Church, it had its own, perhaps,
+deeper power--its own more solemn awe.
+
+I found that Père Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though
+the advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in
+general, and myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to
+us strange "isms;" Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank
+fashion, which knew not secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with
+a kind, earnest fear, almost trembling lest there should be truth in
+the charges. Père Silas, it seems, had closely watched me, had
+ascertained that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, to the three
+Protestant Chapels of Villette--the French, German, and English--_id
+est_, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such liberality
+argued in the father's eyes profound indifference--who tolerates all,
+he reasoned, can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had
+often secretly wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the
+differences between these three sects--at the unity and identity of
+their vital doctrines: I saw nothing to hinder them from being one day
+fused into one grand Holy Alliance, and I respected them all, though I
+thought that in each there were faults of form, incumbrances, and
+trivialities. Just what I thought, that did I tell M. Emanuel, and
+explained to him that my own last appeal, the guide to which I looked,
+and the teacher which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, rather
+than any sect, of whatever name or nation.
+
+He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as
+strong as a prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right.
+I heard, poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to
+"Marie, Reine du Ciel," some deep aspiration that _his_ hope
+might yet be _mine_.
+
+Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his
+fathers. I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and
+clay; but it seemed to me that _this_ Romanist held the purer
+elements of his creed with an innocency of heart which God must love.
+
+The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o'clock of
+the evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a
+sequestered garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour
+of the succeeding evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience,
+were breathed verbatim in an attent ear, at the panel of a
+confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It ensued that Père
+Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not what
+mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the
+Englishwoman's spiritual direction.
+
+Hereupon I was put through a course of reading--that is, I just
+glanced at the books lent me; they were too little in my way to be
+thoroughly read, marked, learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I
+had a book up-stairs, under my pillow, whereof certain chapters
+satisfied my needs in the article of spiritual lore, furnishing such
+precept and example as, to my heart's core, I was convinced could not
+be improved on.
+
+Then Père Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and
+bade me judge the tree by its fruits.
+
+In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were _not_ the
+fruits of Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair
+promise she showed the world, That bloom, when set, savoured not of
+charity; the apple full formed was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry.
+Out of men's afflictions and affections were forged the rivets of
+their servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and sheltered, to bind
+it by obligation to "the Church;" orphanage was reared and educated
+that it might grow up in the fold of "the Church;" sickness was tended
+that it might die after the formula and in the ordinance of "the
+Church;" and men were overwrought, and women most murderously
+sacrificed, and all laid down a world God made pleasant for his
+creatures' good, and took up a cross, monstrous in its galling weight,
+that they might serve Rome, prove her sanctity, confirm her power, and
+spread the reign of her tyrant "Church."
+
+For man's good was little done; for God's glory, less. A thousand ways
+were opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life;
+mountains were cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to
+their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight
+on and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they
+might at last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch "Church."
+
+It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still
+for the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and
+ambitions, as once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed
+Jerusalem!
+
+Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world's kingdoms!
+an hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your hearts--
+pausing faint at each broken beat--that there is a Mercy beyond human
+compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even you
+must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
+even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds--nay, absolves Priests.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome--the glory of her
+kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions--days of fête
+and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at
+it.
+
+Many people--men and women--no doubt far my superiors in a thousand
+ways, have felt this display impressive, have declared that though
+their Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say
+the same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers,
+nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
+jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
+tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
+
+This I did not tell Père Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
+through every abortive experiment, under every repeated
+disappointment, he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender
+of hurting his feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when,
+from the balcony of a great house, I had been made to witness a huge
+mingled procession of the church and the army--priests with relics,
+and soldiers with weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited in
+cambric and lace, looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-
+paradise plumage, and a band of young girls fantastically robed and
+garlanded--_then_ I spoke my mind to M. Paul.
+
+"I did not like it," I told him; "I did not respect such ceremonies; I
+wished to see no more."
+
+And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to
+go on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show
+him that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
+Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were
+errors in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely
+pure was my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face
+had been unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer
+forms between us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps,
+the nature of mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due
+observance. I told him I could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-
+lights and embroidery, at such times and under such circumstances as
+should be devoted to lifting the secret vision to Him whose home is
+Infinity, and His being--Eternity. That when I thought of sin and
+sorrow, of earthly corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe
+--I could not care for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when
+the pains of existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before
+me--when the mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in
+view--_then_, even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a
+language learned and dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only
+longed to cry--"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
+
+When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
+myself, from him I addressed--then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
+echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting
+spirits.
+
+"Whatever say priests or controversialists," murmured M. Emanuel, "God
+is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
+believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
+cry--'O Dieu, sois appaisé envers moi qui suis pécheur!'"
+
+He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:
+
+"How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
+nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
+yonder--how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God,
+nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves
+in our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy
+of one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light
+He has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of
+satellites about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns
+around that mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with
+strange mental effort only divined.
+
+"God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SUNSHINE.
+
+
+It was very, well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
+Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
+could not live within a league of the Hôtel Crécy, and not contrive to
+visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
+distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
+went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.
+
+All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
+awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
+Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
+intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
+all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
+gratification when it came.
+
+I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
+formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
+reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
+fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
+very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
+chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
+response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
+to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
+talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and
+answered with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a
+music waxing finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a
+suggestive, persuasive, magic accent that opened a, scarce-known
+treasure-house within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind,
+and what was better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way
+in which the other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression
+pleased; each keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met
+each other's meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often
+matched like carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by
+nature; Paulina possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--
+unstimulated, she inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she
+seemed merry as a lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced
+like some soft glad light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I
+can hardly express, but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice
+of hers--that reserve on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah!
+Graham would not long bear it; he brought with him a generous
+influence that soon thawed the timid, self-imposed restriction.
+
+Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
+with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
+growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
+than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
+collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
+reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his
+own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
+than if suggested by me.
+
+More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
+and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
+in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
+seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she
+had once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces,
+and cried out, "Graham, I _do_ like you!" He told her how she
+would set a footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At
+this day he said he could recall the sensation of her little hands
+smoothing his cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He
+remembered the touch of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly,
+half curiously, in the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with
+which she would name it "a pretty dimple," then seek his eyes and
+question why they pierced so, telling him he had a "nice, strange
+face; far nicer, far stranger, than either his mamma or Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Child as I was," remarked Paulina, "I wonder how I dared be so
+venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
+and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble
+chin, at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful,
+Lucy; he is not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful,
+but what is he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do
+_you_ admire him?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I do, Paulina," was once my answer to her many
+questions. "_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice
+about a year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes;
+and if he were to cross their balls twelve times between each day's
+sunset and sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what
+shape had gone by."
+
+"Lucy, what do you mean?" said she, under her breath.
+
+"I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind."
+
+It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever
+the tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey,
+and sometimes dropped in my ear--molten lead. To me, she commented no
+more on her lover's beauty.
+
+Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
+sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite
+in itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
+gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled
+her native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy--fitful.
+
+"Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says
+you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
+you are excellent; we both think so."
+
+"You both think you know not what," said I. "Have the goodness to make
+me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
+I have my sort of life apart from yours."
+
+"But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
+share it."
+
+"I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you
+understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
+sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary."
+
+"But solitude is sadness."
+
+"Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
+melancholy, lies heart-break."
+
+"Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether."
+
+There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have
+a witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina
+had forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
+correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
+these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and
+of the heiress's imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I
+read Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her
+pride: they were fine letters--manly and fond--modest and gallant.
+Hers must have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to
+show her talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the
+contrary, it appeared that she had proposed to herself the task of
+hiding that feeling, and bridling her lover's ardour. But how could
+such letters serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her life;
+he drew her like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence
+unspeakable in all he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this
+unconfessed confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from
+greeting to adieu.
+
+"I wish papa knew; I _do_ wish papa knew!" began now to be her
+anxious murmur. "I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back
+from telling him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this
+affair settled--to speak out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I
+know, I am certain, papa will be angry at the first; I fear he will
+dislike me almost; it will seem to him an untoward business; it will
+be a surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its whole effect on him."
+
+The fact was--her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little
+stirred: long blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning
+to trespass on his eye.
+
+To _her_, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or
+perhaps thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her.
+
+One evening--Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to
+Graham; she had left me in the library, reading--M. de Bassompierre
+came in; he sat down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to
+remain--gently, yet in a manner which showed he wished compliance. He
+had taken his seat near the window, at a distance from me; he opened a
+desk; he took from it what looked like a memorandum-book; of this book
+he studied a certain entry for several minutes.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said he, laying it down, "do you know my little girl's
+age?"
+
+"About eighteen, is it not, sir?"
+
+"It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of
+May, in the year 18--, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost
+the just reckoning of her age. I thought of her as twelve--fourteen--
+an indefinite date; but she seemed a child."
+
+"She is about eighteen," I repeated. "She is grown up; she will be no
+taller."
+
+"My little jewel!" said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated
+like some of his daughter's accents.
+
+He sat very thoughtful.
+
+"Sir, don't grieve," I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken
+as they were.
+
+"She is the only pearl I have," he said; "and now others will find out
+that she is pure and of price: they will covet her."
+
+I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had
+shone both in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom
+embellished his aspect and mellowed his intercourse. Under the
+stimulus of a high hope, something had unfolded in his whole manner
+which compelled attention. I think he had purposed on that day to
+indicate the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his ambition. M.
+de Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the
+direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he
+was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided
+him through a long labyrinth.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked.
+
+"She is up-stairs."
+
+"What is she doing?"
+
+"She is writing."
+
+"She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?"
+
+"None but such as she can show me. And--sir--she--_they_ have
+long wanted to consult you."
+
+"Pshaw! They don't think of me--an old father! I am in the way."
+
+"Ah, M. de Bassompierre--not so--that can't be! But Paulina must speak
+for herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate."
+
+"It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems."
+
+"Sir, till you approve, nothing is done--only they love each other."
+
+"Only!" he echoed.
+
+Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was
+obliged to go on: "Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point
+of appealing to you, sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you
+mortally."
+
+"He may well--he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I
+have. Had he but let her alone, she would have remained a child for
+years yet. So. Are they engaged?"
+
+"They could not become engaged without your permission."
+
+"It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety
+which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my
+little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son;
+Bretton might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich
+and pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks,
+and conduct, and connection. Would nothing serve him but my Polly?"
+
+"If he had never seen your 'Polly,' others might and would have
+pleased him--your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance."
+
+"Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!--I
+can't let him have her. No--I can't. He is not her equal," he
+affirmed, rather gruffly. "In what particular is he her match? They
+talk of fortune! I am not an avaricious or interested man, but the
+world thinks of these things--and Polly will be rich."
+
+"Yes, that is known," said I: "all Villette knows her as an heiress."
+
+"Do they talk of my little girl in that light?"
+
+"They do, sir."
+
+He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, "Would you, sir, think
+any one Paulina's match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do
+you think higher rank or more wealth would make much difference in
+your feelings towards a future son-in-law?"
+
+"You touch me there," said he.
+
+"Look at the aristocracy of Villette--you would not like them, sir?"
+
+"I should not--never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot."
+
+"I am told many of these persons think about her, sir," I went on,
+gaining courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse.
+"Other suitors will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused.
+Wherever you go, I suppose, aspirants will not be wanting. Independent
+of heiress-ship, it appears to me that Paulina charms most of those
+who see her."
+
+"Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty."
+
+"Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful."
+
+"Nonsense!--begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too
+partial. I like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks--but then
+I am her father; and even I never thought about beauty. She is
+amusing, fairy-like, interesting to me;--you must be mistaken in
+supposing her handsome?"
+
+"She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your
+wealth and position."
+
+"My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought
+so----"
+
+"Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de
+Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would--as _you_
+would yourself, under the same circumstances--but they are not his
+baits. He loves your daughter very much; he feels her finest
+qualities, and they influence him worthily."
+
+"What! has my little pet 'fine qualities?'"
+
+"Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of
+eminence and learning dined here?"
+
+"I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day;
+its womanliness made me smile."
+
+"And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation--as one might amuse
+one's self with a pretty infant."
+
+"Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French
+gentlemen say she was 'pétrie d'esprit et de graces.' Dr. Bretton
+thought the same."
+
+"She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I _do_ believe
+she has some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly
+nursed me; they thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once
+stronger and tenderer as I grew worse in health. And as I recovered,
+what a sunbeam she was in my sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair
+as noiselessly and as cheerful as light. And now she is sought in
+marriage! I don't want to part with her," said he, and he groaned.
+
+"You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long," I suggested, "it would
+be less like separation to give her to him than to another."
+
+He reflected rather gloomily.
+
+"True. I have long known Louisa Bretton," he murmured. "She and I are
+indeed old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was
+young. You talk of beauty, Miss Snowe! _she_ was handsome, if you
+will--tall, straight, and blooming--not the mere child or elf my Polly
+seems to me: at eighteen, Louisa had a carriage and stature fit for a
+princess. She is a comely and a good woman now. The lad is like her; I
+have always thought so, and favoured and wished him well. Now he
+repays me by this robbery! My little treasure used to love her old
+father dearly and truly. It is all over now, doubtless--I am an
+incumbrance."
+
+The door opened--his "little treasure" came in. She was dressed, so to
+speak, in evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with
+the close of day, warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson
+heightened her complexion; her curls fell full and long on her lily
+neck; her white dress suited the heat of June. Thinking me alone, she
+had brought in her hand the letter just written--brought it folded but
+unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her father, her tripping step
+faltered a little, paused a moment--the colour in her cheek flowed
+rosy over her whole face.
+
+"Polly," said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile,
+"do you blush at seeing papa? That is something new."
+
+"I don't blush--I never _do_ blush," affirmed she, while another
+eddy from the heart sent up its scarlet. "But I thought you were in
+the dining-room, and I wanted Lucy."
+
+"You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has
+just been called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your
+letter for you; it will save Matthieu a 'course,' as he calls it."
+
+"I don't post letters," said she, rather pettishly.
+
+"What do you do with them, then?--come here and tell me."
+
+Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second--to say "Shall I
+come?"--but she approached.
+
+"How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems
+yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely
+with both hands at the pen."
+
+"Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag;
+they are only notes, which I give now and then into the person's
+hands, just to satisfy."
+
+"The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?"
+
+"No, papa--not Lucy."
+
+"Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"No, papa--not Mrs. Bretton."
+
+"Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth."
+
+"Oh, papa!" she cried with earnestness, "I will--I _will_ tell
+you the truth--all the truth; I am glad to tell you--glad, though I
+tremble."
+
+She _did_ tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also
+gathering courage, shook her.
+
+"I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you
+above everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address."
+
+She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand
+shaking, his eyes glistening meantime.
+
+He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender,
+mournful amaze.
+
+"Can _she_ write so--the little thing that stood at my knee but
+yesterday? Can she feel so?"
+
+"Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?"
+
+"There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains
+me."
+
+"But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up
+everything--almost" (correcting herself); "I would die rather than
+make you unhappy; that would be too wicked!"
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It
+shall, for your sake, if you order it."
+
+"I order nothing."
+
+"Order something, papa; express your wish; only don't hurt, don't
+grieve Graham. I cannot, _cannot_ bear that. I love you, papa;
+but I love Graham too--because--because--it is impossible to help it."
+
+"This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly--that is my present
+notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do
+not love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye
+I never quite fathomed--something his mother has not--a depth which
+warned a man not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I
+find myself taken over the crown of the head."
+
+"Papa, you don't--you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank;
+you can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up
+in a convent, and break Graham's heart to-morrow, if you choose to be
+so cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?"
+
+"Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don't like
+him, Polly, and I wonder that you should."
+
+"Papa," said she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
+look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
+an expression in your face which does not belong to you."
+
+"Off with him!" pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely
+crossed and annoyed--even a little bitter; "but, I suppose, if he
+went, Polly would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly
+won--won, and weaned from her old father."
+
+"Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that
+way. I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal
+influence _can_ wean me."
+
+"Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
+go and be a wife!"
+
+"Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
+prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
+countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
+when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."
+
+"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."
+
+She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
+superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his
+few foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now
+transpiring; it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let
+it pass with dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in
+no stead. Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:
+--"I won't leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you!
+I'll never pain you!" was her cry.
+
+"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He
+said no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
+
+The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
+Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened,
+to prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall
+gentleman was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
+slowly--lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
+sign nor word; yet his eye said:--"Lucy, come here." And I went.
+
+Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
+save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
+which now fevered him.
+
+"M. de Bassompierre is there--is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the
+library.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?"
+
+"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
+"is talking to his daughter."
+
+"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
+
+He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
+to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living
+like him)--a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all
+this trouble his smile never faded.
+
+"Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?"
+
+"_She_ is very faithful, Graham."
+
+"What will be done unto me?"
+
+"Graham, your star must be fortunate."
+
+"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed
+to quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love
+them, and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_
+are true as steel. Are you not?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
+hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
+with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"
+
+He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"--which I did to please him:
+the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
+and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are
+born vanquished.
+
+"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home's presence.
+
+"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"
+
+The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
+
+"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of
+hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
+glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had.
+You spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me,
+but I am bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have
+won."
+
+"Sir, I cannot repent."
+
+"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
+partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
+in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
+The red--(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of
+guile, and brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."
+
+"Sir, I _feel_ honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English
+blush covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet,"
+he added, "I won't deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
+your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you.
+I did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
+world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
+now."
+
+"John, you ask much."
+
+"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
+your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."
+
+"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
+Answer this 'braw wooer;' send him away!"
+
+She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
+gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
+
+"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I
+need not send Graham away--he can live here; he will be no
+inconvenience," she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which
+at times was wont to make both her father and Graham smile. They
+smiled now.
+
+"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr.
+Home. "I don't want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
+him to march."
+
+"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
+first--like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I
+would rather not have him otherwise."
+
+"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
+should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
+that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."
+
+"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."
+
+"Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions
+and tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think,
+Polly, you and I will bid him good-by."
+
+"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."
+
+"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don't think to coax me
+between you."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your
+right hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don't be
+stiff; close your fingers; be pliant--there! But that is not a clasp--
+it is a grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham's hand to
+the bone; you hurt him!"
+
+He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
+brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham's flesh and drew
+blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him
+smile.
+
+"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor.
+They went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was
+conclusive. The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny
+on many things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and
+language or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I
+understood afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had
+managed his affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his
+fortunes were in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position
+to marry.
+
+Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
+Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
+
+"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with
+you as you deal with her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
+seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
+palace at Bois l'Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
+evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
+them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
+the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
+evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
+climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
+this group, was solitary.
+
+Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her
+little hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was
+binding a nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in
+her lap, she had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and
+was now occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden
+wave. The plait woven--no silk-thread being at hand to bind it--a
+tress of her own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like
+a knot, prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
+
+"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep
+you two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."
+
+An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
+impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
+mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
+borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
+
+"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the
+father, the daughter, the future husband, now united--all blessed and
+blessing.
+
+Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration
+of fancy, it is so. Some real lives do--for some certain days or
+years--actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
+such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
+never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
+follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
+precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
+the deep cloud.
+
+I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so
+born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late
+grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no
+tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are
+not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and
+benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind
+attributes.
+
+Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
+Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
+did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
+he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
+filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright,
+too, was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband's love,
+she aided in his progress--of his happiness she was the corner stone.
+
+This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
+prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
+Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these
+were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose
+face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to
+the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Bassompierre was
+taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a
+cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others
+sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw
+himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his
+disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these
+children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up
+according to inheritance and nurture.
+
+In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of
+Graham and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob's favoured son,
+with "blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies
+under." It was so, for God saw that it was good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CLOUD.
+
+
+But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it
+surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The
+impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and
+unseen, has its fulfilment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be
+given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that proof be written.
+In fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire
+and in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not
+through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy
+loins; look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join
+in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world
+stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be
+our cross our banner. For staff we have His promise, whose "word is
+tried, whose way perfect:" for present hope His providence, "who gives
+the shield of salvation, whose gentleness makes great;" for final home
+His bosom, who "dwells in the height of Heaven;" for crowning prize a
+glory, exceeding and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain: let us
+endure hardness as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep
+the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than conquerors: "Art
+thou not from everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE!"
+
+On a Thursday morning we were all assembled in classe, waiting for the
+lesson of literature. The hour was come; we expected the master.
+
+The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written
+compositions prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them,
+neatly tied with ribbon, waiting to be gathered by the hand of the
+Professor as he made his rapid round of the desks. The month was July,
+the morning fine, the glass-door stood ajar, through it played a fresh
+breeze, and plants, growing at the lintel, waved, bent, looked in,
+seeming to whisper tidings.
+
+M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his
+being a little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and,
+instead of him with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly
+upon us the cautious Madame Beck.
+
+She approached M. Paul's desk; she stood before it; she drew round her
+the light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet
+firm tones, and with a fixed gaze, she said, "This morning there will
+be no lesson of literature."
+
+The second paragraph of her address followed, after about two minutes'
+pause.
+
+"It is probable the lessons will be suspended for a week. I shall
+require at least that space of time to find an efficient substitute
+for M. Emanuel. Meanwhile, it shall be our study to fill the blanks
+usefully.
+
+"Your Professor, ladies," she went on, "intends, if possible, duly to
+take leave of you. At the present moment he has not leisure for that
+ceremony. He is preparing for a long voyage. A very sudden and urgent
+summons of duty calls him to a great distance. He has decided to leave
+Europe for an indefinite time. Perhaps he may tell you more himself.
+Ladies, instead of the usual lesson with M. Emanuel, you will, this
+morning, read English with Mademoiselle Lucy."
+
+She bent her head courteously, drew closer the folds of her shawl, and
+passed from the classe.
+
+A great silence fell: then a murmur went round the room: I believe
+some pupils wept.
+
+Some time elapsed. The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing
+increased. I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of
+growing disorder, as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn,
+and that surveillance had virtually left the classe. Habit and the
+sense of duty enabled me to rally quickly, to rise in my usual way, to
+speak in my usual tone, to enjoin, and finally to establish quiet. I
+made the English reading long and close. I kept them at it the whole
+morning. I remember feeling a sentiment of impatience towards the
+pupils who sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value: it was
+only an hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half
+ridiculed them. I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their
+tears, or that gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-
+minded, low-spirited pupil kept it up when the others had done;
+relentless necessity obliged and assisted me so to accost her, that
+she dared not carry on the demonstration, that she was forced to
+conquer the convulsion.
+
+That girl would have had a right to hate me, except that, when school
+was over and her companions departing, I ordered her to stay, and when
+they were gone, I did what I had never done to one among them before--
+pressed her to my heart and kissed her cheek. But, this impulse
+yielded to, I speedily put her out of the classe, for, upon that
+poignant strain, she wept more bitterly than ever.
+
+I filled with occupation every minute of that day, and should have
+liked to sit up all night if I might have kept a candle burning; the
+night, however, proved a bad time, and left bad effects, preparing me
+ill for the next day's ordeal of insufferable gossip. Of course this
+news fell under general discussion. Some little reserve had
+accompanied the first surprise: that soon wore off; every mouth
+opened; every tongue wagged; teachers, pupils, the very servants,
+mouthed the name of "Emanuel." He, whose connection with the school
+was contemporary with its commencement, thus suddenly to withdraw! All
+felt it strange.
+
+They talked so much, so long, so often, that, out of the very
+multitude of their words and rumours, grew at last some intelligence.
+About the third day I heard it said that he was to sail in a week;
+then--that he was bound for the West Indies. I looked at Madame Beck's
+face, and into her eyes, for disproof or confirmation of this report;
+I perused her all over for information, but no part of her disclosed
+more than what was unperturbed and commonplace.
+
+"This secession was an immense loss to her," she alleged. "She did not
+know how she should fill up the vacancy. She was so used to her
+kinsman, he had become her right hand; what should she do without him?
+She had opposed the step, but M. Paul had convinced her it was his
+duty."
+
+She said all this in public, in classe, at the dinner-table, speaking
+audibly to Zélie St. Pierre.
+
+"Why was it his duty?" I could have asked her that. I had impulses to
+take hold of her suddenly, as she calmly passed me in classe, to
+stretch out my hand and grasp her fast, and say, "Stop. Let us hear
+the conclusion of the whole matter. _Why_ is it his duty to go
+into banishment?" But Madame always addressed some other teacher, and
+never looked at me, never seemed conscious I could have a care in the
+question.
+
+The week wore on. Nothing more was said about M. Emanuel coming to bid
+us good-by; and none seemed anxious for his coming; none questioned
+whether or not he would come; none betrayed torment lest he should
+depart silent and unseen; incessantly did they talk, and never, in all
+their talk, touched on this vital point. As to Madame, she of course
+could see him, and say to him as much as she pleased. What should
+_she_ care whether or not he appeared in the schoolroom?
+
+The week consumed. We were told that he was going on such a day, that
+his destination was "Basseterre in Guadaloupe:" the business which
+called him abroad related to a friend's interests, not his own: I
+thought as much.
+
+"Basseterre in Guadaloupe." I had little sleep about this time, but
+whenever I _did_ slumber, it followed infallibly that I was
+quickly roused with a start, while the words "Basseterre,"
+"Guadaloupe," seemed pronounced over my pillow, or ran athwart the
+darkness round and before me, in zigzag characters of red or violet
+light.
+
+For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling? M.
+Emanuel had been very kind to me of late days; he had been growing
+hourly better and kinder. It was now a month since we had settled the
+theological difference, and in all that time there had been no
+quarrel. Nor had our peace been the cold daughter of divorce; we had
+not lived aloof; he had come oftener, he had talked with me more than
+before; he had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with eye
+content, with manner home-like and mild. Kind subjects of conversation
+had grown between us; he had inquired into my plans of life, and I had
+communicated them; the school project pleased him; he made me repeat
+it more than once, though he called it an Alnaschar dream. The jar was
+over; the mutual understanding was settling and fixing; feelings of
+union and hope made themselves profoundly felt in the heart; affection
+and deep esteem and dawning trust had each fastened its bond.
+
+What quiet lessons I had about this time! No more taunts on my
+"intellect," no more menaces of grating public shows! How sweetly, for
+the jealous gibe, and the more jealous, half-passionate eulogy, were
+substituted a mute, indulgent help, a fond guidance, and a tender
+forbearance which forgave but never praised. There were times when he
+would sit for many minutes and not speak at all; and when dusk or duty
+brought separation, he would leave with words like these, "Il est
+doux, le repos! Il est précieux le calme bonheur!"
+
+One evening, not ten short days since, he joined me whilst walking in
+my alley. He took my hand. I looked up in his face. I thought he meant
+to arrest my attention.
+
+"Bonne petite amie!" said he, softly; "douce consolatrice!" But
+through his touch, and with his words, a new feeling and a strange
+thought found a course. Could it be that he was becoming more than
+friend or brother? Did his look speak a kindness beyond fraternity or
+amity?
+
+His eloquent look had more to say, his hand drew me forward, his
+interpreting lips stirred. No. Not now. Here into the twilight alley
+broke an interruption: it came dual and ominous: we faced two bodeful
+forms--a woman's and a priest's--Madame Beck and Père Silas.
+
+The aspect of the latter I shall never forget. On the first impulse it
+expressed a Jean-Jacques sensibility, stirred by the signs of
+affection just surprised; then, immediately, darkened over it the
+jaundice of ecclesiastical jealousy. He spoke to _me_ with
+unction. He looked on his pupil with sternness. As to Madame Beck,
+she, of course, saw nothing--nothing; though her kinsman retained in
+her presence the hand of the heretic foreigner, not suffering
+withdrawal, but clasping it close and fast.
+
+Following these incidents, that sudden announcement of departure had
+struck me at first as incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent
+repetition, and the credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me,
+which forced on me its full acceptance. As to that week of suspense,
+with its blank, yet burning days, which brought from him no word of
+explanation--I remember, but I cannot describe its passage.
+
+The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now he would come and speak
+his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore.
+
+This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living
+creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted
+as usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of their late
+Professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary
+duties.
+
+So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so
+inexpectant its aspect--I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere
+thus stagnant, thus smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no
+one a wish, no one a word, no one a prayer to which I could say--Amen?
+
+I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a treat, a
+holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they _would_ not
+now band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a
+Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some--loved as
+_they_ could love--but, oh! what _is_ the love of the multitude?
+
+I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
+communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone's-throw: had it
+been in the next room--unsummoned, I could make no use of my
+knowledge. To follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall--for these
+things I had no faculty.
+
+M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
+silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
+to go by.
+
+Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart
+trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was
+quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post--or do my work. Yet
+the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund,
+free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days
+since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared
+quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
+
+A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent
+for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter
+she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to
+this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her
+chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot
+day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
+indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce
+distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? what
+sound?
+
+I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening
+and winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off
+the traveller's tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the
+middle of the letter I heard--what checked my pen--a tread in the
+vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by orders--
+had anticipated such réveillée. Madame saw me halt. She coughed, made
+a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the classes.
+
+"Proceed," said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my
+thoughts were carried off captive.
+
+The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the
+dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden
+stir of numbers, a whole division rising at once.
+
+"They are putting away work," said Madame.
+
+It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush--
+that instant quell of the tumult?
+
+"Wait, Madame--I will see what it is."
+
+And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be
+left: powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my
+shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
+
+"Are you coming, too?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a look,
+clouded, yet resolute.
+
+We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.
+
+He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more
+appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep
+him away, but he was come.
+
+The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his
+farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This
+last ceremony, foreign custom permitted at such a parting--so solemn,
+to last so long.
+
+I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and
+watching me close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her
+breath; I became terribly goaded.
+
+He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came
+to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had
+stepped out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and
+amplify her drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness
+and deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis--the
+total default of self-assertion--with which, in a crisis, I could be
+struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she
+mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door--the glass-door
+opening on the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have
+caught his eye, courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling,
+and there would have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but
+already the room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups,
+my figure was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had her will;
+yes, she got him away, and he had not seen me; he thought me absent.
+Five o'clock struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, the school
+separated, the room emptied.
+
+There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in
+some certain minutes I then passed alone--a grief inexpressible over
+a loss unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do;
+when all my life's hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven,
+outraged heart?
+
+What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child--the
+least child in the school--broke with its simplicity and its
+unconsciousness into the raging yet silent centre of that inward
+conflict.
+
+"Mademoiselle," lisped the treble voice, "I am to give you that. M.
+Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to
+the cellar, and when I found you, to give you that."
+
+And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee,
+its olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only
+these words:--
+
+"It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
+the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
+interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
+leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
+numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
+business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate--
+even to you.--PAUL."
+
+"Be ready?" Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
+morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
+vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could
+that longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
+schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
+appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm--Apollyon straddled across
+it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
+reach me?
+
+Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
+seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
+whole throb of mine.
+
+I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
+think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
+its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
+which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades--stood,
+shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
+doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour
+unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and
+compass of his promise: spoke thus--then towering, became a star, and
+vanished into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense--a worse boon
+than despair.
+
+All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet
+in the midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy.
+Cold and peculiar, I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied
+presentiment. The first hours seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung
+to the flying skirts of the last. They passed like drift cloud--like
+the wrack scudding before a storm.
+
+They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log;
+the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue
+shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
+
+Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I
+still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least
+disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
+
+How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot
+many hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had
+made for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there,
+when certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of
+hearing--there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in
+Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they
+heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could
+be sacred?
+
+Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue Fossette--the
+door unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp's flame invaded the
+moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if
+coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at
+once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to
+seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long.
+She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven
+beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted
+respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual
+circumstances, no yoke could now be borne--no curb obeyed.
+
+"It is more than time for retirement," said Madame; "the rule of the
+house has already been transgressed too long."
+
+Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my
+way, I put her out of it.
+
+"Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,"
+said she, trying to speak softly.
+
+"No!" I said; "neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me."
+
+"Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make
+you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative."
+
+"Madame," I broke out, "you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
+your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make
+your own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks
+spiced and sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
+disappointment--and, perhaps, you have--nay, I _know_ you have--
+seek your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me,
+however. _Leave me_, I say!"
+
+"I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton."
+
+"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
+troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and
+poison. You envenom and you paralyze."
+
+"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."
+
+"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
+had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at
+him for a "dévot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
+might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I
+had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
+came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
+had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
+rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under
+the smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
+
+Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in
+my power, because in some moods, such as the present--in some
+stimulated states of perception, like that of this instant--her
+habitual disguise, her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network
+reticulated with holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-
+indulgent, and ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: meek and self-
+possessed, though very uneasy, she said, "If I would not be persuaded
+to take rest, she must reluctantly leave me." Which she did
+incontinent, perhaps even more glad to get away, than I was to see her
+vanish.
+
+This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which
+ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was
+never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not
+know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse
+for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret
+philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked
+her to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there
+occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.
+
+That night passed: all nights--even the starless night before
+dissolution--must wear away. About six o'clock, the hour which called
+up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its
+cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror-
+glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was
+changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy,
+and my eyelids swollen and purple.
+
+On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me--my heart
+seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously
+certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess
+why and for whom I despaired.
+
+"Isabelle," the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached
+me. Would she, too, mock me!
+
+"Que vous êtes pâle! Vous êtes donc bien malade, Mademoiselle!" said
+she, putting her finger in her mouth, and staring with a wistful
+stupidity which at the moment seemed to me more beautiful than the
+keenest intelligence.
+
+Isabelle did not long stand alone in the recommendation of ignorance:
+before the day was over, I gathered cause of gratitude towards the
+whole blind household. The multitude have something else to do than to
+read hearts and interpret dark sayings. Who wills, may keep his own
+counsel--be his own secret's sovereign. In the course of that day,
+proof met me on proof, not only that the cause of my present sorrow
+was unguessed, but that my whole inner life for the last six months,
+was still mine only. It was not known--it had not been noted--that I
+held in peculiar value one life among all lives. Gossip had passed me
+by; curiosity had looked me over; both subtle influences, hovering
+always round, had never become centred upon me. A given organization
+may live in a full fever-hospital, and escape typhus. M. Emanuel had
+come and gone: I had been taught and sought; in season and out of
+season he had called me, and I had obeyed him: "M. Paul wants Miss
+Lucy"--"Miss Lucy is with M. Paul"--such had been the perpetual
+bulletin; and nobody commented, far less condemned. Nobody hinted,
+nobody jested. Madame Beck read the riddle: none else resolved it.
+What I now suffered was called illness--a headache: I accepted the
+baptism.
+
+But what bodily illness was ever like this pain? This certainty that
+he was gone without a farewell--this cruel conviction that fate and
+pursuing furies--a woman's envy and a priest's bigotry--would suffer
+me to see him no more? What wonder that the second evening found me
+like the first--untamed, tortured, again pacing a solitary room in an
+unalterable passion of silent desolation?
+
+Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night--she did not
+come near me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe--a more efficient agent for
+the purpose she could not have employed. Ginevra's first words--"Is
+your headache very bad to-night?" (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought
+I had a headache--an intolerable headache which made me frightfully
+white in the face, and insanely restless in the foot)--her first
+words, I say, inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were
+only out of reach. And soon, what followed--plaints about her own
+headaches--completed the business.
+
+I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed--my miserable bed--haunted
+with quick scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when
+another emissary arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink.
+I was consumed with thirst--I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet,
+but I tasted a drug.
+
+"Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou," said Goton, as she
+received back the emptied cup.
+
+Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a
+strong opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night.
+
+The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory
+hushed. Sleep soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy
+supremacy: contented sovereign over heads and hearts which did not
+ache--he passed by the unquiet.
+
+The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or under-
+charged the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead of
+stupor, came excitement. I became alive to new thought--to reverie
+peculiar in colouring. A gathering call ran among the faculties, their
+bugles sang, their trumpets rang an untimely summons. Imagination was
+roused from her rest, and she came forth impetuous and venturous. With
+scorn she looked on Matter, her mate--"Rise!" she said. "Sluggard!
+this night I will have _my_ will; nor shalt thou prevail."
+
+"Look forth and view the night!" was her cry; and when I lifted the
+heavy blind from the casement close at hand--with her own royal
+gesture, she showed me a moon supreme, in an element deep and
+splendid.
+
+To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits,
+the oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to
+leave this den and follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory.
+
+She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight.
+Especially she showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys
+all silent, lone and safe; among these lay a huge stone basin--that
+basin I knew, and beside which I had often stood--deep-set in the
+tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, with a green, leafy,
+rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, locked,
+sentinelled: the place could not be entered.
+
+Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I
+mechanically dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying still--
+excited from head to foot--what could I do better than dress?
+
+The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no
+admission to the park?
+
+The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to
+the circumstance, a gap in the paling--one stake broken down: I now
+saw this gap again in recollection--saw it very plainly--the narrow,
+irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens, planted
+orderly as a colonnade. A man could not have made his way through that
+aperture, nor could a stout woman, perhaps not Madame Beck; but I
+thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, and once within, at
+this hour the whole park would be mine--the moonlight, midnight park!
+
+How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet
+breathing! How very still the whole large house! What was the time? I
+felt restless to know. There stood a clock in the classe below: what
+hindered me from venturing down to consult it? By such a moon, its
+large white face and jet black figures must be vividly distinct.
+
+As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking
+hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could
+not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the
+dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a
+board is loose, and will avoid it. The oak staircase creaks somewhat
+as I descend, but not much:--I am in the carré.
+
+The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other
+hand, the entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my
+thought, great dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and
+for me, filled with spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable
+amongst their straw and their manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful
+vista, leading to the high vestibule which opens direct upon the
+street.
+
+Hush!--the clock strikes. Ghostly deep as is the stillness of this
+convent, it is only eleven. While my ear follows to silence the hum of
+the last stroke, I catch faintly from the built-out capital, a sound
+like bells or like a band--a sound where sweetness, where victory,
+where mourning blend. Oh, to approach this music nearer, to listen to
+it alone by the rushy basin! Let me go--oh, let me go! What hinders,
+what does not aid freedom?
+
+There, in the corridor, hangs my garden-costume, my large hat, my
+shawl. There is no lock on the huge, heavy, porte-cochère; there is no
+key to seek: it fastens with a sort of spring-bolt, not to be opened
+from the outside, but which, from within, may be noiselessly
+withdrawn. Can I manage it? It yields to my hand, yields with
+propitious facility. I wonder as that portal seems almost
+spontaneously to unclose--I wonder as I cross the threshold and step
+on the paved street, wonder at the strange ease with which this prison
+has been forced. It seems as if I had been pioneered invisibly, as if
+some dissolving force had gone before me: for myself, I have scarce
+made an effort.
+
+Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing
+summer night of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew
+in the air. But here I cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so
+close under the dungeon, I can hear the prisoners moan. This solemn
+peace is not what I seek, it is not what I can bear: to me the face of
+that sky bears the aspect of a world's death. The park also will be
+calm--I know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere--yet let me seek
+the park.
+
+I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal
+Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was
+hushed now, but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell
+music came to meet me; another sound replaced it, a sound like a
+strong tide, a great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke,
+movement gathered, chimes pealed--to what was I coming? Entering on
+the level of a Grande Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of
+magic, plunged amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd.
+
+Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems
+abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own
+flambeaux, beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipages,
+fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even
+scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams. But
+where is the park?--I ought to be near it. In the midst of this glare
+the park must be shadowy and calm--_there_, at least, are neither
+torches, lamps, nor crowd?
+
+I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with
+known faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the
+spirited horses fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of
+that carriage well: me they could not see, or, at least, not know,
+folded close in my large shawl, screened with my straw hat (in that
+motley crowd no dress was noticeably strange). I saw the Count de
+Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely apparelled, comely and
+cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the triple halo of
+her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her
+countenance of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to
+note the gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery
+floating about her was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite
+to her I saw Graham Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect
+had caught its lustre--the light repeated in _her_ eyes beamed
+first out of his.
+
+It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I
+_did_ follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them
+alight (carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated
+splendours. Lo! the iron gateway, between the stone columns, was
+spanned by a flaming arch built of massed stars; and, following them
+cautiously beneath that arch, where were they, and where was I?
+
+In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled
+with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and
+golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow,
+but of strangest architectural wealth--of altar and of temple, of
+pyramid, obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the
+symbols of Egypt teemed throughout the park of Villette.
+
+No matter that in five minutes the secret was mine--the key of the
+mystery picked up, and its illusion unveiled--no matter that I quickly
+recognised the material of these solemn fragments--the timber, the
+paint, and the pasteboard--these inevitable discoveries failed to
+quite destroy the charm, or undermine the marvel of that night. No
+matter that I now seized the explanation of the whole great fête--a
+fête of which the conventual Rue Fossette had not tasted, though it
+had opened at dawn that morning, and was still in full vigour near
+midnight.
+
+In past days there had been, said history, an awful crisis in the fate
+of Labassecour, involving I know not what peril to the rights and
+liberties of her gallant citizens. Rumours of wars there had been, if
+not wars themselves; a kind of struggling in the streets--a bustle--a
+running to and fro, some rearing of barricades, some burgher-rioting,
+some calling out of troops, much interchange of brickbats, and even a
+little of shot. Tradition held that patriots had fallen: in the old
+Basse-Ville was shown an enclosure, solemnly built in and set apart,
+holding, it was said, the sacred bones of martyrs. Be this as it may,
+a certain day in the year was still kept as a festival in honour of
+the said patriots and martyrs of somewhat apocryphal memory--the
+morning being given to a solemn Te Deum in St. Jean Baptiste, the
+evening devoted to spectacles, decorations, and illuminations, such as
+these I now saw.
+
+While looking up at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column--
+while fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the
+close of which was couched a sphinx--I lost sight of the party which,
+from the middle of the great square, I had followed--or, rather, they
+vanished like a group of apparitions. On this whole scene was
+impressed a dream-like character: every shape was wavering, every
+movement floating, every voice echo-like--half-mocking, half-
+uncertain. Paulina and her friends being gone, I scarce could avouch
+that I had really seen them; nor did I miss them as guides through the
+chaos, far less regret them as protectors amidst the night.
+
+That festal night would have been safe for a very child. Half the
+peasantry had come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the
+decent burghers were all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My
+straw-hat passed amidst cap and jacket, short petticoat, and long
+calico mantle, without, perhaps, attracting a glance; I only took the
+precaution to bind down the broad leaf gipsy-wise, with a
+supplementary ribbon--and then I felt safe as if masked.
+
+Safe I passed down the avenues--safe I mixed with the crowd where it
+was deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe.
+I took a revel of the scene; I drank the elastic night-air--the swell
+of sound, the dubious light, now flashing, now fading. As to Happiness
+or Hope, they and I had shaken hands, but just now--I scorned Despair.
+
+My vague aim, as I went, was to find the stone-basin, with its clear
+depth and green lining: of that coolness and verdure I thought, with
+the passionate thirst of unconscious fever. Amidst the glare, and
+hurry, and throng, and noise, I still secretly and chiefly longed to
+come on that circular mirror of crystal, and surprise the moon
+glassing therein her pearly front.
+
+I knew my route, yet it seemed as if I was hindered from pursuing it
+direct: now a sight, and now a sound, called me aside, luring me down
+this alley and down that. Already I saw the thick-planted trees which
+framed this tremulous and rippled glass, when, choiring out of a glade
+to the right, broke such a sound as I thought might be heard if Heaven
+were to open--such a sound, perhaps, as _was_ heard above the
+plain of Bethlehem, on the night of glad tidings.
+
+The song, the sweet music, rose afar, but rushing swiftly on fast-
+strengthening pinions--there swept through these shades so full a
+storm of harmonies that, had no tree been near against which to lean,
+I think I must have dropped. Voices were there, it seemed to me,
+unnumbered; instruments varied and countless--bugle, horn, and trumpet
+I knew. The effect was as a sea breaking into song with all its waves.
+
+The swaying tide swept this way, and then it fell back, and I followed
+its retreat. It led me towards a Byzantine building--a sort of kiosk
+near the park's centre. Round about stood crowded thousands, gathered
+to a grand concert in the open air. What I had heard was, I think, a
+wild Jäger chorus; the night, the space, the scene, and my own mood,
+had but enhanced the sounds and their impression.
+
+Here were assembled ladies, looking by this light most beautiful: some
+of their dresses were gauzy, and some had the sheen of satin, the
+flowers and the blond trembled, and the veils waved about their
+decorated bonnets, as that host-like chorus, with its greatly-
+gathering sound, sundered the air above them. Most of these ladies
+occupied the little light park-chairs, and behind and beside them
+stood guardian gentlemen. The outer ranks of the crowd were made up of
+citizens, plebeians and police.
+
+In this outer rank I took my place. I rather liked to find myself the
+silent, unknown, consequently unaccosted neighbour of the short
+petticoat and the sabot; and only the distant gazer at the silk robe,
+the velvet mantle, and the plumed chapeau. Amidst so much life and
+joy, too, it suited me to be alone--quite alone. Having neither wish
+nor power to force my way through a mass so close-packed, my station
+was on the farthest confines, where, indeed, I might hear, but could
+see little.
+
+"Mademoiselle is not well placed," said a voice at my elbow. Who dared
+accost _me_, a being in a mood so little social? I turned, rather
+to repel than to reply. I saw a man--a burgher--an entire stranger, as
+I deemed him for one moment, but the next, recognised in him a certain
+tradesman--a bookseller, whose shop furnished the Rue Fossette with
+its books and stationery; a man notorious in our pensionnat for the
+excessive brittleness of his temper, and frequent snappishness of his
+manner, even to us, his principal customers: but whom, for my solitary
+self, I had ever been disposed to like, and had always found civil,
+sometimes kind; once, in aiding me about some troublesome little
+exchange of foreign money, he had done me a service. He was an
+intelligent man; under his asperity, he was a good-hearted man; the
+thought had sometimes crossed me, that a part of his nature bore
+affinity to a part of M. Emanuel's (whom he knew well, and whom I had
+often seen sitting on Miret's counter, turning over the current
+month's publications); and it was in this affinity I read the
+explanation of that conciliatory feeling with which I instinctively
+regarded him.
+
+Strange to say, this man knew me under my straw-hat and closely-folded
+shawl; and, though I deprecated the effort, he insisted on making a
+way for me through the crowd, and finding me a better situation. He
+carried his disinterested civility further; and, from some quarter,
+procured me a chair. Once and again, I have found that the most cross-
+grained are by no means the worst of mankind; nor the humblest in
+station, the least polished in feeling. This man, in his courtesy,
+seemed to find nothing strange in my being here alone; only a reason
+for extending to me, as far as he could, a retiring, yet efficient
+attention. Having secured me a place and a seat, he withdrew without
+asking a question, without obtruding a remark, without adding a
+superfluous word. No wonder that Professor Emanuel liked to take his
+cigar and his lounge, and to read his feuilleton in M. Miret's shop--
+the two must have suited.
+
+I had not been seated five minutes, ere I became aware that chance and
+my worthy burgher friend had brought me once more within view of a
+familiar and domestic group. Right before me sat the Brettons and de
+Bassompierres. Within reach of my hand--had I chosen to extend it--sat
+a figure like a fairy-queen, whose array, lilies and their leaves
+seemed to have suggested; whatever was not spotless white, being
+forest-green. My godmother, too, sat so near, that, had I leaned
+forward, my breath might have stirred the ribbon of her bonnet. They
+were too near; having been just recognised by a comparative stranger,
+I felt uneasy at this close vicinage of intimate acquaintance.
+
+It made me quite start when Mrs. Bretton, turning to Mr. Home, and
+speaking out of a kind impulse of memory, said,--"I wonder what my
+steady little Lucy would say to all this if she were here? I wish we
+had brought her, she would have enjoyed it much."
+
+"So she would, so she would, in her grave sensible fashion; it is a
+pity but we had asked her," rejoined the kind gentleman; and added, "I
+like to see her so quietly pleased; so little moved, yet so content."
+
+Dear were they both to me, dear are they to this day in their
+remembered benevolence. Little knew they the rack of pain which had
+driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and
+reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy. I had half a mind
+to bend over the elders' shoulders, and answer their goodness with the
+thanks of my eyes. M. de Bassompierre did not well know _me_, but
+I knew _him_, and honoured and admired his nature, with all its
+plain sincerity, its warm affection, and unconscious enthusiasm.
+Possibly I might have spoken, but just then Graham turned; he turned
+with one of his stately firm movements, so different from those, of a
+sharp-tempered under-sized man: there was behind him a throng, a
+hundred ranks deep; there were thousands to meet his eye and divide
+its scrutiny--why then did he concentrate all on me--oppressing me
+with the whole force of that full, blue, steadfast orb? Why, if he
+_would_ look, did not one glance satisfy him? why did he turn on
+his chair, rest his elbow on its back, and study me leisurely? He
+could not see my face, I held it down; surely, he _could_ not
+recognise me: I stooped, I turned, I _would_ not be known. He
+rose, by some means he contrived to approach, in two minutes he would
+have had my secret: my identity would have been grasped between his,
+never tyrannous, but always powerful hands. There was but one way to
+evade or to check him. I implied, by a sort of supplicatory gesture,
+that it was my prayer to be let alone; after that, had he persisted,
+he would perhaps have seen the spectacle of Lucy incensed: not all
+that was grand, or good, or kind in him (and Lucy felt the full
+amount) should have kept her quite tame, or absolutely inoffensive and
+shadowlike. He looked, but he desisted. He shook his handsome head,
+but he was mute. He resumed his seat, nor did he again turn or disturb
+me by a glance, except indeed for one single instant, when a look,
+rather solicitous than curious, stole my way--speaking what somehow
+stilled my heart like "the south-wind quieting the earth." Graham's
+thoughts of me were not entirely those of a frozen indifference, after
+all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little
+place under the sky-lights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she
+chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged
+his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his
+philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still
+less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was
+splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he
+proved to me that he kept one little closet, over the door of which
+was written "Lucy's Room." I kept a place for him, too--a place of
+which I never took the measure, either by rule or compass: I think it
+was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I carried it folded
+in the hollow of my hand yet, released from that hold and
+constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might
+have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host.
+
+Forbearing as he was to-night, I could not stay in this proximity;
+this dangerous place and seat must be given up: I watched my
+opportunity, rose, and stole away. He might think, he might even
+believe that Lucy was contained within that shawl, and sheltered under
+that hat; he never could be certain, for he did not see my face.
+
+Surely the spirit of restlessness was by this time appeased? Had I not
+had enough of adventure? Did I not begin to flag, quail, and wish for
+safety under a roof? Not so. I still loathed my bed in the school
+dormitory more than words can express: I clung to whatever could
+distract thought. Somehow I felt, too, that the night's drama was but
+begun, that the prologue was scarce spoken: throughout this woody and
+turfy theatre reigned a shadow of mystery; actors and incidents
+unlooked-for, waited behind the scenes: I thought so foreboding told
+me as much.
+
+Straying at random, obeying the push of every chance elbow, I was
+brought to a quarter where trees planted in clusters, or towering
+singly, broke up somewhat the dense packing of the crowd, and gave it
+a more scattered character. These confines were far from the music,
+and somewhat aloof even from the lamps, but there was sound enough to
+soothe, and with that full, high moon, lamps were scarce needed. Here
+had chiefly settled family-groups, burgher-parents; some of them, late
+as was the hour, actually surrounded by their children, with whom it
+had not been thought advisable to venture into the closer throng.
+
+Three fine tall trees growing close, almost twined stem within stem,
+lifted a thick canopy of shade above a green knoll, crowned with a
+seat--a seat which might have held several, yet it seemed abandoned to
+one, the remaining members of the fortunate party in possession of
+this site standing dutifully round; yet, amongst this reverend circle
+was a lady, holding by the hand a little girl.
+
+When I caught sight of this little girl, she was twisting herself
+round on her heel, swinging from her conductress's hand, flinging
+herself from side to side with wanton and fantastic gyrations. These
+perverse movements arrested my attention, they struck me as of a
+character fearfully familiar. On close inspection, no less so appeared
+the child's equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, the small swansdown
+boa, the white bonnet--the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the
+gala garb of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Désirée
+Beck--and Désirée Beck it was--she, or an imp in her likeness.
+
+I might have taken this discovery as a thunder-clap, but such
+hyperbole would have been premature; discovery was destined to rise
+more than one degree, ere it reached its climax.
+
+On whose hand could the amiable Désirée swing thus selfishly, whose
+glove could she tear thus recklessly, whose arm thus strain with
+impunity, or on the borders of whose dress thus turn and trample
+insolently, if not the hand, glove, arm, and robe of her lady-mother?
+And there, in an Indian shawl and a pale-green crape bonnet--there,
+fresh, portly, blithe, and pleasant--there stood Madame Beck.
+
+Curious! I had certainly deemed Madame in her bed, and Désirée in her
+crib, at this blessed minute, sleeping, both of them, the sleep of the
+just, within the sacred walls, amidst the profound seclusion of the
+Rue Fossette. Most certainly also they did not picture "Meess Lucie"
+otherwise engaged; and here we all three were taking our "ébats" in
+the fête-blazing park at midnight!
+
+The fact was, Madame was only acting according to her quite
+justifiable wont. I remembered now I had heard it said among the
+teachers--though without at the time particularly noticing the gossip
+--that often, when we thought Madame in her chamber, sleeping, she
+was gone, full-dressed, to take her pleasure at operas, or plays, or
+balls. Madame had no sort of taste for a monastic life, and took care
+--largely, though discreetly--to season her existence with a relish of
+the world.
+
+Half a dozen gentlemen of her friends stood about her. Amongst these,
+I was not slow to recognise two or three. There was her brother, M.
+Victor Kint; there was another person, moustached and with long hair--
+a calm, taciturn man, but whose traits bore a stamp and a semblance I
+could not mark unmoved. Amidst reserve and phlegm, amidst contrasts of
+character and of countenance, something there still was which recalled
+a face--mobile, fervent, feeling--a face changeable, now clouded, and
+now alight--a face from my world taken away, for my eyes lost, but
+where my best spring-hours of life had alternated in shadow and in
+glow; that face, where I had often seen movements so near the signs of
+genius--that why there did not shine fully out the undoubted fire, the
+thing, the spirit, and the secret itself--I could never tell. Yes--
+this Josef Emanuel--this man of peace--reminded me of his ardent
+brother.
+
+Besides Messieurs Victor and Josef, I knew another of this party. This
+third person stood behind and in the shade, his attitude too was
+stooping, yet his dress and bald white head made him the most
+conspicuous figure of the group. He was an ecclesiastic: he was Père
+Silas. Do not fancy, reader, that there was any inconsistency in the
+priest's presence at this fête. This was not considered a show of
+Vanity Fair, but a commemoration of patriotic sacrifice. The Church
+patronised it, even with ostentation. There were troops of priests in
+the park that night.
+
+Père Silas stooped over the seat with its single occupant, the rustic
+bench and that which sat upon it: a strange mass it was--bearing no
+shape, yet magnificent. You saw, indeed, the outline of a face, and
+features, but these were so cadaverous and so strangely placed, you
+could almost have fancied a head severed from its trunk, and flung at
+random on a pile of rich merchandise. The distant lamp-rays glanced on
+clear pendants, on broad rings; neither the chasteness of moonlight,
+nor the distance of the torches, could quite subdue the gorgeous dyes
+of the drapery. Hail, Madame Walravens! I think you looked more witch-
+like than ever. And presently the good lady proved that she was indeed
+no corpse or ghost, but a harsh and hardy old woman; for, upon some
+aggravation in the clamorous petition of Désirée Beck to her mother,
+to go to the kiosk and take sweetmeats, the hunchback suddenly fetched
+her a resounding rap with her gold-knobbed cane.
+
+There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Père Silas--the whole
+conjuration, the secret junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me
+good. I cannot say that I felt weak before them, or abashed, or
+dismayed. They outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet;
+but, as yet, I was not dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this
+clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of
+entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of
+protection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me an
+obscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let me now briefly tell the
+reader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have been silently
+gathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M.
+Emanuel's departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha is
+Mammon, and its omega Interest.
+
+If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also to
+possess, in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol's
+consequence. The fact was, she had been rich--very rich; and though,
+for the present, without the command of money, she was likely one day
+to be rich again. At Basseterre, in Guadaloupe, she possessed a large
+estate, received in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequestered
+since her husband's failure; but now, it was supposed, cleared of
+claim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of integrity,
+considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
+
+Père Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for the
+sake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was a
+devout daughter. Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback and
+knowing her to be without family of her own, had long brooded over
+contingencies with a mother's calculating forethought, and, harshly
+treated as she was by Madame Walravens, never ceased to court her for
+interest's sake. Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for money
+reasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the West
+Indian estate.
+
+But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competent
+and upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man had
+Madame Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blighting
+his life, and then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man had
+Père Silas trained, taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude,
+habit, and belief. Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in some
+measure influence. "My pupil," said Père Silas, "if he remains in
+Europe, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become entangled with a
+heretic." Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred in
+her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The thing
+she could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would she
+destroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land,
+and knew Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfullest
+steward: so the three self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish.
+They reasoned, they appealed, they implored; on his mercy they cast
+themselves, into his hands they confidingly thrust their interests.
+They asked but two or three years of devotion--after that, he should
+live for himself: one of the number, perhaps, wished that in the
+meantime he might die.
+
+No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet,
+or confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust or
+repulsed the repository. What might be his private pain or inward
+reluctance to leave Europe--what his calculations for his own future--
+none asked, or knew, or reported. All this was a blank to me. His
+conferences with his confessor I might guess; the part duty and
+religion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might
+conjecture. He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge
+closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst
+grouped tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed
+amongst my neighbours, I might hear, if I would; I was near enough;
+but for some time, there was scarce motive to attend. They gossiped
+about the dresses, the music, the illuminations, the fine night. I
+listened to hear them say, "It is calm weather for _his_ voyage;
+the _Antigua_" (his ship) "will sail prosperously." No such
+remark fell; neither the _Antigua_, nor her course, nor her
+passenger were named.
+
+Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more
+than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this
+side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if
+expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. "Où sont-ils? Pourquoi
+ne viennent-ils?" I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as
+if determined to have an answer to her question--which hitherto none
+seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase--a phrase brief enough,
+simple enough, but it sent a shock through me--"Messieurs et
+mesdames," said she, "où donc est Justine Marie?"
+
+"Justine Marie!" What was this? Justine Marie--the dead nun--where was
+she? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens--what can you want with her?
+You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
+
+Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, but
+nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or
+at a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the dead-
+disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
+
+"Justine Marie," said one, "is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will
+be here presently."
+
+Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat--chat it
+still remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,
+comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on
+references to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, that
+listen as intently as I would--and I _did_ listen _now_ with
+a fated interest--I could make out no more than that some scheme was
+on foot, in which this ghostly Justine Marie--dead or alive--was
+concerned. This family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some
+reason; there seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune--for whom I
+could not quite make out-perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef
+Emanuel--both were bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests
+rained upon a young fair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they
+called Heinrich Mühler. Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens
+still obtruded from time to time, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her
+impatience being diverted only by an implacable surveillance of
+Désirée, who could not stir but the old woman menaced her with her
+staff.
+
+"La voilà!" suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, "voilà Justine Marie
+qui arrive!"
+
+This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured
+nun on the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in
+thought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the
+strange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,
+a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination once
+runs riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare and branchless--
+what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy, a passing
+cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in spirituality,
+and make of it a phantom?
+
+With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery
+breaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass
+darkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I
+looked.
+
+"She comes!" cried Josef Emanuel.
+
+The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At
+this instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the
+pale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection
+the dénouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some
+little of the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the
+coolest must have "held his breath for a time!" As for me, my life
+stood still.
+
+It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the
+revelation are passed by.
+
+The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper's
+hand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the
+Expected--there--where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?
+What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
+
+There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,
+so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,
+that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is
+like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white head-
+clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that she is
+a risen ghost.
+
+All falsities--all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be
+honest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
+
+_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not
+precisely homely. A girl of Villette stands there--a girl fresh from
+her pensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this
+country. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks
+are round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomely
+dressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons--two
+being elderly; these she addresses as "Mon Oncle" and "Ma Tante." She
+laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
+all points, the bourgeoise belle.
+
+"So much for Justine Marie;" so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
+this last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
+the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
+
+We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
+respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
+third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? We
+ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do
+not now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and
+I drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
+ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
+stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my
+eyes by many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by
+the _Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered
+what was once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false.
+The _Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
+
+Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
+not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
+How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it
+might touch more nearly?
+
+After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
+stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
+Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is a
+relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
+name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
+her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
+Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
+
+The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their band
+--which is it? Vital question--which is it?
+
+I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
+had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber
+intolerable. I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to
+the real truth; I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling
+the veil, and daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the
+covered outline of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty,
+but define to us one trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful
+sincerity; we may gasp in untold terror, but with that gasp we drink
+in a breath of thy divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway
+like rivers lifted by earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To
+see and know the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage.
+
+The Walravens' party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The
+gentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the
+turf under the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed,
+they jested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured,
+half, I thought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck's part. I soon
+gathered that his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own
+will, without the concurrence, even against the advice, of his
+friends; he had let the _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in
+the _Paul et Virginie_, appointed to sail a fortnight later. It
+was his reason for this resolve which they teased him to assign, and
+which he would only vaguely indicate as "the settlement of a little
+piece of business which he had set his heart upon." What _was_
+this business? Nobody knew. Yes, there was one who seemed partly, at
+least, in his confidence; a meaning look passed between him and
+Justine Marie. "La petite va m'aider--n'est-ce pas?" said he. The
+answer was prompt enough, God knows?
+
+"Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon coeur. Vous ferez de moi tout
+ce que vous voudrez, mon parrain."
+
+And this dear "parrain" took her hand and lifted it to his grateful
+lips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young
+Teuton, Heinrich Mühler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He
+even grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his
+face, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drew
+his ward nearer to him.
+
+M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit
+subdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the true
+life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief
+in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving
+indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the
+pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his
+manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was
+his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he
+folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and
+cherished as the apple of his eye.
+
+Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while
+M. Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite
+ungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let
+him bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a
+young bride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration,
+the vow of constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming
+Present prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed
+buried.
+
+Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not
+been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which
+never _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated;
+not seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered
+of vision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
+
+I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated
+ere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises
+doubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would have
+incredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of a
+marriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthy
+ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far
+from me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from
+the dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble
+suspense of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and
+faltering resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering
+and to conquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
+
+No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took
+it all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and
+folded it round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his
+colours about his breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the
+certainty, abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest
+spikes her strongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had
+entered well my soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.
+
+In my infatuation, I said, "Truth, you are a good mistress to your
+faithful servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even when
+the Falsehood was still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warm
+to the feelings, it wasted me with hourly torment. The persuasion that
+affection was won could not be divorced from the dread that, by
+another turn of the wheel, it might be lost. Truth stripped away
+Falsehood, and Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand--free!"
+
+Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it
+with me to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was not
+yet, indeed, quite played out. I might have waited and watched longer
+that love-scene under the trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there been
+nothing of love in the demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was so
+generous, so creative, she could have modelled for it the most salient
+lineaments, and given it the deepest life and highest colour of
+passion. But I _would_ not look; I had fixed my resolve, but I
+would not violate my nature. And then--something tore me so cruelly
+under my shawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in
+beak and talon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never
+felt jealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of
+Dr. John and Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my
+ears, while I withdrew thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony still
+acknowledged in it a charm. This was an outrage. The love born of
+beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare
+to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life
+after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy,
+consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by
+intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own
+process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at
+Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in
+_this_ Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either
+to its culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly.
+
+I turned from the group of trees and the "merrie companie" in its
+shade. Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds were
+thinning. I followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-lit
+Haute-Ville (still well lit, this it seems was to be a "nuit blanche"
+in Villette), I sought the dim lower quarter.
+
+Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight--forgotten in the
+park--here once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and
+calm and stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fête,
+the fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her
+for an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The
+rival lamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum,
+trumpet, bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with
+pencil-ray she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives
+everlasting. She and those stars seemed to me at once the types and
+witnesses of truth all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its
+slow-wheeling progress, advanced her victory--that onward movement
+which has been, and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.
+
+These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their
+lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but
+these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.
+So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly
+would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my
+strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed
+in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.
+
+Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,
+for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of
+this quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds its
+rattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully
+to the causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or
+fancy I see, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from
+that window--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant
+for me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. de
+Bassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither the
+Hôtel Crécy nor the château of La Terrasse lies in that direction.
+Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.
+
+Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was
+still; no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Désirée. I had left
+the great door ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some
+other accident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start
+the spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure
+must issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it
+yield?
+
+Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had
+waited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated
+breath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I
+sought the dormitory, and reached my couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next
+moment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!
+
+Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this
+hour the stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemed
+that none dreamed. Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms,
+at full-length and motionless. On mine--the twentieth couch--nothing
+_ought_ to have lain: I had left it void, and void should have
+found it. What, then; do I see between the half-drawn curtains? What
+dark, usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? Is it a robber who
+has made his way through the open street-door, and lies there in wait?
+It looks very black, I think it looks--not human. Can it be a
+wandering dog that has come in from the street and crept and nestled
+hither? Will it spring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I
+must. Courage! One step!--
+
+My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bed
+the old phantom--the NUN.
+
+A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what it
+might, I could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon.
+Besides, I was not overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nerves
+disdained hysteria. Warm from illuminations, and music, and thronging
+thousands, thoroughly lashed up by a new scourge, I defied spectra. In
+a moment, without exclamation, I had rushed on the haunted couch;
+nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the movement was mine,
+so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; as my
+instinct felt. I tore her up--the incubus! I held her on high--the
+goblin! I shook her loose--the mystery! And down she fell--down all
+around me--down in shreds and fragments--and I trode upon her.
+
+Here again--behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; the
+film of cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a long
+bolster dressed in a long black stole, and artfully invested with a
+white veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, were
+genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with a
+view to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived this
+artifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage was
+pinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words--
+
+"The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will
+be seen in the Rue Fossette no more."
+
+And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seen
+three times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that
+ghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the
+machination, for a moment, be attributed.
+
+Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,
+relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also
+to wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble
+riddle, I just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them
+beneath my pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of
+Madame's home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many
+nights' vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic,
+I deeply slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE HAPPY PAIR.
+
+
+The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
+day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
+on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
+storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
+a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
+lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
+blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
+their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
+azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
+unclouded course.
+
+In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
+doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
+cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
+all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
+meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
+entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
+mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
+left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
+or impression.
+
+Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
+the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
+house discussed.
+
+What subject?
+
+Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
+the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained
+a coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
+one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
+Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
+morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
+pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.
+
+High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
+the house ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so
+much as a scrap of a billet rewarded the search; the nymph was
+vanished, engulfed in the past night, like a shooting star swallowed
+up by darkness.
+
+Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the
+defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so
+appalled. Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side;
+here was damage done to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event
+happened? By what outlet had the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement
+was found unfastened, not a pane of glass broken; all the doors were
+bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction
+on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and
+excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a
+certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its
+lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering
+carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as
+that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief.
+
+From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but
+myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement.
+Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound
+embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction. Having alluded to
+M. de Hamal's suit, I found, as I expected, that Madame Beck was
+perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long since discussed it with
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in the business on
+that lady's shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de Bassompierre she
+now had recourse.
+
+We found that the Hôtel Crécy was already alive to what had happened.
+Ginevra had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal
+intentions; communications had been received from the family of de
+Hamal; M. de Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He
+overtook them too late.
+
+In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well
+transcribe it; it contains explanation on more than one point:--
+
+'DEAR OLD TIM "(short for Timon),--" I am off you see--gone like a
+shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the
+first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other
+people; Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I--Dieu
+merci! Do you know, Alfred, who used to call you 'the dragon,' has
+seen so much of you during the last few months, that he begins to feel
+quite friendly towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he
+has gone; he begs to apologize for any little trouble he may have
+given you. He is afraid he rather inconvenienced you once when he came
+upon you in the grenier, just as you were reading a letter seemingly
+of the most special interest; but he could not resist the temptation
+to give you a start, you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your
+correspondent. En revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing
+in for a dress or a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when
+he had struck a light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his
+cigar, while waiting for me.
+
+"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
+the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
+will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entrée of the
+Athénée, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
+sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
+Athénée is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
+allée défendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
+amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting,
+first the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the
+grand berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
+buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and
+the grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore
+down some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all,
+in running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
+people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
+From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
+of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know,
+is, day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
+Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
+suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think
+you must allow he has very cleverly carried out.
+
+"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been
+caught again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He
+thinks you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at
+is, rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure
+the visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying
+out, telling everybody, and rousing the whole house and neighbourhood?
+
+"Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? _I_ dressed
+her up: didn't I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should
+have gone mad; but then you have such nerves!--real iron and bend-
+leather! I believe you feel nothing. You haven't the same
+sensitiveness that a person of my constitution has. You seem to me
+insensible both to pain and fear and grief. You are a real old
+Diogenes.
+
+"Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my
+moonlight flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent
+fun, and I did it partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear,
+Dr. John: to show them that, with all their airs, I could get married
+as well as they. M. de Bassompierre was at first in a strange fume
+with Alfred; he threatened a prosecution for 'détournement de mineur,'
+and I know not what; he was so abominably in earnest, that I found
+myself forced to do a little bit of the melodramatic--go down on my
+knees, sob, cry, drench three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, 'mon
+oncle' soon gave in; indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am
+married, and that's all about it. He still says our marriage is not
+legal, because I am not of age, forsooth! As if that made any
+difference! I am just as much married as if I were a hundred. However,
+we are to be married again, and I am to have a trousseau, and Mrs.
+Cholmondeley is going to superintend it; and there are some hopes that
+M. de Bassompierre will give me a decent portion, which will be very
+convenient, as dear Alfred has nothing but his nobility, native and
+hereditary, and his pay. I only wish uncle would do things
+unconditionally, in a generous, gentleman-like fashion; he is so
+disagreeable as to make the dowry depend on Alfred's giving his
+written promise that he will never touch cards or dice from the day it
+is paid down. They accuse my angel of a tendency to play: I don't know
+anything about that, but I _do_ know he is a dear, adorable
+creature.
+
+"I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed
+our flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fête, when
+Madame (for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be
+absent at the concert in the park. I suppose _you_ must have gone
+with her. I watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven
+o'clock. How you returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture.
+That surely was _you_ we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did
+you see me wave my handkerchief from the carriage window?
+
+"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme
+happiness, and believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the
+best of health and spirits,
+
+GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL, née FANSHAWE.
+
+"P.S.--Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at
+home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter the Countess!' 'My
+sister the Countess!' Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John
+Bretton, hein?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In winding up Mistress Fanshawe's memoirs, the reader will no doubt
+expect to hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her
+youthful levities. Of course, a large share of suffering lies in
+reserve for her future.
+
+A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her.
+
+I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame
+Beck, and sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms
+laughing. She looked very blooming and beautiful: her curls were
+longer, her cheeks rosier than ever: her white bonnet and her Flanders
+veil, her orange-flowers and her bride's dress, became her mightily.
+
+"I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the
+substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her
+composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de
+Bassompierre is quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred a
+'nincompoop'--that's only his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe
+Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is wild with jealousy--fit to blow his
+brains out--and I'm so happy! I really think I've hardly anything left
+to wish for--unless it be a carriage and an hotel, and, oh! I--must
+introduce you to 'mon mari.' Alfred, come here!"
+
+And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to
+Madame Beck, receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of
+that lady. I was presented under my various names: the Dragon,
+Diogenes, and Timon. The young Colonel was very polite. He made me a
+prettily-turned, neatly-worded apology, about the ghost-visits, &c.,
+concluding with saying that "the best excuse for all his iniquities
+stood there!" pointing to his bride.
+
+And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to
+herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained
+spirits, her girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring
+exultingly; she called herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked
+how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only
+the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing
+better--she knew me too well to look for compliments--my dry gibes
+pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien,
+the more merrily she laughed.
+
+Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army
+as the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates
+and habits; a post of attaché was procured for him, and he and his
+young wife went abroad. I thought she would forget me now, but she did
+not. For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of
+correspondence. During the first year or two, it was only of herself
+and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself
+and a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de
+Bassompierre de Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were
+great boastings about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon
+miracles of precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the
+phlegmatic incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what
+it was to be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities
+of the maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me," and so on. In due
+course of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething,
+measles, hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me--the mamma's
+letters became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put
+upon by calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I
+was frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found
+out there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my
+natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered
+each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth "in articulo
+mortis," and five times did he miraculously revive.
+
+In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred
+the First; M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be
+paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called "debts of
+honour;" ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every
+cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out
+lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any
+distress single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she
+was pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on--fighting the
+battle of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any
+human being I have ever known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.
+
+
+Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and
+Renovation which I won on the fête-night? Must I tell how I and the
+two stalwart companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore
+the test of intimate acquaintance?
+
+I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly
+when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my
+demanding deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some
+experience of a relieved life--Freedom excused himself, as for the
+present impoverished and disabled to assist; and Renovation never
+spoke; he had died in the night suddenly.
+
+I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture
+might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive
+hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of
+jealousy. After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back
+captive to the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew.
+
+Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he
+purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour bring him? or must
+I again assay that corroding pain of long attent--that rude agony of
+rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once
+uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the
+violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her
+barrier!
+
+It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders
+and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long
+walk into the country to take their goûter, or afternoon meal, at some
+farm-house. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere
+the _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last
+chance, as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or
+cable.
+
+There was some joiners' work to do in the first classe, some bench or
+desk to repair; holidays were often turned to account for the
+performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the
+rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn
+to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my
+own intent, I heard the workmen coming.
+
+Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it
+would take two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying
+on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle
+hand, I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one
+"ouvrier." I noted, too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary
+leisure to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and not
+sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, coming to
+inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He
+advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little
+thrill--a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I
+turned, I stood in the supposed master-artisan's presence: looking
+towards the door-way, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes
+printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.
+
+Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the
+suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls
+prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, perfect from Fruition's
+mint.
+
+M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel--a
+surtout, guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant
+departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run
+before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind
+and benign: he came in with eagerness; he was close to me in one
+second; he was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus
+brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with
+cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in
+forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well--too well not to smite
+out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a
+kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his
+eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me;
+it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it--I
+would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.
+
+The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what
+he had said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my
+hand two minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first,
+last, only time--and then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting,
+then the wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
+him--across which, haply, he would not glance, to remember me.
+
+He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet;
+he looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips
+expressed something almost like the wordless language of a mother who
+finds a child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness,
+or worn out by want. A check supervened.
+
+"Paul, Paul!" said a woman's hurried voice behind, "Paul, come into
+the salon; I have yet a great many things to say to you--conversation
+for the whole day--and so has Victor; and Josef is here. Come Paul,
+come to your friends."
+
+Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable
+instinct, pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M.
+Emanuel.
+
+"Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray
+like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he
+receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure,
+made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried--
+
+"My heart will break!"
+
+What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another
+fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the
+whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep
+sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet
+with relief--I wept.
+
+"Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it
+will pass," said the calm Madame Beck.
+
+To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being
+left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply,
+harshly, and briefly--"Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music
+strange, strong, but life-giving.
+
+"Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial
+muscles all quivering as he spoke.
+
+"But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly
+rejoined her kinsman--
+
+"Sortez d'ici!"
+
+"I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she
+threatened pertinaciously.
+
+"Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his
+highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!"
+
+He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what
+I had yet felt.
+
+"What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic
+of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive,
+injudicious, inconsistent--a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable
+in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."
+
+"You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but
+you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less
+fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face,
+and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends;
+in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of
+sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what
+I see; it _must_ have and give solace. _Leave me!_"
+
+This time, in the "_leave me_" there was an intonation so bitter
+and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for
+one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him
+dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was
+opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick
+rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement;
+it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his
+hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the
+room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second.
+
+The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me
+to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time
+to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more
+myself--re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless,
+not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death.
+
+"It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he.
+
+"It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said. "All these weary days
+I have not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the
+possibility, growing to certainty, that you would depart without
+saying farewell!"
+
+"Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not know me?
+Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_ have proof
+that I can be a firm friend? Without clear proof this hand will not
+lie still in mine, it will not trust my shoulder as a safe stay? Good.
+The proof is ready. I come to justify myself."
+
+"Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, Monsieur; I can listen
+now."
+
+"Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance
+into the town. I came on purpose to fetch you."
+
+Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the
+semblance of an objection, I re-tied my bonnet: I was ready.
+
+The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit
+down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I
+was tired, but looked, and drew his own conclusions.
+
+"All these weary days," said he, repeating my words, with a gentle,
+kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips,
+and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled,
+as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might _write_
+his language, I _spoke_ and always should speak it imperfectly
+and hesitatingly. "'All these weary days' I have not for one hour
+forgotten you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves
+the sole faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living
+truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any
+quarter; but----look at me.",
+
+I lifted my happy eyes: they _were_ happy now, or they would have
+been no interpreters of my heart.
+
+"Well," said he, after some seconds' scrutiny, "there is no denying
+that signature: Constancy wrote it: her pen is of iron. Was the record
+painful?"
+
+"Severely painful," I said, with truth. "Withdraw her hand, Monsieur;
+I can bear its inscribing force no more."
+
+"Elle est toute pâle," said he, speaking to himself; "cette figure-là
+me fait mal."
+
+"Ah! I am not pleasant to look at----?"
+
+I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never
+remember the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the
+degree of my outward deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment
+with special force.
+
+A great softness passed upon his countenance; his violet eyes grew
+suffused and glistening under their deep Spanish lashes: he started
+up; "Let us walk on."
+
+"Do I displease your eyes _much_?" I took courage to urge: the
+point had its vital import for me.
+
+He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer; an answer which
+silenced, subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew
+what I was for _him_; and what I might be for the rest of the
+world, I ceased painfully to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress
+on an opinion about appearance? I fear it might be; I fear it was; but
+in that case I must avow no light share of weakness. I must own great
+fear of displeasing--a strong wish moderately to please M. Paul.
+
+Whither we rambled, I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed
+short; the path was pleasant, the day lovely. M. Emanuel talked of his
+voyage--he thought of staying away three years. On his return from
+Guadaloupe, he looked forward to release from liabilities and a clear
+course; and what did I purpose doing in the interval of his absence?
+he asked. I had talked once, he reminded me, of trying to be
+independent and keeping a little school of my own: had I dropped the
+idea?
+
+"Indeed, I had not: I was doing my best to save what would enable me
+to put it in practice."
+
+"He did not like leaving me in the Rue Fossette; he feared I should
+miss him there too much--I should feel desolate--I should grow sad--?"
+
+This was certain; but I promised to do my best to endure.
+
+"Still," said he, speaking low, "there is another objection to your
+present residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes: it would
+not be well to have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of
+letters; and in the Rue Fossette--in short, our Catholic discipline in
+certain matters--though justifiable and expedient--might possibly,
+under peculiar circumstances, become liable to misapplication--perhaps
+abuse."
+
+"But if you write," said I, "I _must_ have your letters; and I
+_will_ have them: ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not
+keep them from me. I am a Protestant: I will not bear that kind of
+discipline: Monsieur, I _will not_."
+
+"Doucement--doucement," rejoined he; "we will contrive a plan; we have
+our resources: soyez tranquille."
+
+So speaking, he paused.
+
+We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of
+a clean Faubourg, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It
+was before the white door-step of a very neat abode that M. Paul had
+halted.
+
+"I call here," said he.
+
+He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and
+entered at once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No
+servant appeared. The vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly
+and tastefully painted; its vista closed in a French window with vines
+trained about the panes, tendrils, and green leaves kissing the glass.
+Silence reigned in this dwelling.
+
+Opening an inner door, M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon--very
+tiny, but I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like
+a blush; its floor was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its
+centre; its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth;
+there was a little couch, a little chiffonnière, the half-open,
+crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on the shelves; there was
+a French clock, a lamp; there were ornaments in biscuit china; the
+recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand,
+bearing three green flower-pots, each filled with a fine plant glowing
+in bloom; in one corner appeared a guéridon with a marble top, and
+upon it a work-box, and a glass filled with violets in water. The
+lattice of this room was open; the outer air breathing through, gave
+freshness, the sweet violets lent fragrance.
+
+"Pretty, pretty place!" said I. M. Paul smiled to see me so pleased.
+
+"Must we sit down here and wait?" I asked in a whisper, half awed by
+the deep pervading hush.
+
+"We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell," he
+replied.
+
+"Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes, I dare," said he, quietly.
+
+He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and
+oven, with few but bright brasses, two chairs and a table. A small
+cupboard held a diminutive but commodious set of earthenware.
+
+"There is a coffee service of china in the salon," said M. Paul, as I
+looked at the six green and white dinner-plates; the four dishes, the
+cups and jugs to match.
+
+Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse
+of two pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms; finally, I was once more led
+below, and we halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than
+had yet been opened.
+
+Producing a second key, M. Emanuel adjusted it to the lock of this
+door. He opened, put me in before him.
+
+"Voici!" he cried.
+
+I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though
+bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards
+were carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks,
+with an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher's
+chair and table; behind them a tableau, On the walls hung two maps; in
+the windows flowered a few hardy plants; in short, here was a
+miniature classe--complete, neat, pleasant.
+
+"It is a school then?" said I. "Who keeps it? I never heard of an
+establishment in this faubourg."
+
+"Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for
+distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?" asked he, taking from his
+surtout-pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into
+my hand. I looked, I read--printed in fair characters:--
+
+"Externat de demoiselles. Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice,
+Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel?
+
+Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to
+memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and
+amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and
+whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun.
+
+I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes
+succeeding this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my
+earliest year of life: and yet the first thing distinct to me is the
+consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over
+again:--
+
+"Did you do this, M. Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did
+you get these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is
+there another Lucy Snowe? Tell me: say something."
+
+But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down-look,
+his attitude, are visible to me now.
+
+"How is it? I must know all--_all_," I cried.
+
+The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and
+I had fastened thereon, oblivious of all else.
+
+"Ah! you said I had forgotten you all these weary days," said he.
+"Poor old Emanuel! These are the thanks he gets for trudging about
+three mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-
+maker to charwoman. Lucy and Lucy's cot, the sole thoughts in his
+head!"
+
+I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his
+cuff, and then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his
+foresight, his goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that
+overpowered me by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his
+sleepless interest which broke on me like a light from heaven; it was
+his--I will dare to say it--his fond, tender look, which now shook me
+indescribably. In the midst of all I forced myself to look at the
+practical.
+
+"The trouble!" I cried, "and the cost! Had you money, M. Paul?"
+
+"Plenty of money!" said he heartily. "The disposal of my large
+teaching connection put me in possession of a handsome sum with part
+of it I determined to give myself the richest treat that I _have_
+known or _shall_ know. I like this. I have reckoned on this hour
+day and night lately. I would not come near you, because I would not
+forestall it. Reserve is neither my virtue nor my vice. If I had put
+myself into your power, and you had begun with your questions of look
+and lip--Where have you been, M. Paul? What have you been doing? What
+is your mystery?--my solitary first and last secret would presently
+have unravelled itself in your lap. Now," he pursued, "you shall live
+here and have a school; you shall employ yourself while I am away; you
+shall think of me sometimes; you shall mind your health and happiness
+for my sake, and when I come back--"
+
+There he left a blank.
+
+I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and
+willingly. "I will be your faithful steward," I said; "I trust at your
+coming the account will be ready. Monsieur, monsieur, you are
+_too_ good!"
+
+In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression: they
+could not get it; speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice,
+dissolved or shivered in the effort. He watched me, still; he gently
+raised his hand to stroke my hair; it touched my lips in passing; I
+pressed it close, I paid it tribute. He was my king; royal for me had
+been that hand's bounty; to offer homage was both a joy and a duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded
+the quiet faubourg. M. Paul claimed my hospitality; occupied and afoot
+since morning, he needed refreshment; he said I should offer him
+chocolate in my pretty gold and white china service. He went out and
+ordered what was needful from the restaurant; he placed the small
+guéridon and two chairs in the balcony outside the French window under
+the screening vines. With what shy joy i accepted my part as hostess,
+arranged the salver, served the benefactor-guest.
+
+This balcony was in the rear of the house, the gardens of the faubourg
+were round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and
+fresh. Above the poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses,
+looked up a moon so lovely and so halcyon, the heart trembled under
+her smile; a star shone subject beside her, with the unemulous ray of
+pure love. In a large garden near us, a jet rose from a well, and a
+pale statue leaned over the play of waters.
+
+M. Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed
+harmonious with the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in
+which light breeze, fountain and foliage intoned their lulling vesper:
+
+Happy hour--stay one moment! droop those plumes, rest those wings;
+incline to mine that brow of Heaven! White Angel! let thy light
+linger; leave its reflection on succeeding clouds; bequeath its cheer
+to that time which needs a ray in retrospect!
+
+Our meal was simple: the chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh
+summer fruit, cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves formed
+the whole: but it was what we both liked better than a feast, and I
+took a delight inexpressible in tending M. Paul. I asked him whether
+his friends, Père Silas and Madame Beck, knew what he had done--
+whether they had seen my house?
+
+"Mon amie," said he, "none knows what I have done save you and myself:
+the pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To
+speak truth, there has been to me in this matter a refinement of
+enjoyment I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides" (smiling)
+"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret.
+How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and
+needful caution! How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my
+affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!"
+
+This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps
+on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted,
+dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had
+it.
+
+Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my
+landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these
+particulars in writing; he had foreseen and prepared all things.
+
+The house was not M. Paul's--that I guessed: he was hardly the man to
+become a proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence
+of the saving faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a
+treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the Basse-
+Ville--a man of substance, M. Paul said; he startled me by adding: "a
+friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most respectful regard
+for you." And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the landlord was none
+other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and kind-hearted bookseller,
+who had so kindly found me a seat that eventful night in the park. It
+seems M. Miret was, in his station, rich, as well as much respected,
+and possessed several houses in this faubourg; the rent was moderate,
+scarce half of what it would have been for a house of equal size
+nearer the centre of Villette.
+
+"And then," observed M. Paul, "should fortune not favour you, though I
+think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good
+hands; M. Miret will not be extortionate: the first year's rent you
+have already in your savings; afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and
+herself. But now, what will you do for pupils?"
+
+"I must distribute my prospectuses."
+
+"Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday.
+Should you object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the
+Demoiselles Miret? They are at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would
+become me indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to
+number aristocrats in my little day-school; I care not if they never
+come. I shall be proud to receive M. Miret's daughters."
+
+"Besides these," pursued he, "another pupil offers, who will come
+daily to take lessons in English; and as she is rich, she will pay
+handsomely. I mean my god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur."
+
+What is in a name?--what in three words? Till this moment I had
+listened with living joy--I had answered with gleeful quickness; a
+name froze me; three words struck me mute. The effect could not be
+hidden, and indeed I scarce tried to hide it.
+
+"What now?" said M. Paul.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Your countenance changes: your colour and your very eyes
+fade. Nothing! You must be ill; you have some suffering; tell me
+what."
+
+I had nothing to tell.
+
+He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued
+silent and icy. He tried to win a word; he entreated with
+perseverance, he waited with patience.
+
+"Justine Marie is a good girl," said he, "docile and amiable; not
+quick--but you will like her."
+
+"I think not. I think she must not come here."
+
+Such was my speech.
+
+"Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But, in truth, there
+_is_ something. Again you are pale as that statue. Rely on Paul
+Carlos; tell him the grief."
+
+His chair touched mine; his hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards
+him.
+
+"Do you know Marie Justine?" said he again.
+
+The name re-pronounced by his lips overcame me unaccountably. It did
+not prostrate--no, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat
+through my veins--recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and
+nights of heart-sickness. Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely
+as he had long twined his life in mine--far as had progressed, and
+near as was achieved our minds' and affections' assimilation--the very
+suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be heard only
+with a fermenting excitement, an impetuous throe, a disdainful
+resolve, an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could
+hide the flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry.
+
+"I want to tell you something," I said: "I want to tell you all."
+
+"Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is
+your friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!"
+
+I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I
+narrated; fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back
+to the night in the park; I mentioned the medicated draught--why it
+was given--its goading effect--how it had torn rest from under my
+head, shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a
+vivid yet solemn fancy--a summer-night solitude on turf, under trees,
+near a deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene realized; the crowd, the
+masques, the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar,
+the bells sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I
+had recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched himself:
+how I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history,
+in brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful,
+literal, ardent, bitter.
+
+Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed he
+spurred me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half
+done, he held both my hands, he consulted my eyes with a most piercing
+glance: there was something in his face which tended neither to calm
+nor to put me down; he forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own
+system of repression when I most challenged its exercise. I think I
+deserved strong reproof; but when have we our deserts? I merited
+severity; he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed imperious and
+unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof; he smiled,
+betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now
+that my nature had such a mood: he gathered me near his heart. I was
+full of faults; he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost
+mutiny, he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed
+my ear:--
+
+"Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on
+earth."
+
+We walked back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight--such moonlight as
+fell on Eden--shining through the shades of the Great Garden, and
+haply gilding a path glorious for a step divine--a Presence nameless.
+Once in their lives some men and women go back to these first fresh
+days of our great Sire and Mother--taste that grand morning's dew--
+bathe in its sunrise.
+
+In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had
+always been regarded with the affection proper to a daughter--how,
+with M. Paul's consent, she had been affianced for months to one
+Heinrich Mühler, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be
+married in the course of a year. Some of M. Emanuel's relations and
+connections would, indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with
+a view to securing her fortune in the family; but to himself the
+scheme was repugnant, and the idea totally inadmissible.
+
+We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean Baptiste's clock tolled nine. At
+this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my
+side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my
+destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed.
+How different the look--how far otherwise the fate!
+
+He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its
+beam like a banner. Once--unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and
+strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the
+manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living
+by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by
+heart--I preferred him before all humanity.
+
+We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted:
+the next day--he sailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a
+vain thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
+anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
+the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as
+it went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing
+him draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil--I, the
+prostrate votary--felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.
+
+Strange to say--strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life's
+experience--that anticipatory craunch proved all--yes--nearly
+_all_ the torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot,
+drew on lofty, loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow
+sweeping the sky, at noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or
+felt. I looked up. Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the
+votary still lived.
+
+M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
+years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
+school; I worked--I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
+property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account.
+Pupils came--burghers at first--a higher class ere long. About the
+middle of the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an
+additional hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter
+containing that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir
+of my dear and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous
+illness; the money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching
+him in the matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after
+his kinswoman's death--naming or recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett
+had given him my address. How far his conscience had been sinned
+against, I never inquired. I asked no questions, but took the cash and
+made it useful.
+
+With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine.
+I would not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left,
+and where he expected again to find me. My externat became a
+pensionnat; that also prospered.
+
+The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any
+endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a
+wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart. The spring which moved my
+energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. At parting, I
+had been left a legacy; such a thought for the present, such a hope
+for the future, such a motive for a persevering, a laborious, an
+enterprising, a patient and a brave course--I _could_ not flag.
+Few things shook me now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate,
+or depress me: most things pleased--mere trifles had a charm.
+
+Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly
+on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider
+supplied bounteous fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not
+suffered to fear penury; I was not tried with suspense. By every
+vessel he wrote; he wrote as he gave and as he loved, in full-handed,
+full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked to write; he did not
+abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and
+paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he
+was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was
+no sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never
+dropped her slippery oil on his lips--never proffered, by his pen, her
+coward feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor
+an excuse--neither a scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were
+real food that nourished, living water that refreshed.
+
+And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so
+remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable
+and noble, could be otherwise than grateful to the death.
+
+Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is
+made the facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not
+tease nor tempt. He said:--
+
+"Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism
+in you. I own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I
+cannot receive myself, but it is the sole creed for 'Lucy.'"
+
+All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself
+make him a real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false--artless,
+and not cunning--a freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had
+rendered him ductile in a priest's hands, his affection, his
+devotedness, his sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes
+sometimes, made him abandon justice to himself to do the work of
+craft, and serve the ends of selfishness; but these are faults so rare
+to find, so costly to their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether
+they will not one day be reckoned amongst the jewels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel's return is fixed. It is
+Autumn; he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school
+flourishes, my house is ready: I have made him a little library,
+filled its shelves with the books he left in my care: I have
+cultivated out of love for him (I was naturally no florist) the plants
+he preferred, and some of them are yet in bloom. I thought I loved him
+when he went away; I love him now in another degree: he is more my
+own.
+
+The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
+but---he is coming.
+
+Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the
+wind takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming.
+
+The skies hang full and dark--a wrack sails from the west; the clouds
+cast themselves into strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there
+rise resplendent mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his
+state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle
+at its thickest--so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know
+some signs of the sky; I have noted them ever since childhood. God
+watch that sail! Oh! guard it!
+
+The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--"keening" at every
+window! It will rise--it will swell--it shrieks out long: wander as I
+may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The
+advancing hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers
+hear and fear a wild south-west storm. That storm roared frenzied, for
+seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks:
+it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full of sustenance.
+Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect
+work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder--the tremor of
+whose plumes was storm.
+
+Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting
+shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered
+till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun
+returned, his light was night to some!
+
+Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet,
+kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to
+conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the
+rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the
+fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding
+life.
+
+Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Père Silas;
+Madame Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died.
+Farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+This file should be named 8vill10.txt or 8vill10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8vill11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8vill10a.txt
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/8vill10.zip b/old/8vill10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6607862
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8vill10.zip
diff --git a/old/9182-8.txt b/old/9182-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f92b3c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9182-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21718 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Villette
+
+Author: Charlotte Brontë
+
+Posting Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #9182]
+Release Date: October, 2005
+First Posted: September 12, 2003
+[Last updated: March 2, 2016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+BY
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       I.  BRETTON
+      II.  PAULINA
+     III.  THE PLAYMATES
+      IV.  MISS MARCHMONT
+       V.  TURNING A NEW LEAF
+      VI.  LONDON
+     VII.  VILLETTE
+    VIII.  MADAME BECK
+      IX.  ISIDORE
+       X.  DR. JOHN
+      XI.  THE PORTRESS'S CABINET
+     XII.  THE CASKET
+    XIII.  A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON
+     XIV.  THE FÊTE
+      XV.  THE LONG VACATION
+     XVI.  AULD LANG SYNE
+    XVII.  LA TERRASSE
+   XVIII.  WE QUARREL
+     XIX.  THE CLEOPATRA
+      XX.  THE CONCERT
+     XXI.  REACTION
+    XXII.  THE LETTER
+   XXIII.  VASHTI
+    XXIV.  M. DE BASSOMPIERRE
+     XXV.  THE LITTLE COUNTESS
+    XXVI.  A BURIAL
+   XXVII.  THE HÔTEL CRÉCY
+  XXVIII.  THE WATCHGUARD
+    XXIX.  MONSIEUR'S FÊTE
+     XXX.  M. PAUL
+    XXXI.  THE DRYAD
+   XXXII.  THE FIRST LETTER
+  XXXIII.  M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE
+   XXXIV.  MALEVOLA
+    XXXV.  FRATERNITY
+   XXXVI.  THE APPLE OF DISCORD
+  XXXVII.  SUNSHINE
+ XXXVIII.  CLOUD
+   XXXIX.  OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+      XL.  THE HAPPY PAIR
+     XLI.  FAUBOURG CLOTILDE
+    XLII.  FINIS
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRETTON.
+
+
+My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of
+Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for generations,
+and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace--Bretton of Bretton:
+whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a
+personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his
+neighbourhood, I know not.
+
+When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I
+liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The
+large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide
+windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street,
+where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide--so quiet was its
+atmosphere, so clean its pavement--these things pleased me well.
+
+One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of,
+and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton,
+who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her
+husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and
+handsome woman.
+
+She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall,
+well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the
+clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair
+of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that
+she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were
+blue--though, even in boyhood, very piercing--and the colour of his
+long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as the sun
+shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the lines of his
+mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her stature (or the
+promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), and, what was
+better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and
+equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor.
+
+In the autumn of the year ---- I was staying at Bretton; my godmother
+having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that
+time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw
+events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the
+faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad
+to change scene and society.
+
+Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with
+tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river
+through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian
+and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on each
+bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The charm
+of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked
+peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came
+I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had still held
+aloof.
+
+One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused
+Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from
+home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication:
+to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass.
+
+The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my
+bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in its
+shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and
+in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood
+chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
+
+"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer
+was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other
+visitors."
+
+On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was
+told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and
+distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was
+added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere
+long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear.
+Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a
+giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed
+and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union
+proved, that separation at last ensued--separation by mutual consent,
+not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having
+over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died
+after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very
+sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden
+communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded but
+that some over-severity on his part--some deficiency in patience and
+indulgence--had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this
+idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted
+on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had
+offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope," added my
+godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her mamma; as
+silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was weak enough
+to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home _is_ a sensible man in his way,
+though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his
+life in a laboratory trying experiments--a thing his butterfly wife
+could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed" confessed my
+godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
+
+In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late
+husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a
+maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French
+and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France, of whom
+more than one wrote _de_ before his name, and called himself noble.
+
+That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet the
+coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat
+alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being
+absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country.
+My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a
+wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind sounded angry and
+restless.
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for
+her journey! I wish she were safe here."
+
+A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner
+was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk
+and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and
+at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his
+arms.
+
+"Is that the child?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but
+it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
+
+"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the
+drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker,
+extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious
+haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared made
+a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy
+and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms. "Give it
+to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put it away."
+This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you
+are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
+
+The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared
+exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure,
+light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she
+looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky curls,
+increased, I thought, the resemblance.
+
+Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's
+hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze,
+but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a
+caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was
+rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger
+smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
+
+"Missy."
+
+"But besides Missy?"
+
+"Polly, papa calls her."
+
+"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
+
+"Not _always_; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She shook
+her head expressively.
+
+"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
+
+"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
+
+Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a
+movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she
+said--"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
+
+She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool, she
+carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated
+herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even a
+peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the child
+her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did take
+notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee, her
+head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of
+pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I
+heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without
+shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff
+testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was quite
+as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded--"May the
+bell be rung for Harriet!"
+
+I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
+
+"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must
+ask where my bed is."
+
+Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
+
+"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
+
+"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's room,"
+designating me.
+
+Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some
+minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
+
+"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she
+passed me mute.
+
+"Good-night, Polly," I said.
+
+"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was
+the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard
+Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her
+answer--"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the
+staircase.
+
+On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She
+had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a
+sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested quietly
+on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I abstained
+from speaking to her for some time, but just before extinguishing the
+light, I recommended her to lie down.
+
+"By and by," was the answer.
+
+"But you will take cold, Missy."
+
+She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side,
+and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she pleased.
+Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still
+wept,--wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
+
+On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold!
+there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with
+pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so
+as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as
+she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she
+was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons,
+strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered
+with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she
+smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a
+corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became
+still. I half rose, and advanced my head to see how she was occupied.
+On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that she
+was praying.
+
+Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
+
+"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do not
+feel neat. Make me neat!"
+
+"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
+
+"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking _the girl_" (meaning me,
+who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to learn, against the
+time you leave me."
+
+"Do you want me to go?"
+
+"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
+Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
+
+"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
+
+"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
+
+"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress you."
+
+"On no account."
+
+"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave prettily
+to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
+
+"She shall dress me on no account."
+
+"Comical little thing!"
+
+"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the
+line will be crooked."
+
+"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
+
+"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
+
+"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
+
+"Come, then."
+
+They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
+
+"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these people."
+
+"Be a good child, Missy."
+
+"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and
+moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
+
+I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet
+within bounds.
+
+"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said,
+"Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet
+temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her
+full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs.
+Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread
+filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not
+eating.
+
+"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to
+me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not
+slept."
+
+I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
+
+"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon
+settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PAULINA.
+
+
+Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a
+fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful:
+she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to
+comfort--to tranquillity even--than she presented, it was scarcely
+possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could
+have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of
+adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more
+legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She
+seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of
+that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever,
+opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in
+her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
+
+And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure,
+white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and
+praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast--some precocious
+fanatic or untimely saint--I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but
+they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that
+child's mind must have been.
+
+I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low:
+sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up
+unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden,
+"Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd nature;
+betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the most
+unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
+
+What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued
+unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden turn.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a
+corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying
+her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many
+ladies should go down the street in a given time. She had sat
+listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when--my eye being fixed
+on hers--I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling transfiguration.
+These sudden, dangerous natures--_sensitive_ as they are called--offer
+many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured
+from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed and heavy gaze
+swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow
+cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance
+vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense
+expectancy. "It _is_!" were her words.
+
+Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the
+room. How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might
+be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which
+would be impetuous enough. I--watching calmly from the window--saw her,
+in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she had an
+antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was on the
+point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that the child
+was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw her caught
+up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the wondering
+stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and now,
+covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house
+whence he had seen her issue.
+
+I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but
+he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
+
+His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton.
+She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered,
+surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory;
+and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,--"I could not
+help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without
+seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
+
+"But you will unsettle her."
+
+"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
+
+This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her
+gently on the ground before him.
+
+"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and
+gazed up into his face.
+
+It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it
+was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not
+foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all
+occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or
+ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever
+felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own
+will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
+
+Mr. Home was a stern-featured--perhaps I should rather say, a
+hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were
+marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but
+there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated
+countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his
+physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid
+his hand on the child's uplifted head. She said--"Kiss Polly."
+
+He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I
+might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she
+seemed to have got what she wanted--_all_ she wanted, and to be in a
+trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature
+like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled
+from his, as the cup from the flagon.
+
+Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might
+secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his
+little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying on
+a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a
+pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me."
+
+She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs.
+Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her
+hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature,
+and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to
+talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened
+the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and
+closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or to feel
+her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him,
+and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour
+following, I suppose both were satisfied.
+
+During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual,
+full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the
+chairs.
+
+"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
+Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea."
+
+She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
+
+"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
+
+And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the
+sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home;
+papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
+
+Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they
+were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had
+to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the
+bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her
+insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand
+that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly
+speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like
+other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and
+even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
+
+"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That
+lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and,
+for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
+
+This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening. I
+knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.
+Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated
+round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should
+rather say, broke it up--for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and
+then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided.
+He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took no
+notice for a time.
+
+His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he
+turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed
+himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say
+_child_ I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term--a term
+suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in
+a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a
+good-sized doll--perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon
+was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands
+a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at
+which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed
+almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric
+with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the
+perverse weapon--swerving from her control--inflicted a deeper stab
+than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
+
+Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen.
+I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious
+disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe
+the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved
+light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and
+destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A
+spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
+
+"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence
+for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room
+relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew
+of timidity---"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to
+whom I have not been introduced."
+
+"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the
+least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in
+venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
+
+"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter yourself
+that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
+
+"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance,
+"might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems
+willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham
+Bretton."
+
+She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately
+put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her
+perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you
+do?"
+
+"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued
+with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
+
+"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and
+she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could
+not be done without some climbing and straining--a sacrifice of decorum
+not to be thought of--and being utterly disdainful of aid in the
+presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair
+for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his chair.
+
+"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to
+you a convenient place of abode?"
+
+"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
+
+"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
+I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
+a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
+Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
+
+"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your
+mother's."
+
+"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you
+shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
+
+"Are _you_ going to live here now?"
+
+"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I think you queer."
+
+"My face, ma'am?"
+
+"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
+
+"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so
+do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his
+mane with a sort of triumph--tawny he himself well knew that it was,
+and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer
+than is your ladyship."
+
+"You call me queer?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
+
+"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since;
+but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I
+was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
+
+"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
+
+"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before
+papa soon, I daresay."
+
+She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating
+whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he
+caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised
+aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the
+glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect
+of the action were too much.
+
+"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and
+when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were
+to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that
+mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
+
+So saying, she departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PLAYMATES.
+
+
+Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed on
+to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent,
+sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton's chat, which was just
+of the proper sort for a man in his morbid mood--not over-sympathetic,
+yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of the
+motherly--she was sufficiently his senior to be permitted this touch.
+
+As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and watchful.
+Her father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit there till
+she felt or fancied he grew restless; then it was--"Papa, put me down;
+I shall tire you with my weight."
+
+And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on
+carpet or stool just at "papa's" feet, the white work-box and the
+scarlet-speckled handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it
+seems, was intended as a keepsake for "papa," and must be finished
+before his departure; consequently the demand on the sempstress's
+industry (she accomplished about a score of stitches in half-an-hour)
+was stringent.
+
+The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were
+passed at school), brought us an accession of animation--a quality not
+diminished by the nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted
+between him and Miss Paulina.
+
+A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity
+put upon her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when
+he addressed her, was--"I can't attend to you; I have other things to
+think about." Being implored to state _what_ things:
+
+"Business."
+
+Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and
+displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax,
+pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings--some of them gaily
+coloured--which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful
+temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from her work,
+cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in scattered pictures.
+An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim spaniel happened to
+flutter to the floor.
+
+"Pretty little dog!" said she, delighted.
+
+Graham prudently took no notice. Ere long, stealing from her corner,
+she approached to examine the treasure more closely. The dog's great
+eyes and long ears, and the child's hat and feathers, were irresistible.
+
+"Nice picture!" was her favourable criticism.
+
+"Well--you may have it," said Graham.
+
+She seemed to hesitate. The wish to possess was strong, but to accept
+would be a compromise of dignity. No. She put it down and turned away.
+
+"You won't have it, then, Polly?"
+
+"I would rather not, thank you."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?"
+
+She half turned to listen.
+
+"Cut it into strips for lighting the taper."
+
+"No!"
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Please--don't."
+
+Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the
+scissors from his mother's work-basket.
+
+"Here goes!" said he, making a menacing flourish. "Right through Fido's
+head, and splitting little Harry's nose."
+
+"No! _No!_ NO!"
+
+"Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done."
+
+She hesitated, lingered, but complied.
+
+"Now, will you have it?" he asked, as she stood before him.
+
+"Please."
+
+"But I shall want payment."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A kiss."
+
+"Give the picture first into my hand."
+
+Polly, as she said this, looked rather faithless in her turn. Graham
+gave it. She absconded a debtor, darted to her father, and took refuge
+on his knee. Graham rose in mimic wrath and followed. She buried her
+face in Mr. Home's waistcoat.
+
+"Papa--papa--send him away!"
+
+"I'll not be sent away," said Graham.
+
+With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off.
+
+"Then, I shall kiss the hand," said he; but that moment it became a
+miniature fist, and dealt him payment in a small coin that was not
+kisses.
+
+Graham--not failing in his way to be as wily as his little
+playmate--retreated apparently quite discomfited; he flung himself on a
+sofa, and resting his head against the cushion, lay like one in pain.
+Polly, finding him silent, presently peeped at him. His eyes and face
+were covered with his hands. She turned on her father's knee, and gazed
+at her foe anxiously and long. Graham groaned.
+
+"Papa, what is the matter?" she whispered.
+
+"You had better ask him, Polly."
+
+"Is he hurt?" (groan second.)
+
+"He makes a noise as if he were," said Mr. Home.
+
+"Mother," suggested Graham, feebly, "I think you had better send for
+the doctor. Oh my eye!" (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from
+Graham.)
+
+"If I were to become blind----?" suggested this last.
+
+His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him
+directly.
+
+"Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and
+I did not think I hit so _very_ hard."
+
+Silence answered her. Her features worked,--"I am sorry; I am sorry!"
+
+Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping.
+
+"Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"It is all nonsense, my pet," cried Mr. Home.
+
+And Graham once more snatched her aloft, and she again punished him;
+and while she pulled his lion's locks, termed him--"The naughtiest,
+rudest, worst, untruest person that ever was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of Mr. Home's departure, he and his daughter had some
+conversation in a window-recess by themselves; I heard part of it.
+
+"Couldn't I pack my box and go with you, papa?" she whispered earnestly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Should I be a trouble to you?"
+
+"Yes, Polly."
+
+"Because I am little?"
+
+"Because you are little and tender. It is only great, strong people
+that should travel. But don't look sad, my little girl; it breaks my
+heart. Papa, will soon come back to his Polly."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all."
+
+"Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?"
+
+"Sorrier than sorry."
+
+"Then Polly must be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards.
+She must look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy meanwhile.
+Can she do this?"
+
+"She will try."
+
+"I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go."
+
+"_Now_?--just _now_?
+
+"Just now."
+
+She held up quivering lips. Her father sobbed, but she, I remarked, did
+not. Having put her down, he shook hands with the rest present, and
+departed.
+
+When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with a
+cry--"Papa!"
+
+It was low and long; a sort of "Why hast thou forsaken me?" During an
+ensuing space of some minutes, I perceived she endured agony. She went
+through, in that brief interval of her infant life, emotions such as
+some never feel; it was in her constitution: she would have more of
+such instants if she lived. Nobody spoke. Mrs. Bretton, being a mother,
+shed a tear or two. Graham, who was writing, lifted up his eyes and
+gazed at her. I, Lucy Snowe, was calm.
+
+The little creature, thus left unharassed, did for herself what none
+other could do--contended with an intolerable feeling; and, ere long,
+in some degree, repressed it. That day she would accept solace from
+none; nor the next day: she grew more passive afterwards.
+
+On the third evening, as she sat on the floor, worn and quiet, Graham,
+coming in, took her up gently, without a word. She did not resist: she
+rather nestled in his arms, as if weary. When he sat down, she laid her
+head against him; in a few minutes she slept; he carried her upstairs
+to bed. I was not surprised that, the next morning, the first thing she
+demanded was, "Where is Mr. Graham?"
+
+It happened that Graham was not coming to the breakfast-table; he had
+some exercises to write for that morning's class, and had requested his
+mother to send a cup of tea into the study. Polly volunteered to carry
+it: she must be busy about something, look after somebody. The cup was
+entrusted to her; for, if restless, she was also careful. As the study
+was opposite the breakfast-room, the doors facing across the passage,
+my eye followed her.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing on the threshold.
+
+"Writing," said Graham.
+
+"Why don't you come to take breakfast with your mamma?"
+
+"Too busy."
+
+"Do you want any breakfast?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"There, then."
+
+And she deposited the cup on the carpet, like a jailor putting a
+prisoner's pitcher of water through his cell-door, and retreated.
+Presently she returned.
+
+"What will you have besides tea--what to eat?"
+
+"Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that's a kind
+little woman."
+
+She came back to Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Please, ma'am, send your boy something good."
+
+"You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?"
+
+She selected a portion of whatever was best on the table; and, ere
+long, came back with a whispered request for some marmalade, which was
+not there. Having got it, however, (for Mrs. Bretton refused the pair
+nothing), Graham was shortly after heard lauding her to the skies;
+promising that, when he had a house of his own, she should be his
+housekeeper, and perhaps--if she showed any culinary genius--his cook;
+and, as she did not return, and I went to look after her, I found
+Graham and her breakfasting _tête-à-tête_--she standing at his elbow,
+and sharing his fare: excepting the marmalade, which she delicately
+refused to touch, lest, I suppose, it should appear that she had
+procured it as much on her own account as his. She constantly evinced
+these nice perceptions and delicate instincts.
+
+The league of acquaintanceship thus struck up was not hastily
+dissolved; on the contrary, it appeared that time and circumstances
+served rather to cement than loosen it. Ill-assimilated as the two were
+in age, sex, pursuits, &c., they somehow found a great deal to say to
+each other. As to Paulina, I observed that her little character never
+properly came out, except with young Bretton. As she got settled, and
+accustomed to the house, she proved tractable enough with Mrs. Bretton;
+but she would sit on a stool at that lady's feet all day long, learning
+her task, or sewing, or drawing figures with a pencil on a slate, and
+never kindling once to originality, or showing a single gleam of the
+peculiarities of her nature. I ceased to watch her under such
+circumstances: she was not interesting. But the moment Graham's knock
+sounded of an evening, a change occurred; she was instantly at the head
+of the staircase. Usually her welcome was a reprimand or a threat.
+
+"You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your
+mamma."
+
+"Little busybody! Are you there?"
+
+"Yes--and you can't reach me: I am higher up than you" (peeping between
+the rails of the banister; she could not look over them).
+
+"Polly!"
+
+"My dear boy!" (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in imitation
+of his mother.)
+
+"I am fit to faint with fatigue," declared Graham, leaning against the
+passage-wall in seeming exhaustion. "Dr. Digby" (the headmaster) "has
+quite knocked me up with overwork. Just come down and help me to carry
+up my books."
+
+"Ah! you're cunning!"
+
+"Not at all, Polly--it is positive fact. I'm as weak as a rush. Come
+down."
+
+"Your eyes are quiet like the cat's, but you'll spring."
+
+"Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn't in me. Come down."
+
+"Perhaps I may--if you'll promise not to touch--not to snatch me up,
+and not to whirl me round."
+
+"I? I couldn't do it!" (sinking into a chair.)
+
+"Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off"
+
+This being done, she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from the
+feeble Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new and
+spasmodic life: the game of romps was sure to be exacted. Sometimes she
+would be angry; sometimes the matter was allowed to pass smoothly, and
+we could hear her say as she led him up-stairs: "Now, my dear boy, come
+and take your tea--I am sure you must want something."
+
+It was sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham,
+while he took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but
+with him the most officious, fidgety little body possible. I often
+wished she would mind herself and be tranquil; but no--herself was
+forgotten in him: he could not be sufficiently well waited on, nor
+carefully enough looked after; he was more than the Grand Turk in her
+estimation. She would gradually assemble the various plates before him,
+and, when one would suppose all he could possibly desire was within his
+reach, she would find out something else: "Ma'am," she would whisper to
+Mrs. Bretton,--"perhaps your son would like a little cake--sweet cake,
+you know--there is some in there" (pointing to the sideboard cupboard).
+Mrs. Bretton, as a rule, disapproved of sweet cake at tea, but still
+the request was urged,--"One little piece--only for him--as he goes to
+school: girls--such as me and Miss Snowe--don't need treats, but _he_
+would like it."
+
+Graham did like it very well, and almost always got it. To do him
+justice, he would have shared his prize with her to whom he owed it;
+but that was never allowed: to insist, was to ruffle her for the
+evening. To stand by his knee, and monopolize his talk and notice, was
+the reward she wanted--not a share of the cake.
+
+With curious readiness did she adapt herself to such themes as
+interested him. One would have thought the child had no mind or life of
+her own, but must necessarily live, move, and have her being in
+another: now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to Graham,
+and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence. She
+learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a trice: she got by heart
+their characters as given from his lips: a single description of an
+individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused identities:
+she would talk with him the whole evening about people she had never
+seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect, manners, and
+dispositions. Some she learned to mimic: an under-master, who was an
+aversion of young Bretton's, had, it seems, some peculiarities, which
+she caught up in a moment from Graham's representation, and rehearsed
+for his amusement; this, however, Mrs. Bretton disapproved and forbade.
+
+The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her
+feelings received a severe shock.
+
+One day Graham, on the occasion of his birthday, had some friends--lads
+of his own age--to dine with him. Paulina took much interest in the
+coming of these friends; she had frequently heard of them; they were
+amongst those of whom Graham oftenest spoke. After dinner, the young
+gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, where they soon
+became very merry and made a good deal of noise. Chancing to pass
+through the hall, I found Paulina sitting alone on the lowest step of
+the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels of the dining-room
+door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her little
+brow knit in anxious, meditation.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Polly?"
+
+"Nothing particular; only I wish that door was clear glass--that I
+might see through it. The boys seem very cheerful, and I want to go to
+them: I want to be with Graham, and watch his friends."
+
+"What hinders you from going?"
+
+"I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door,
+and ask to be let in?"
+
+I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and
+therefore encouraged the attempt.
+
+She knocked--too faintly at first to be heard, but on a second essay
+the door unclosed; Graham's head appeared; he looked in high spirits,
+but impatient.
+
+"What do you want, you little monkey?"
+
+"To come to you."
+
+"Do you indeed? As if I would be troubled with you! Away to mamma and
+Mistress Snowe, and tell them to put you to bed." The auburn head and
+bright flushed face vanished,--the door shut peremptorily. She was
+stunned.
+
+"Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before," she said in
+consternation. "What have I done?"
+
+"Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends."
+
+"And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are here!"
+
+I had some thoughts of consoling her, and of improving the occasion by
+inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a
+tolerable stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by
+putting her fingers in her ears at the first words I uttered, and then
+lying down on the mat with her face against the flags; nor could either
+Warren or the cook root her from that position: she was allowed to lie,
+therefore, till she chose to rise of her own accord.
+
+Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted
+her as usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from
+his hand; her eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she
+would not look in his face. The next day he treated her with
+indifference, and she grew like a bit of marble. The day after, he
+teased her to know what was the matter; her lips would not unclose. Of
+course he could not feel real anger on his side: the match was too
+unequal in every way; he tried soothing and coaxing. "Why was she so
+angry? What had he done?" By-and-by tears answered him; he petted her,
+and they were friends. But she was one on whom such incidents were not
+lost: I remarked that never after this rebuff did she seek him, or
+follow him, or in any way solicit his notice. I told her once to carry
+a book or some other article to Graham when he was shut up in his study.
+
+"I shall wait till he comes out," said she, proudly; "I don't choose to
+give him the trouble of rising to open the door."
+
+Young Bretton had a favourite pony on which he often rode out; from the
+window she always watched his departure and return. It was her ambition
+to be permitted to have a ride round the courtyard on this pony; but
+far be it from her to ask such a favour. One day she descended to the
+yard to watch him dismount; as she leaned against the gate, the longing
+wish for the indulgence of a ride glittered in her eye.
+
+"Come, Polly, will you have a canter?" asked Graham, half carelessly.
+
+I suppose she thought he was _too_ careless.
+
+"No, thank you," said she, turning away with the utmost coolness.
+
+"You'd better," pursued he. "You will like it, I am sure."
+
+"Don't think I should care a fig about it," was the response.
+
+"That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride."
+
+"Lucy Snowe is a _tatter_-box," I heard her say (her imperfect
+articulation was the least precocious thing she had about her); and
+with this; she walked into the house.
+
+Graham, coming in soon after, observed to his mother,--"Mamma, I
+believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of
+oddities; but I should be dull without her: she amuses me a great deal
+more than you or Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Miss Snowe," said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of
+occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at night),
+"do you know on what day in the week I like Graham best?"
+
+"How can I possibly know anything so strange? Is there one day out of
+the seven when he is otherwise than on the other six?"
+
+"To be sure! Can't you see? Don't you know? I find him the most
+excellent on a Sunday; then we have him the whole day, and he is quiet,
+and, in the evening, _so_ kind."
+
+This observation was not altogether groundless: going to church, &c.,
+kept Graham quiet on the Sunday, and the evening he generally dedicated
+to a serene, though rather indolent sort of enjoyment by the parlour
+fireside. He would take possession of the couch, and then he would call
+Polly.
+
+Graham was a boy not quite as other boys are; all his delight did not
+lie in action: he was capable of some intervals of contemplation; he
+could take a pleasure too in reading, nor was his selection of books
+wholly indiscriminate: there were glimmerings of characteristic
+preference, and even of instinctive taste in the choice. He rarely, it
+is true, remarked on what he read, but I have seen him sit and think of
+it.
+
+Polly, being near him, kneeling on a little cushion or the carpet, a
+conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I
+caught a snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some
+influence better and finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe
+Graham at such times into no ungentle mood.
+
+"Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?"
+
+"I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?"
+
+"Speak nicely, then: don't be in a hurry."
+
+The hymn being rehearsed, or rather half-chanted, in a little singing
+voice, Graham would take exceptions at the manner, and proceed to give
+a lesson in recitation. She was quick in learning, apt in imitating;
+and, besides, her pleasure was to please Graham: she proved a ready
+scholar. To the hymn would succeed some reading--perhaps a chapter in
+the Bible; correction was seldom required here, for the child could
+read any simple narrative chapter very well; and, when the subject was
+such as she could understand and take an interest in, her expression
+and emphasis were something remarkable. Joseph cast into the pit; the
+calling of Samuel; Daniel in the lions' den;--these were favourite
+passages: of the first especially she seemed perfectly to feel the
+pathos.
+
+"Poor Jacob!" she would sometimes say, with quivering lips. "How he
+loved his son Joseph! As much," she once added--"as much, Graham, as I
+love you: if you were to die" (and she re-opened the book, sought the
+verse, and read), "I should refuse to be comforted, and go down into
+the grave to you mourning."
+
+With these words she gathered Graham in her little arms, drawing his
+long-tressed head towards her. The action, I remember, struck me as
+strangely rash; exciting the feeling one might experience on seeing an
+animal dangerous by nature, and but half-tamed by art, too heedlessly
+fondled. Not that I feared Graham would hurt, or very roughly check
+her; but I thought she ran risk of incurring such a careless, impatient
+repulse, as would be worse almost to her than a blow. On the whole,
+however, these demonstrations were borne passively: sometimes even a
+sort of complacent wonder at her earnest partiality would smile not
+unkindly in his eyes. Once he said:--"You like me almost as well as if
+you were my little sister, Polly."
+
+"Oh! I _do_ like you," said she; "I _do_ like you very much."
+
+I was not long allowed the amusement of this study of character. She
+had scarcely been at Bretton two months, when a letter came from Mr.
+Home, signifying that he was now settled amongst his maternal kinsfolk
+on the Continent; that, as England was become wholly distasteful to
+him, he had no thoughts of returning hither, perhaps, for years; and
+that he wished his little girl to join him immediately.
+
+"I wonder how she will take this news?" said Mrs. Bretton, when she had
+read the letter. _I_ wondered, too, and I took upon myself to
+communicate it.
+
+Repairing to the drawing-room--in which calm and decorated apartment
+she was fond of being alone, and where she could be implicitly trusted,
+for she fingered nothing, or rather soiled nothing she fingered--I
+found her seated, like a little Odalisque, on a couch, half shaded by
+the drooping draperies of the window near. She seemed happy; all her
+appliances for occupation were about her; the white wood workbox, a
+shred or two of muslin, an end or two of ribbon collected for
+conversion into doll-millinery. The doll, duly night-capped and
+night-gowned, lay in its cradle; she was rocking it to sleep, with an
+air of the most perfect faith in its possession of sentient and
+somnolent faculties; her eyes, at the same time, being engaged with a
+picture-book, which lay open on her lap.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said she in a whisper, "this is a wonderful book.
+Candace" (the doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed
+complexion gave it much of an Ethiopian aspect)--"Candace is asleep
+now, and I may tell you about it; only we must both speak low, lest she
+should waken. This book was given me by Graham; it tells about distant
+countries, a long, long way from England, which no traveller can reach
+without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild men live in these
+countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from ours: indeed,
+some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of being cool, you
+know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a picture of thousands
+gathered in a desolate place--a plain, spread with sand--round a man in
+black,--a good, _good_ Englishman--a missionary, who is preaching to
+them under a palm-tree." (She showed a little coloured cut to that
+effect.) "And here are pictures" (she went on) "more stranger" (grammar
+was occasionally forgotten) "than that. There is the wonderful Great
+Wall of China; here is a Chinese lady, with a foot littler than mine.
+There is a wild horse of Tartary; and here, most strange of all--is a
+land of ice and snow, without green fields, woods, or gardens. In this
+land, they found some mammoth bones: there are no mammoths now. You
+don't know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me. A
+mighty, goblin creature, as high as this room, and as long as the hall;
+but not a fierce, flesh-eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I
+met one in a forest, it would not kill me, unless I came quite in its
+way; when it would trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread
+on a grasshopper in a hayfield without knowing it."
+
+Thus she rambled on.
+
+"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
+
+"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps in twenty years,
+when I am grown a woman, as tall as Mrs. Bretton, I may travel with
+Graham. We intend going to Switzerland, and climbing Mount Blanck; and
+some day we shall sail over to South America, and walk to the top of
+Kim-kim-borazo."
+
+"But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?"
+
+Her reply--not given till after a pause--evinced one of those
+unexpected turns of temper peculiar to her.
+
+"Where is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "Why do you
+mention papa? What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be happy,
+and not think about him so much; and there it will be all to do over
+again!"
+
+Her lip trembled. I hastened to disclose the fact of a letter having
+been received, and to mention the directions given that she and Harriet
+should immediately rejoin this dear papa. "Now, Polly, are you not
+glad?" I added.
+
+She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll;
+she gazed at me with gravity and earnestness.
+
+"Shall not you like to go to papa?"
+
+"Of course," she said at last in that trenchant manner she usually
+employed in speaking to me; and which was quite different from that she
+used with Mrs. Bretton, and different again from the one dedicated to
+Graham. I wished to ascertain more of what she thought but no: she
+would converse no more. Hastening to Mrs. Bretton, she questioned her,
+and received the confirmation of my news. The weight and importance of
+these tidings kept her perfectly serious the whole day. In the evening,
+at the moment Graham's entrance was heard below, I found her at my
+side. She began to arrange a locket-ribbon about my neck, she displaced
+and replaced the comb in my hair; while thus busied, Graham entered.
+
+"Tell him by-and-by," she whispered; "tell him I am going."
+
+In the course of tea-time I made the desired communication. Graham, it
+chanced, was at that time greatly preoccupied about some school-prize,
+for which he was competing. The news had to be told twice before it
+took proper hold of his attention, and even then he dwelt on it but
+momently.
+
+"Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to lose
+her: she must come to us again, mamma."
+
+And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to
+himself and his books, and was soon buried in study.
+
+"Little Mousie" crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at his
+feet, her face to the floor; mute and motionless she kept that post and
+position till bed-time. Once I saw Graham--wholly unconscious of her
+proximity--push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or two.
+A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face, to
+which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot. When
+summoned by her nurse she rose and departed very obediently, having bid
+us all a subdued good-night.
+
+I will not say that I dreaded going to bed, an hour later; yet I
+certainly went with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that
+child in no peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but
+fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like a
+white bird on the outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost
+her; she was not to be managed like another child. She, however,
+accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the
+dressing-table, she turned to me with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_
+sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!"
+
+I asked what ailed her.
+
+"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
+
+"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I well
+knew that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she would have
+nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst lavishing her
+eccentricities regardlessly before me--for whom she professed scarcely
+the semblance of affection--she never showed my godmother one glimpse
+of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but a docile, somewhat
+quaint little maiden. I examined her; her cheek was crimson; her
+dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and painfully restless: in
+this state it was obvious she must not be left till morning. I guessed
+how the case stood.
+
+"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not
+gone to his room yet."
+
+She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a shawl
+round her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was just
+coming out.
+
+"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I
+said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
+
+"I've spoilt her," said he, taking her from me with good humour, and
+kissing her little hot face and burning lips. "Polly, you care for me
+more than for papa, now--"
+
+"I _do_ care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her whisper.
+
+She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I
+carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
+
+When I thought she could listen to me, I said--"Paulina, you should not
+grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for him.
+It must be so."
+
+Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
+
+"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only
+six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
+
+"But I love him so much; he _should_ love me a little."
+
+"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
+
+"Am I Graham's favourite?"
+
+"Yes, more than any little child I know."
+
+The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
+
+"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or
+else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over."
+
+"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be good,
+Lucy Snowe."
+
+I put her to bed.
+
+"Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself. I
+assured her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated;
+that she had only to be careful for the future.
+
+"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever--ever--see
+him again, after I leave England?"
+
+I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a
+still half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white
+shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice
+asked--"Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"
+
+"Like him! Yes, a little."
+
+"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
+
+"I think not. No: not as you do."
+
+"Do you like him much?"
+
+"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so
+very much: he is full of faults."
+
+"Is he?"
+
+"All boys are."
+
+"More than girls?"
+
+"Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect; and
+as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and worship
+none."
+
+"Are you a wise person?"
+
+"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
+
+"I _cannot_ go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her elfish
+hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think _you_ shall have to leave
+Graham; for _your_ home is not here?"
+
+"Surely, Polly," said I, "you should not feel so much pain when you are
+very soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do you
+no longer wish to be his little companion?"
+
+Dead silence succeeded this question.
+
+"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
+
+"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
+
+I saw the little thing shiver. "Come to me," I said, wishing, yet
+scarcely hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange,
+capricious, little creature, and especially whimsical with me. She
+came, however, instantly, like a small ghost gliding over the carpet. I
+took her in. She was chill: I warmed her in my arms. She trembled
+nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and cherished she at last
+slumbered.
+
+"A very unique child," thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance
+by the fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her glittering
+eyelids and her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. "How will she get
+through this world, or battle with this life? How will she bear the
+shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which books, and
+my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?"
+
+She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave,
+but exercising self-command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MISS MARCHMONT.
+
+
+On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina's
+departure--little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never
+more to tread its calm old streets--I betook myself home, having been
+absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to
+return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no
+harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying
+nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight
+years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still
+as glass--the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to
+heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great
+many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that
+fashion; why not I with the rest?
+
+Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a
+cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes
+indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I
+must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck
+at last. I too well remember a time--a long time--of cold, of danger,
+of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the
+rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure
+on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour
+nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;
+we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy
+tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In
+fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.
+
+As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.
+Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost
+sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way
+of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes
+for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for
+her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock
+undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original
+amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a
+profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were
+understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of
+dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I
+was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion
+were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands
+besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,
+sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me
+some task I could undertake.
+
+Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome
+residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,
+and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her
+drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss
+Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being
+very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a
+furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long
+affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a
+maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was
+about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for
+me, with the idea that I might supply this person's place. She made the
+proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.
+
+"It will not be an easy life;" said she candidly, "for I require a good
+deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,
+contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear
+tolerable."
+
+I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued inwardly;
+but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live here, in
+this close room, the watcher of suffering--sometimes, perhaps, the butt
+of temper--through all that was to come of my youth; while all that was
+gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully! My heart sunk one
+moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself to _realise_ evils,
+I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_, and consequently to exaggerate
+them.
+
+"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
+observed.
+
+"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out creature."
+
+So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,
+hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The
+blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life's
+sources.
+
+"What else have you in view--anything?"
+
+"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."
+
+"So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and
+if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be
+left open to you for three months."
+
+This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was
+speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the
+necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time
+she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I,
+for my part, had learned from the manner in which she bore this attack,
+that she was a firm, patient woman (patient under physical pain, though
+sometimes perhaps excitable under long mental canker); and she, from
+the good-will with which I succoured her, discovered that she could
+influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent for me the next
+day; for five or six successive days she claimed my company. Closer
+acquaintance, while it developed both faults and eccentricities,
+opened, at the same time, a view of a character I could respect. Stern
+and even morose as she sometimes was, I could wait on her and sit
+beside her with that calm which always blesses us when we are sensible
+that our manners, presence, contact, please and soothe the persons we
+serve. Even when she scolded me--which she did, now and then, very
+tartly--it was in such a way as did not humiliate, and left no sting;
+it was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter, than a
+harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture, indeed, she could not,
+though she could occasionally storm. Moreover, a vein of reason ever
+ran through her passion: she was logical even when fierce. Ere long a
+growing sense of attachment began to present the thought of staying
+with her as companion in quite a new light; in another week I had
+agreed to remain.
+
+Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my
+mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty--her pain, my
+suffering--her relief, my hope--her anger, my punishment--her regard,
+my reward. I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an
+ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick
+chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became
+narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I
+demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than the
+tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the
+originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues, I
+will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her
+feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these things I
+clung to her.
+
+For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if
+for twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But
+another decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into action.
+I must be goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little morsel of
+human affection, which I prized as if it were a solid pearl, must melt
+in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone. My small
+adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented conscience. I
+had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies
+by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains. Fate would
+not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction this shrinking sloth
+and cowardly indolence.
+
+One February night--I remember it well--there came a voice near Miss
+Marchmont's house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps, only
+by one. After a calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring. I had
+put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The wind was
+wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night deepened,
+it took a new tone--an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to the
+ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled in every
+gust.
+
+"Oh, hush! hush!" I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and
+making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching
+cry. I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation
+had forced on me a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the
+course of my life, events had taught me that these strange accents in
+the storm--this restless, hopeless cry--denote a coming state of the
+atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I believed, were
+often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting east
+wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied,
+too, I had noticed--but was not philosopher enough to know whether
+there was any connection between the circumstances--that we often at
+the same time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of the
+world; of rivers suddenly rushing above their banks; and of strange
+high tides flowing furiously in on low sea-coasts. "Our globe," I had
+said to myself, "seems at such periods torn and disordered; the feeble
+amongst us wither in her distempered breath, rushing hot from steaming
+volcanoes."
+
+I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.
+
+About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The
+fire, which had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air
+change, and become keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and
+saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost.
+
+Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,
+lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
+earnestness.
+
+"Is it a fine night?" she asked.
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"I thought so," she said; "for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I
+feel young to-night," she continued: "young, light-hearted, and happy.
+What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to
+enjoy health? It would be a miracle!"
+
+"And these are not the days of miracles," I thought to myself, and
+wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation to
+the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and personages,
+with singular vividness.
+
+"I love Memory to-night," she said: "I prize her as my best friend. She
+is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my heart,
+in warm and beautiful life, realities--not mere empty ideas, but what
+were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed, dissolved,
+mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours, the thoughts,
+the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life--its only
+love--almost its only affection; for I am not a particularly good
+woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and
+concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its single
+self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are all the
+unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While I loved,
+and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious
+year I can recall--how bright it comes back to me! What a living
+spring--what a warm, glad summer--what soft moonlight, silvering the
+autumn evenings--what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and
+frost-hoar fields of that year's winter! Through that year my heart
+lived with Frank's heart. O my noble Frank--my faithful Frank--my
+_good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard in all things so
+much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered as
+I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a
+far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him:
+it was such a love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than
+it gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me now ask, just at this
+moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let me reflect why it was
+taken from me? For what crime was I condemned, after twelve months of
+bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?
+
+"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_ see
+the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I never
+tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at this
+moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank. I never
+believed it till now."
+
+"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.
+
+"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and
+decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would
+come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see that
+moment--I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over which
+the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up the
+white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing on my
+silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a glass. I
+see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and cold, over
+the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my grounds. I
+wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. The
+flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet; the moon was
+mounting high, but she was still visible from the lattice; the clock
+neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but once or twice he had
+been delayed so long.
+
+"Would he for once fail me? No--not even for once; and now he was
+coming--and coming fast--to atone for lost time. 'Frank! you furious
+rider,' I said inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his
+approaching gallop, 'you shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it
+is _my_ neck you are putting in peril; for whatever is yours is, in a
+dearer and tenderer sense, mine.' There he was: I saw him; but I think
+tears were in my eyes, my sight was so confused. I saw the horse; I
+heard it stamp--I saw at least a mass; I heard a clamour. _Was_ it a
+horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing, strangely dark,
+the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight before me? or
+how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul?
+
+"I could only run out. A great animal--truly, Frank's black
+horse--stood trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held
+it, Frank, as I thought.
+
+"'What is the matter?' I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by
+saying sharply, 'Go into the house, madam.' And then calling to another
+servant, who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by some
+instinct, 'Ruth, take missis into the house directly.' But I was
+kneeling down in the snow, beside something that lay there--something
+that I had seen dragged along the ground--something that sighed, that
+groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew it to me. He was not dead;
+he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; I refused to be
+ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected enough, not
+only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had begun
+by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people
+struck by God's hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and
+when he had done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He had
+strength to fold me in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he
+heard me as I prayed over him very softly; he felt me as I tenderly and
+fondly comforted him.
+
+"'Maria,' he said, 'I am dying in Paradise.' He spent his last breath
+in faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my
+Frank was with God.
+
+"And that," she went on, "happened thirty years ago. I have suffered
+since. I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft,
+amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil
+spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a
+woe-struck and selfish woman."
+
+"You have done much good," I said; for she was noted for her liberal
+almsgiving.
+
+"I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage
+affliction. What of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I
+think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind, to
+prepare myself for reunion with Frank. You see I still think of Frank
+more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the
+creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least
+blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. What do you
+think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me."
+
+This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she
+thought I _had_ answered it.
+
+"Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not
+always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it
+be, and try to render happy that of others. Should we not? Well,
+to-morrow I will begin by trying to make you happy. I will endeavour to
+do something for you, Lucy: something that will benefit you when I am
+dead. My head aches now with talking too much; still I am happy. Go to
+bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit up; or rather how late I,
+in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no more anxiety for
+me; I feel I shall rest well."
+
+She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a
+closet within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her doom
+must at last have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning she
+was found without life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed. Her
+previous excitement of spirits and change of mood had been the prelude
+of a fit; one stroke sufficed to sever the thread of an existence so
+long fretted by affliction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TURNING A NEW LEAF.
+
+
+My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a
+new place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--shaken
+in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin,
+haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like an
+overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt, however, I
+was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time to
+benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, after
+the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, an
+avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who,
+indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a direct
+contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessed
+to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteen
+pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similar
+condition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regarded
+as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however,
+at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, of
+which the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure
+from my present abode, while with another I was not provided.
+
+In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consult
+an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grand
+mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours with her; she
+comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, I
+left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay before me; it was a
+clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my poverty, and my
+perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youth
+that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light and not
+feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonely
+walk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village nor
+farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence of
+moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim
+path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of that
+which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--the Aurora
+Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise than through
+my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in energy with the
+keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent to my
+mind; my mind was made strong to receive it.
+
+"Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence."
+
+"Where?" was the query.
+
+I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that
+flat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I had
+never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London.
+
+The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the
+housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
+
+Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more
+of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did
+not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid
+manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood
+of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve
+with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with an
+excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as a
+dreamer and zealot.
+
+The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she
+prepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window
+and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it
+danced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed, was
+its mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I took
+it on my knee.
+
+Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and I
+had been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady
+of sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower
+class than mine.
+
+I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young
+Mrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the
+good-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and
+maternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change others
+even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was changed too,
+though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to recall myself
+to her memory; why should I? She came for her son to accompany her in a
+walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an infant. I only
+mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse, Mrs. Leigh spoke
+French (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly bad
+accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I found
+the woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered volubly in French
+too. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked that
+her young lady had brought that foreign nurse home with her two years
+ago, on her return from a Continental excursion; that she was treated
+almost as well as a governess, and had nothing to do but walk out with
+the baby and chatter French with Master Charles; "and," added Mrs.
+Barrett, "she says there are many Englishwomen in foreign families as
+well placed as she."
+
+I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives
+store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their
+prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my
+old friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn
+in the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former days.
+
+In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than
+the reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My
+means would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and
+also to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it
+as a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, rather
+than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking
+all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil;
+whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever.
+
+Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by:
+my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies
+now, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About
+nine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London.
+
+My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate
+reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I
+had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a
+dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which
+the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of
+clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence of
+more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.
+
+When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others
+waiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never before
+heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I managed
+to understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself and trunk
+safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address. How
+difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In London for
+the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with travelling;
+confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished with either
+experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to act obliged.
+
+Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense,
+however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and
+it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she
+spasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter:
+considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she was
+hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously called
+for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being wholly
+overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young
+lady, when she appeared.
+
+I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and
+smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how they
+had all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its
+mincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce
+attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and
+the circumstances; I shall gain good."
+
+Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and
+subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking,
+black-coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere
+long. I believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a little
+while they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state between
+patronage and politeness.
+
+I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself
+by a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by
+the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible
+oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a
+ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was I
+doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What
+prospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did I
+come? Whither should I go? What should I do?
+
+I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark
+interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not
+regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it. A strong, vague
+persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I
+_could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in
+time open--predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed them
+so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say
+my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and
+lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At
+first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the
+twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: "I lie in the shadow
+of St. Paul's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LONDON.
+
+
+The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and opened
+my curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above my head,
+above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I saw a
+solemn, orbed mass, dark blue and dim--THE DOME. While I looked, my
+inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose;
+I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last
+about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah's
+gourd.
+
+"I did well to come," I said, proceeding to dress with speed and care.
+"I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but
+a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his
+faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?"
+
+Being dressed, I went down; not travel-worn and exhausted, but tidy and
+refreshed. When the waiter came in with my breakfast, I managed to
+accost him sedately, yet cheerfully; we had ten minutes' discourse, in
+the course of which we became usefully known to each other.
+
+He was a grey-haired, elderly man; and, it seemed, had lived in his
+present place twenty years. Having ascertained this, I was sure he must
+remember my two uncles, Charles and Wilmot, who, fifteen, years ago,
+were frequent visitors here. I mentioned their names; he recalled them
+perfectly, and with respect. Having intimated my connection, my
+position in his eyes was henceforth clear, and on a right footing. He
+said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke truth, because
+Mrs. Barrett was accustomed to say the same thing. A ready and obliging
+courtesy now replaced his former uncomfortably doubtful manner;
+henceforth I need no longer be at a loss for a civil answer to a
+sensible question.
+
+The street on which my little sitting-room window looked was narrow,
+perfectly quiet, and not dirty: the few passengers were just such as
+one sees in provincial towns: here was nothing formidable; I felt sure
+I might venture out alone.
+
+Having breakfasted, out I went. Elation and pleasure were in my heart:
+to walk alone in London seemed of itself an adventure. Presently I
+found myself in Paternoster Row--classic ground this. I entered a
+bookseller's shop, kept by one Jones: I bought a little book--a piece
+of extravagance I could ill afford; but I thought I would one day give
+or send it to Mrs. Barrett. Mr. Jones, a dried-in man of business,
+stood behind his desk: he seemed one of the greatest, and I one of the
+happiest of beings.
+
+Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself
+before St. Paul's, I went in; I mounted to the dome: I saw thence
+London, with its river, and its bridges, and its churches; I saw
+antique Westminster, and the green Temple Gardens, with sun upon them,
+and a glad, blue sky, of early spring above; and between them and it,
+not too dense, a cloud of haze.
+
+Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still
+ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got--I know not how--I got into
+the heart of city life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into the
+Strand; I went up Cornhill; I mixed with the life passing along; I
+dared the perils of crossings. To do this, and to do it utterly alone,
+gave me, perhaps an irrational, but a real pleasure. Since those days,
+I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the
+city far better. The city seems so much more in earnest: its business,
+its rush, its roar, are such serious things, sights, and sounds. The
+city is getting its living--the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At
+the West End you may be amused, but in the city you are deeply excited.
+
+Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy
+hunger), I returned, about two o'clock, to my dark, old, and quiet inn.
+I dined on two dishes--a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed
+excellent: how much better than the small, dainty messes Miss
+Marchmont's cook used to send up to my kind, dead mistress and me, and
+to the discussion of which we could not bring half an appetite between
+us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an hour (the
+room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two
+hours.
+
+My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now
+such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and
+daring--perhaps desperate--line of action. I had nothing to lose.
+Unutterable loathing of a desolate existence past, forbade return. If I
+failed in what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would
+suffer? If I died far away from--home, I was going to say, but I had no
+home--from England, then, who would weep?
+
+I might suffer; I was inured to suffering: death itself had not, I
+thought, those terrors for me which it has for the softly reared. I
+had, ere this, looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye.
+Prepared, then, for any consequences, I formed a project.
+
+That same evening I obtained from my friend, the waiter, information
+respecting, the sailing of vessels for a certain continental port,
+Boue-Marine. No time, I found, was to be lost: that very night I must
+take my berth. I might, indeed, have waited till the morning before
+going on board, but would not run the risk of being too late.
+
+"Better take your berth at once, ma'am," counselled the waiter. I
+agreed with him, and having discharged my bill, and acknowledged my
+friend's services at a rate which I now know was princely, and which in
+his eyes must have seemed absurd--and indeed, while pocketing the cash,
+he smiled a faint smile which intimated his opinion of the donor's
+_savoir-faire_--he proceeded to call a coach. To the driver he also
+recommended me, giving at the same time an injunction about taking me,
+I think, to the wharf, and not leaving me to the watermen; which that
+functionary promised to observe, but failed in keeping his promise: on
+the contrary, he offered me up as an oblation, served me as a dripping
+roast, making me alight in the midst of a throng of watermen.
+
+This was an uncomfortable crisis. It was a dark night. The coachman
+instantly drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen
+commenced a struggle for me and my trunk. Their oaths I hear at this
+moment: they shook my philosophy more than did the night, or the
+isolation, or the strangeness of the scene. One laid hands on my trunk.
+I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid hands on me, I
+spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat, desired
+austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me--"Just
+there,"--which was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had
+chosen became now an ally: I was rowed off.
+
+Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the
+piles of building round, ships rocked on its bosom. They rowed me up to
+several vessels; I read by lantern-light their names painted in great
+white letters on a dark ground. "The Ocean," "The Phoenix," "The
+Consort," "The Dolphin," were passed in turns; but "The Vivid" was my
+ship, and it seemed she lay further down.
+
+Down the sable flood we glided, I thought of the Styx, and of Charon
+rowing some solitary soul to the Land of Shades. Amidst the strange
+scene, with a chilly wind blowing in my face and midnight clouds
+dropping rain above my head; with two rude rowers for companions, whose
+insane oaths still tortured my ear, I asked myself if I was wretched or
+terrified. I was neither. Often in my life have I been far more so
+under comparatively safe circumstances. "How is this?" said I.
+"Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and
+apprehensive?" I could not tell how it was.
+
+"THE VIVID" started out, white and glaring, from the black night at
+last.--"Here you are!" said the waterman, and instantly demanded six
+shillings.
+
+"You ask too much," I said. He drew off from the vessel and swore he
+would not embark me till I paid it. A young man, the steward as I found
+afterwards, was looking over the ship's side; he grinned a smile in
+anticipation of the coming contest; to disappoint him, I paid the
+money. Three times that afternoon I had given crowns where I should
+have given shillings; but I consoled myself with the reflection, "It is
+the price of experience."
+
+"They've cheated you!" said the steward exultingly when I got on board.
+I answered phlegmatically that "I knew it," and went below.
+
+A stout, handsome, and showy woman was in the ladies' cabin. I asked to
+be shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about its
+being unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and seemed
+disposed to be less than civil. What a face she had--so comely--so
+insolent and so selfish!
+
+"Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here," was my answer.
+"I will trouble you to show me my berth."
+
+She complied, but sullenly. I took off my bonnet, arranged my things,
+and lay down. Some difficulties had been passed through; a sort of
+victory was won: my homeless, anchorless, unsupported mind had again
+leisure for a brief repose. Till the "Vivid" arrived in harbour, no
+further action would be required of me; but then.... Oh! I could not
+look forward. Harassed, exhausted, I lay in a half-trance.
+
+The stewardess talked all night; not to me but to the young steward,
+her son and her very picture. He passed in and out of the cabin
+continually: they disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again
+twenty times in the course of the night. She professed to be writing a
+letter home--she said to her father; she read passages of it aloud,
+heeding me no more than a stock--perhaps she believed me asleep.
+Several of these passages appeared to comprise family secrets, and bore
+special reference to one "Charlotte," a younger sister who, from the
+bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating a
+romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder lady
+against the distasteful union. The dutiful son laughed his mother's
+correspondence to scorn. She defended it, and raved at him. They were a
+strange pair. She might be thirty-nine or forty, and was buxom and
+blooming as a girl of twenty. Hard, loud, vain and vulgar, her mind and
+body alike seemed brazen and imperishable. I should think, from her
+childhood, she must have lived in public stations; and in her youth
+might very likely have been a barmaid.
+
+Towards morning her discourse ran on a new theme: "the Watsons," a
+certain expected family-party of passengers, known to her, it appeared,
+and by her much esteemed on account of the handsome profit realized in
+their fees. She said, "It was as good as a little fortune to her
+whenever this family crossed."
+
+At dawn all were astir, and by sunrise the passengers came on board.
+Boisterous was the welcome given by the stewardess to the "Watsons,"
+and great was the bustle made in their honour. They were four in
+number, two males and two females. Besides them, there was but one
+other passenger--a young lady, whom a gentlemanly, though
+languid-looking man escorted. The two groups offered a marked contrast.
+The Watsons were doubtless rich people, for they had the confidence of
+conscious wealth in their bearing; the women--youthful both of them,
+and one perfectly handsome, as far as physical beauty went--were
+dressed richly, gaily, and absurdly out of character for the
+circumstances. Their bonnets with bright flowers, their velvet cloaks
+and silk dresses, seemed better suited for park or promenade than for a
+damp packet deck. The men were of low stature, plain, fat, and vulgar;
+the oldest, plainest, greasiest, broadest, I soon found was the
+husband--the bridegroom I suppose, for she was very young--of the
+beautiful girl. Deep was my amazement at this discovery; and deeper
+still when I perceived that, instead of being desperately wretched in
+such a union, she was gay even to giddiness. "Her laughter," I
+reflected, "must be the mere frenzy of despair." And even while this
+thought was crossing my mind, as I stood leaning quiet and solitary
+against the ship's side, she came tripping up to me, an utter stranger,
+with a camp-stool in her hand, and smiling a smile of which the levity
+puzzled and startled me, though it showed a perfect set of perfect
+teeth, she offered me the accommodation of this piece of furniture. I
+declined it of course, with all the courtesy I could put into my
+manner; she danced off heedless and lightsome. She must have been
+good-natured; but what had made her marry that individual, who was at
+least as much like an oil-barrel as a man?
+
+The other lady passenger, with the gentleman-companion, was quite a
+girl, pretty and fair: her simple print dress, untrimmed straw-bonnet
+and large shawl, gracefully worn, formed a costume plain to quakerism:
+yet, for her, becoming enough. Before the gentleman quitted her, I
+observed him throwing a glance of scrutiny over all the passengers, as
+if to ascertain in what company his charge would be left. With a most
+dissatisfied air did his eye turn from the ladies with the gay flowers;
+he looked at me, and then he spoke to his daughter, niece, or whatever
+she was: she also glanced in my direction, and slightly curled her
+short, pretty lip. It might be myself, or it might be my homely
+mourning habit, that elicited this mark of contempt; more likely, both.
+A bell rang; her father (I afterwards knew that it was her father)
+kissed her, and returned to land. The packet sailed.
+
+Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to
+travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of
+English parents and guardians. As for the "jeunes Meess," by some their
+intrepidity is pronounced masculine and "inconvenant," others regard
+them as the passive victims of an educational and theological system
+which wantonly dispenses with proper "surveillance." Whether this
+particular young lady was of the sort that can the most safely be left
+unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not _then_ know; but it soon
+appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her taste. She paced
+the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she looked with a little
+sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and velvets, and the bears
+which thereon danced attendance, and eventually she approached me and
+spoke.
+
+"Are you fond of a sea-voyage?" was her question.
+
+I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to undergo the
+test of experience; I had never made one.
+
+"Oh, how charming!" cried she. "I quite envy you the novelty: first
+impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I
+quite forget the first: I am quite _blasée_ about the sea and all that."
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+"Why do you laugh at me?" she inquired, with a frank testiness that
+pleased me better than her other talk.
+
+"Because you are so young to be _blasée_ about anything."
+
+"I am seventeen" (a little piqued).
+
+"You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?"
+
+"Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times,
+alone; but then I take care never to be long alone: I always make
+friends."
+
+"You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think" (glancing at
+the Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of
+noise on deck).
+
+"Not of those odious men and women," said she: "such people should be
+steerage passengers. Are you going to school?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have not the least idea--beyond, at least, the port of Boue-Marine."
+
+She stared, then carelessly ran on:
+
+"I am going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been at
+in my life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing--nothing in
+the world--I assure you; except that I play and dance beautifully,--and
+French and German of course I know, to speak; but I can't read or write
+them very well. Do you know they wanted me to translate a page of an
+easy German book into English the other day, and I couldn't do it. Papa
+was so mortified: he says it looks as if M. de Bassompierre--my
+godpapa, who pays all my school-bills--had thrown away all his money.
+And then, in matters of information--in history, geography, arithmetic,
+and so on, I am quite a baby; and I write English so badly--such
+spelling and grammar, they tell me. Into the bargain I have quite
+forgotten my religion; they call me a Protestant, you know, but really
+I am not sure whether I am one or not: I don't well know the difference
+between Romanism and Protestantism. However, I don't in the least care
+for that. I was a Lutheran once at Bonn--dear Bonn!--charming
+Bonn!--where there were so many handsome students. Every nice girl in
+our school had an admirer; they knew our hours for walking out, and
+almost always passed us on the promenade: 'Schönes Mädchen,' we used to
+hear them say. I was excessively happy at Bonn!"
+
+"And where are you now?" I inquired.
+
+"Oh! at--_chose_," said she.
+
+Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person's name) only
+substituted this word "_chose_" in temporary oblivion of the real name.
+It was a habit she had: "_chose_" came in at every turn in her
+conversation--the convenient substitute for any missing word in any
+language she might chance at the time to be speaking. French girls
+often do the like; from them she had caught the custom. "_Chose_,"
+however, I found in this instance, stood for Villette--the great
+capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour.
+
+"Do you like Villette?" I asked.
+
+"Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar;
+but there are some nice English families."
+
+"Are you in a school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A good one?"
+
+"Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the
+_maîtresses_ or the _professeurs_, or the _élèves_, and send lessons
+_au diable_ (one daren't say that in English, you know, but it sounds
+quite right in French); and thus I get on charmingly.... You are
+laughing at me again?"
+
+"No--I am only smiling at my own thoughts."
+
+"What are they?" (Without waiting for an answer)--"Now, _do_ tell me
+where you are going."
+
+"Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can
+find it."
+
+"To earn!" (in consternation) "are you poor, then?"
+
+"As poor as Job."
+
+(After a pause)--"Bah! how unpleasant! But _I_ know what it is to be
+poor: they are poor enough at home--papa and mamma, and all of them.
+Papa is called Captain Fanshawe; he is an officer on half-pay, but
+well-descended, and some of our connections are great enough; but my
+uncle and godpapa De Bassompierre, who lives in France, is the only one
+that helps us: he educates us girls. I have five sisters and three
+brothers. By-and-by we are to marry--rather elderly gentlemen, I
+suppose, with cash: papa and mamma manage that. My sister Augusta is
+married now to a man much older-looking than papa. Augusta is very
+beautiful--not in my style--but dark; her husband, Mr. Davies, had the
+yellow fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but then
+he is rich, and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and we all
+think she has done perfectly well. Now, this is better than 'earning a
+living,' as you say. By the way, are you clever?"
+
+"No--not at all."
+
+"You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"Still I think you are clever" (a pause and a yawn).
+
+"Shall you be sea-sick?"
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"Oh, immensely! as soon as ever we get in sight of the sea: I begin,
+indeed, to feel it already. I shall go below; and won't I order about
+that fat odious stewardess! Heureusement je sais faire aller mon monde."
+
+Down she went.
+
+It was not long before the other passengers followed her: throughout
+the afternoon I remained on deck alone. When I recall the tranquil, and
+even happy mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at the
+same time, the position in which I was placed; its hazardous--some
+would have said its hopeless--character; I feel that, as--
+
+  Stone walls do not a prison make,
+  Nor iron bars--a cage,
+
+so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so
+long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long,
+especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her
+star.
+
+I was not sick till long after we passed Margate, and deep was the
+pleasure I drank in with the sea-breeze; divine the delight I drew from
+the heaving Channel waves, from the sea-birds on their ridges, from the
+white sails on their dark distance, from the quiet yet beclouded sky,
+overhanging all. In my reverie, methought I saw the continent of
+Europe, like a wide dream-land, far away. Sunshine lay on it, making
+the long coast one line of gold; tiniest tracery of clustered town and
+snow-gleaming tower, of woods deep massed, of heights serrated, of
+smooth pasturage and veiny stream, embossed the metal-bright prospect.
+For background, spread a sky, solemn and dark blue, and--grand with
+imperial promise, soft with tints of enchantment--strode from north to
+south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope.
+
+Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader--or rather let it
+stand, and draw thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy--
+
+  Day-dreams are delusions of the demon.
+
+Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin.
+
+Miss Fanshawe's berth chanced to be next mine; and, I am sorry to say,
+she tormented me with an unsparing selfishness during the whole time of
+our mutual distress. Nothing could exceed her impatience and
+fretfulness. The Watsons, who were very sick too, and on whom the
+stewardess attended with shameless partiality, were stoics compared
+with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra
+Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of
+beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in adversity,
+like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman for his
+wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all sunshine.
+Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly requested her
+"to hold her tongue." The rebuff did her good, and it was observable
+that she liked me no worse for it.
+
+As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong
+against the vessel's side. It was strange to reflect that blackness and
+water were round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on her
+pathless way, despite noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of
+furniture began to fall about, and it became needful to lash them to
+their places; the passengers grew sicker than ever; Miss Fanshawe
+declared, with groans, that she must die.
+
+"Not just yet, honey," said the stewardess. "We're just in port."
+Accordingly, in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all;
+and about midnight the voyage ended.
+
+I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my
+difficulties--my stringent difficulties--recommenced. When I went on
+deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me for
+my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign sea-port
+town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like unnumbered
+threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the Watsons; a whole
+family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss Fanshawe; I--but I
+dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of positions.
+
+Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be nice.
+As I gave the stewardess her fee--and she seemed surprised at receiving
+a coin of more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse calculations
+had probably reckoned on--I said, "Be kind enough to direct me to some
+quiet, respectable inn, where I can go for the night."
+
+She not only gave me the required direction, but called a
+commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and--_not_ my trunk, for
+that was gone to the custom-house.
+
+I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful
+gleam of moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence,
+which he refused to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a
+shilling; but this also he declined, speaking rather sharply, in a
+language to me unknown. A waiter, coming forward into the lamp-lit
+inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, that my money was foreign
+money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to change. This little
+matter settled, I asked for a bedroom; supper I could not take: I was
+still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply glad I
+was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and my
+exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be as
+thick to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent, the
+peril (of destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed:
+physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt
+and clear.
+
+Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: I said, "Come in,"
+expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and said,--
+
+"Gif me your keys, Meess."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Gif!" said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand,
+he added, "All right! haf your tronc soon."
+
+Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house.
+Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded,
+not without hesitation, to descend.
+
+I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last
+night, viz. that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly
+descended the broad staircase, halting on each step (for I was in
+wonderfully little haste to get down), I gazed at the high ceiling
+above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which filled
+the house with light, at the veined marble I trod (for the steps were
+all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and contrasting
+all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me as a chamber,
+with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell into a
+philosophizing mood.
+
+Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chamber-maids
+in proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inn-servants
+and ship-stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for instance,
+was an individual of no social significance, and little burdened by
+cash? They _did_ know it evidently: I saw quite well that they all, in
+a moment's calculation, estimated me at about the same fractional
+value. The fact seemed to me curious and pregnant: I would not disguise
+from myself what it indicated, yet managed to keep up my spirits pretty
+well under its pressure.
+
+Having at last landed in a great hall, full of skylight glare, I made
+my way somehow to what proved to be the coffee-room. It cannot be
+denied that on entering this room I trembled somewhat; felt uncertain,
+solitary, wretched; wished to Heaven I knew whether I was doing right
+or wrong; felt convinced that it was the last, but could not help
+myself. Acting in the spirit and with the calm of a fatalist, I sat
+down at a small table, to which a waiter presently brought me some
+breakfast; and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not greatly
+calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people
+breakfasting at other tables in the room; I should have felt rather
+more happy if amongst them all I could have seen any women; however,
+there was not one--all present were men. But nobody seemed to think I
+was doing anything strange; one or two gentlemen glanced at me
+occasionally, but none stared obtrusively: I suppose if there was
+anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it by this word
+"Anglaise!"
+
+Breakfast over, I must again move--in what direction? "Go to Villette,"
+said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this
+slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as
+she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to Madame Beck's; she has
+some marmots whom you might look after; she wants an English
+gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago."
+
+Who Madame Beck was, where she lived, I knew not; I had asked, but the
+question passed unheard: Miss Fanshawe, hurried away by her friends,
+left it unanswered. I presumed Villette to be her residence--to
+Villette I would go. The distance was forty miles. I knew I was
+catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found
+myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Having inquired about the means
+of travelling to Villette, and secured a seat in the diligence, I
+departed on the strength of this outline--this shadow of a project.
+Before you pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look
+back to the point whence I started; consider the desert I had left,
+note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot
+lose and may win.
+
+Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess
+something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present
+pleasure: that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I enjoyed
+that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it
+rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route along which our
+journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid green snakes,
+beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level fields, tilled
+like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was monotonously gray; the
+atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst all these deadening
+influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in sunshine.
+These feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but
+ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a
+tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in
+my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never
+stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down
+to bound ravenous from his ambush.
+
+I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I
+might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw
+round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow
+progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense
+rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by
+the time we gained its suburbs.
+
+I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much
+I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry
+Chaussée, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty
+surface. At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers
+alighted. My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter enough,
+but important to me. Understanding that it was best not to be
+importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly
+the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim
+and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle
+in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which
+piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one, I saw
+these removed, lowered, and seized on.
+
+I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had
+tied on the direction-card with a piece of green ribbon, that I might
+know it at a glance: not a fringe or fragment of green was perceptible.
+Every package was removed; every tin-case and brown-paper parcel; the
+oilcloth cover was lifted; I saw with distinct vision that not an
+umbrella, cloak, cane, hat-box or band-box remained.
+
+And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book
+enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?
+
+I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say
+nothing whatever; not possessing a phrase of _speaking_ French: and it
+was French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around
+me. _What_ should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my hand
+on his arm, pointed to a trunk, thence to the  diligence-roof, and
+tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized
+the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle.
+
+"Let that alone--will you?" said a voice in good English; then, in
+correction, "Qu'est-ce que vous faîtes donc? Cette malle est à moi."
+
+But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I
+turned: "Sir," said I, appealing to the stranger, without, in my
+distress, noticing what he was like, "I cannot speak French. May I
+entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk?"
+
+Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to
+which my eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its
+expression half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of
+interference.
+
+"_Do_ ask him; I would do as much for you," said I.
+
+I don't know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone--that
+is to say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,--"What sort of trunk was
+yours?"
+
+I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And
+forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all the
+storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed your
+trunk after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-Marine
+with other parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it to-morrow;
+the day after, therefore, you will find it safe at this bureau."
+
+"Thank you," said I: but my heart sank.
+
+Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the
+failure of courage in my face; he inquired kindly, "Have you any
+friends in this city?"
+
+"No, and I don't know where to go."
+
+There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more
+fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young,
+distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I
+knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His face
+was very pleasant; he looked high but not arrogant, manly but not
+overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep consciousness of all
+absence of claim to look for further help from such a one as he.
+
+"Was all your money in your trunk?" he asked, stopping me.
+
+How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth--"No. I have enough
+in my purse" (for I had near twenty francs) "to keep me at a quiet inn
+till the day after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette,
+and don't know the streets and the inns."
+
+"I can give you the address of such an inn as you want," said he; "and
+it is not far off: with my direction you will easily find it."
+
+He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to
+me. I _did_ think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his advice,
+or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the
+Bible. There was goodness in his countenance, and honour in his bright
+eyes.
+
+"Your shortest way will be to follow the Boulevard and cross the park,"
+he continued; "but it is too late and too dark for a woman to go
+through the park alone; I will step with you thus far."
+
+He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small
+soaking rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water
+dripping from its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double
+gloom of trees and fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow
+his tread. Not the least fear had I: I believe I would have followed
+that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end.
+
+"Now," said he, when the park was traversed, "you will go along this
+broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where they
+are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below;
+following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak
+English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, sir," said I: "accept my sincerest thanks." And we parted.
+
+The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not
+unbenignant to the friendless--the sound in my ear of his voice, which
+spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the
+youthful and fair--were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a
+true young English gentleman.
+
+On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with
+the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more
+than one overbearing pile; which might be palace or church--I could not
+tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came suddenly
+from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars: their dress implied
+pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things! they were very
+plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast as I walked,
+they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort of patrol, and
+my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but they had driven me
+beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my faculties, I no longer
+knew where I was; the staircase I must long since have passed. Puzzled,
+out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew
+not where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those
+bearded, sneering simpletons; yet the ground must be retraced, and the
+steps sought out.
+
+I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted
+that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into
+which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I
+wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved
+street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house,
+loftier by a story than those round it. _This_ might be the inn at
+last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting
+quite exhausted.
+
+No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochère:
+"Pensionnat de Demoiselles" was the inscription; and beneath, a name,
+"Madame Beck."
+
+I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a
+moment. Yet I planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time.
+Providence said, "Stop here; this is _your_ inn." Fate took me in her
+strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rang the
+door-bell.
+
+While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the
+street-stones, where the door-lamp shone, and counted them and noted
+their shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again.
+They opened at last. A bonne in a smart cap stood before me.
+
+"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired.
+
+I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but,
+as I spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on
+business connected with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour,
+she let me in, without a word of reluctance, or a moment of hesitation.
+
+The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain
+stove, unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on
+the mantel-piece struck nine o'clock.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How
+I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door--a
+great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf
+move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white
+doors were closed and motionless.
+
+"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
+unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
+
+No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a
+motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a
+clean, trim nightcap.
+
+I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell
+to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck it
+was--she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with
+the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor
+approach)--Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech when
+she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away
+volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood
+me, but as I did not at all understand her--though we made together an
+awful clamour (anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not
+hitherto heard or imagined)--we achieved little progress. She rang, ere
+long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maîtresse," who had
+been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect
+adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maîtresse
+was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the
+speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she
+translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on
+extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn
+my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading;
+how I would be a child's-nurse, or a lady's-maid, and would not refuse
+even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and,
+questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear:
+
+"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
+"sont-elles donc intrépides ces femmes là!"
+
+She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me--not pityingly, not
+with interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of compassion,
+crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she was not one to
+be led an inch by her feelings: grave and considerate, she gazed,
+consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell rang.
+
+"Voilà pour la prière du soir!" said she, and rose. Through her
+interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the morrow;
+but this did not suit me: I could not bear to return to the perils of
+darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected and
+controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally, and not the
+maîtresse: "Be assured, madame, that by instantly securing my services,
+your interests will be served and not injured: you will find me one who
+will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her wages; and
+if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here this night:
+having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the language of
+the country, how can I secure a lodging?"
+
+"It is true," said she; "but at least you can give a reference?"
+
+"None."
+
+She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She
+mused. At that moment a man's step was heard in the vestibule, hastily
+proceeding to the outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale
+as if I had understood all that passed; for though it was then scarce
+intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards).
+
+"Who goes out now?" demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.
+
+"M. Paul," replied the teacher. "He came this evening to give a reading
+to the first class."
+
+"The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him."
+
+The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a
+small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.
+
+"Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill in
+physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance."
+
+The little man fixed on me his spectacles: A resolute compression of
+the lips, and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to see
+through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him.
+
+"I read it," he pronounced.
+
+"Et qu'en dites vous?"
+
+"Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer.
+
+"Bad or good?"
+
+"Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner.
+
+"May one trust her word?"
+
+"Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"
+
+"She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale full
+of integrity, but gives no reference."
+
+"She is a stranger?"
+
+"An Englishwoman, as one may see."
+
+"She speaks French?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"She understands it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"One may then speak plainly in her presence?"
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He gazed steadily. "Do you need her services?"
+
+"I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini."
+
+Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as
+indefinite as what had gone before it.
+
+"Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will bring
+its own reward; if evil--eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours une
+bonne oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," this vague arbiter of
+my destiny vanished.
+
+And Madame did engage me that very night--by God's blessing I was
+spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary,
+hostile street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MADAME BECK.
+
+
+Being delivered into the charge of the maîtresse, I was led through a
+long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very
+strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking--neither fireplace
+nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which
+filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride
+was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense
+of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half
+anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a
+"cabinet." A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my
+supper: to wit--some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid,
+but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know
+not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and
+butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was grateful.
+
+After the "prière du soir," Madame herself came to have another look at
+me. She desired me to follow her up-stairs. Through a series of the
+queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been
+nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and through
+the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale,
+against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils--she conducted me to
+an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny beds. A
+heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend
+matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate: a
+perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the
+circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous
+essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.
+
+Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to
+waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad
+striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast
+asleep. To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of
+matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's
+elbow.
+
+Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she
+neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise,
+ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the
+woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to
+be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a
+night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the
+entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was
+discernible through the aperture.
+
+My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been led
+since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely could I
+believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left London,
+under no other guardianship than that which protects the
+passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of hope.
+
+I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke. All was
+hushed, but a white figure stood in the room--Madame in her
+night-dress. Moving without perceptible sound, she visited the three
+children in the three beds; she approached me: I feigned sleep, and she
+studied me long. A small pantomime ensued, curious enough. I daresay
+she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of my bed, gazing at my face.
+She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly raised my cap, and
+turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked at my hand
+lying on the bedclothes. This done, she turned to the chair where my
+clothes lay: it was at the foot of the bed. Hearing her touch and lift
+them, I opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt curious to see
+how far her taste for research would lead her. It led her a good way:
+every article did she inspect. I divined her motive for this
+proceeding, viz. the wish to form from the garments a judgment
+respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, &c. The end was
+not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In my dress was
+a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out: she counted the money in my
+purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused its
+contents, and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of Miss
+Marchmont's grey hair. To a bunch of three keys, being those of my
+trunk, desk, and work-box, she accorded special attention: with these,
+indeed, she withdrew a moment to her own room. I softly rose in my bed
+and followed her with my eye: these keys, reader, were not brought back
+till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining room the impress of
+their wards in wax. All being thus done decently and in order, my
+property was returned to its place, my clothes were carefully refolded.
+Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from this scrutiny? Were
+they favourable or otherwise? Vain question. Madame's face of stone
+(for of stone in its present night aspect it looked: it had been human,
+and, as I said before, motherly, in the salon) betrayed no response.
+
+Her duty done--I felt that in her eyes this business was a duty--she
+rose, noiseless as a shadow: she moved towards her own chamber; at the
+door, she turned, fixing her eye on the heroine of the bottle, who
+still slept and loudly snored. Mrs. Svini (I presume this was Mrs.
+Svini, Anglicé or Hibernicé, Sweeny)--Mrs. Sweeny's doom was in Madame
+Beck's eye--an immutable purpose that eye spoke: Madame's visitations
+for shortcomings might be slow, but they were sure. All this was very
+un-English: truly I was in a foreign land.
+
+The morrow made me further acquainted with Mrs. Sweeny. It seems she
+had introduced herself to her present employer as an English lady in
+reduced circumstances: a native, indeed, of Middlesex, professing to
+speak the English tongue with the purest metropolitan accent.
+Madame--reliant on her own infallible expedients for finding out the
+truth in time--had a singular intrepidity in hiring service off-hand
+(as indeed seemed abundantly proved in my own case). She received Mrs.
+Sweeny as nursery-governess to her three children. I need hardly
+explain to the reader that this lady was in effect a native of Ireland;
+her station I do not pretend to fix: she boldly declared that she had
+"had the bringing-up of the son and daughter of a marquis." I think
+myself, she might possibly have been a hanger-on, nurse, fosterer, or
+washerwoman, in some Irish family: she spoke a smothered tongue,
+curiously overlaid with mincing cockney inflections. By some means or
+other she had acquired, and now held in possession, a wardrobe of
+rather suspicious splendour--gowns of stiff and costly silk, fitting
+her indifferently, and apparently made for other proportions than those
+they now adorned; caps with real lace borders, and--the chief item in
+the inventory, the spell by which she struck a certain awe through the
+household, quelling the otherwise scornfully disposed teachers and
+servants, and, so long as her broad shoulders _wore_ the folds of that
+majestic drapery, even influencing Madame herself--_a real Indian
+shawl_--"un véritable cachemire," as Madame Beck said, with unmixed
+reverence and amaze. I feel quite sure that without this "cachemire"
+she would not have kept her footing in the pensionnat for two days: by
+virtue of it, and it only, she maintained the same a month.
+
+But when Mrs. Sweeny knew that I was come to fill her shoes, then it
+was that she declared herself--then did she rise on Madame Beck in her
+full power--then come down on me with her concentrated weight. Madame
+bore this revelation and visitation so well, so stoically, that I for
+very shame could not support it otherwise than with composure. For one
+little moment Madame Beck absented herself from the room; ten minutes
+after, an agent of the police stood in the midst of us. Mrs. Sweeny and
+her effects were removed. Madame's brow had not been ruffled during the
+scene--her lips had not dropped one sharply-accented word.
+
+This brisk little affair of the dismissal was all settled before
+breakfast: order to march given, policeman called, mutineer expelled;
+"chambre d'enfans" fumigated and cleansed, windows thrown open, and
+every trace of the accomplished Mrs. Sweeny--even to the fine essence
+and spiritual fragrance which gave token so subtle and so fatal of the
+head and front of her offending--was annihilated from the Rue Fossette:
+all this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame Beck's issuing
+like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she coolly sat down to
+pour out her first cup of coffee.
+
+About noon, I was summoned to dress Madame. (It appeared my place was
+to be a hybrid between gouvernante and lady's-maid.) Till noon, she
+haunted the house in her wrapping-gown, shawl, and soundless slippers.
+How would the lady-chief of an English school approve this custom?
+
+The dressing of her hair puzzled me; she had plenty of it: auburn,
+unmixed with grey: though she was forty years old. Seeing my
+embarrassment, she said, "You have not been a femme-de-chambre in your
+own country?" And taking the brush from my hand, and setting me aside,
+not ungently or disrespectfully, she arranged it herself. In performing
+other offices of the toilet, she half-directed, half-aided me, without
+the least display of temper or impatience. N.B.--That was the first and
+last time I was required to dress her. Henceforth, on Rosine, the
+portress, devolved that duty.
+
+When attired, Madame Beck appeared a personage of a figure rather short
+and stout, yet still graceful in its own peculiar way; that is, with
+the grace resulting from proportion of parts. Her complexion was fresh
+and sanguine, not too rubicund; her eye, blue and serene; her dark silk
+dress fitted her as a French sempstress alone can make a dress fit; she
+looked well, though a little bourgeoise; as bourgeoise, indeed, she
+was. I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person; and yet her
+face offered contrast, too: its features were by no means such as are
+usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such blended freshness
+and repose: their outline was stern: her forehead was high but narrow;
+it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no expanse; nor did her
+peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire which is kindled in the
+heart or the softness which flows thence. Her mouth was hard: it could
+be a little grim; her lips were thin. For sensibility and genius, with
+all their tenderness and temerity, I felt somehow that Madame would be
+the right sort of Minos in petticoats.
+
+In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her
+name was Modeste Maria Beck, née Kint: it ought to have been Ignacia.
+She was a charitable woman, and did a great deal of good. There never
+was a mistress whose rule was milder. I was told that she never once
+remonstrated with the intolerable Mrs. Sweeny, despite her tipsiness,
+disorder, and general neglect; yet Mrs. Sweeny had to go the moment her
+departure became convenient. I was told, too, that neither masters nor
+teachers were found fault with in that establishment; yet both masters
+and teachers were often changed: they vanished and others filled their
+places, none could well explain how.
+
+The establishment was both a pensionnat and an externat: the externes
+or day-pupils exceeded one hundred in number; the boarders were about a
+score. Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she ruled
+all these, together with four teachers, eight masters, six servants,
+and three children, managing at the same time to perfection the pupils'
+parents and friends; and that without apparent effort; without bustle,
+fatigue, fever, or any symptom of undue, excitement: occupied she
+always was--busy, rarely. It is true that Madame had her own system for
+managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a very pretty
+system it was: the reader has seen a specimen of it, in that small
+affair of turning my pocket inside out, and reading my private
+memoranda. "Surveillance," "espionage,"--these were her watchwords.
+
+Still, Madame knew what honesty was, and liked it--that is, when it did
+not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest.
+She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les Anglaises," she
+would have the women of no other country about her own children, if she
+could help it.
+
+Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-plotting,
+spying and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would come up to
+my room--a trace of real weariness on her brow--and she would sit down
+and listen while the children said their little prayers to me in
+English: the Lord's Prayer, and the hymn beginning "Gentle Jesus,"
+these little Catholics were permitted to repeat at my knee; and, when I
+had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon gained enough French
+to be able to understand, and even answer her) about England and
+Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to term their
+superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity. Very good
+sense she often showed; very sound opinions she often broached: she
+seemed to know that keeping girls in distrustful restraint, in blind
+ignorance, and under a surveillance that left them no moment and no
+corner for retirement, was not the best way to make them grow up honest
+and modest women; but she averred that ruinous consequences would ensue
+if any other method were tried with continental children: they were so
+accustomed to restraint, that relaxation, however guarded, would be
+misunderstood and fatally presumed on. She was sick, she would declare,
+of the means she had to use, but use them she must; and after
+discoursing, often with dignity and delicacy, to me, she would move
+away on her "souliers de silence," and glide ghost-like through the
+house, watching and spying everywhere, peering through every keyhole,
+listening behind every door.
+
+After all, Madame's system was not bad--let me do her justice. Nothing
+could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being
+of her scholars. No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well
+distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a
+liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the girls
+healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny faces
+were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. She never grudged a
+holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing,
+eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary,
+and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly
+well to imitate her--and I believe many would be glad to do so, if
+exacting English parents would let them.
+
+As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of
+spies: she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while
+she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty
+occasion--flinging this sort from her like refuse rind, after the
+orange has been duly squeezed--I have known her fastidious in seeking
+pure metal for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless
+instrument was found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk
+and cotton-wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one
+inch beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy:
+interest was the master-key of Madame's nature--the mainspring of her
+motives--the alpha and omega of her life. I have seen her _feelings_
+appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the
+appellants. None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed
+her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to touch her
+heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a
+secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it
+reminded her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the distinction
+between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her. While devoid
+of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational benevolence: she would
+give in the readiest manner to people she had never seen--rather,
+however, to classes than to individuals. "Pour les pauvres," she opened
+her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as a rule, she kept it
+closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit of society at large
+she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her: no force or
+mass of suffering concentrated in one heart had power to pierce hers.
+Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung
+from her eyes one tear.
+
+I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That
+school offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to
+have swayed a nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent
+legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated
+her nerves, exhausted her patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In
+her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first
+minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless; secret,
+crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and
+insensate--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?
+
+The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge
+here condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No!
+what I saw at first was the thriving outside of a large and flourishing
+educational establishment. Here was a great house, full of healthy,
+lively girls, all well-dressed and many of them handsome, gaining
+knowledge by a marvellously easy method, without painful exertion or
+useless waste of spirits; not, perhaps, making very rapid progress in
+anything; taking it easy, but still always employed, and never
+oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, more stringently
+tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by them, in order to
+save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged that they relieved
+each other in quick succession whenever the work was severe: here, in
+short, was a foreign school; of which the life, movement, and variety
+made it a complete and most charming contrast to many English
+institutions of the same kind.
+
+Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost
+lived out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under
+the vast and vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer
+afternoons, and send for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and
+sew and read. Meantime, masters came and went, delivering short and
+lively lectures, rather than lessons, and the pupils made notes of
+their instructions, or did _not_ make them--just as inclination
+prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes of
+their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de sortie_, the
+Catholic fête-days brought a succession of holidays all the year round;
+and sometimes on a bright summer morning, or soft summer evening; the
+boarders were taken out for a long walk into the country, regaled with
+_gaufres_ and _vin blanc_, or new milk and _pain bis_, or _pistolets au
+beurre_ (rolls) and coffee. All this seemed very pleasant, and Madame
+appeared goodness itself; and the teachers not so bad but they might be
+worse; and the pupils, perhaps, a little noisy and rough, but types of
+health and glee.
+
+Thus did the view appear, seen through the enchantment of distance; but
+there came a time when distance was to melt for me--when I was to be
+called down from my watch-tower of the nursery, whence I had hitherto
+made my observations, and was to be compelled into closer intercourse
+with this little world of the Rue Fossette.
+
+I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their
+English lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame,
+when she came sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow
+of hard thought she sometimes wore, and which made her look so little
+genial. Dropping into a seat opposite mine, she remained some minutes
+silent. Désirée, the eldest girl, was reading to me some little essay
+of Mrs. Barbauld's, and I was making her translate currently from
+English to French as she proceeded, by way of ascertaining that she
+comprehended what she read: Madame listened.
+
+Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of
+one making an accusation, "Meess, in England you were a governess?"
+
+"No, Madame," said I smiling, "you are mistaken."
+
+"Is this your first essay at teaching--this attempt with my children?"
+
+I assured her it was. Again she became silent; but looking up, as I
+took a pin from the cushion, I found myself an object of study: she
+held me under her eye; she seemed turning me round in her
+thoughts--measuring my fitness for a purpose, weighing my value in a
+plan. Madame had, ere this, scrutinized all I had, and I believe she
+esteemed herself cognizant of much that I was; but from that day, for
+the space of about a fortnight, she tried me by new tests. She listened
+at the nursery door when I was shut in with the children; she followed
+me at a cautious distance when I walked out with them, stealing within
+ear-shot whenever the trees of park or boulevard afforded a sufficient
+screen: a strict preliminary process having thus been observed, she
+made a move forward.
+
+One morning, coming on me abruptly, and with the semblance of hurry,
+she said she found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the
+English master, had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill;
+the pupils were waiting in classe; there was no one to give a lesson;
+should I, for once, object to giving a short dictation exercise, just
+that the pupils might not have it to say they had missed their English
+lesson?
+
+"In classe, Madame?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, in classe: in the second division."
+
+"Where there are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and with
+my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a snail
+into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a
+pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have
+let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical
+ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the
+hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's frocks. Not that
+true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had
+neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to
+me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from
+intimate trial: the negation of severe suffering was the nearest
+approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two
+lives--the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the
+former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys
+of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily
+bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter.
+
+"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
+cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."
+
+"But Fifine wants it, Madame."
+
+"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."
+
+And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me--as she
+had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his
+shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition--as,
+too, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity, whether _I_
+lacked them or not--she, without more ado, made me relinquish thimble
+and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was conducted
+down-stairs. When we reached the carré, a large square hall between the
+dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, dropped my hand, faced,
+and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from head to foot:
+tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact, the difficulties
+before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some of them were real
+enough; and not the least substantial lay in my want of mastery over
+the medium through which I should be obliged to teach. I had, indeed,
+studied French closely since my arrival in Villette; learning its
+practice by day, and its theory in every leisure moment at night, to as
+late an hour as the rule of the house would allow candle-light; but I
+was far from yet being able to trust my powers of correct oral
+expression.
+
+"Dîtes donc," said Madame sternly, "vous sentez vous réellement trop
+faible?"
+
+I might have said "Yes," and gone back to nursery obscurity, and there,
+perhaps, mouldered for the rest of my life; but looking up at Madame, I
+saw in her countenance a something that made me think twice ere I
+decided. At that instant she did not wear a woman's aspect, but rather
+a man's. Power of a particular kind strongly limned itself in all her
+traits, and that power was not my kind of power: neither sympathy, nor
+congeniality, nor submission, were the emotions it awakened. I
+stood--not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It seemed as if a
+challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I suddenly
+felt all the dishonour of my diffidence--all the pusillanimity of my
+slackness to aspire.
+
+"Will you," she said, "go backward or forward?" indicating with her
+hand, first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house,
+and then the great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms.
+
+"En avant," I said.
+
+"But," pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look,
+from very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, "can
+you face the classes, or are you over-excited?"
+
+She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much
+to Madame's taste.
+
+"I am no more excited than this stone," I said, tapping the flag with
+my toe: "or than you," I added, returning her look.
+
+"Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls
+you are going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes,
+franches, brusques, et tant soit peu rebelles."
+
+I said: "I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French
+hard since I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much
+hesitation--too little accuracy to be able to command their respect I
+shall make blunders that will lay me open to the scorn of the most
+ignorant. Still I mean to give the lesson."
+
+"They always throw over timid teachers," said she.
+
+"I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and
+persecuted Miss Turner"--a poor friendless English teacher, whom Madame
+had employed, and lightly discarded; and to whose piteous history I was
+no stranger.
+
+"C'est vrai," said she, coolly. "Miss Turner had no more command over
+them than a servant from the kitchen would have had. She was weak and
+wavering; she had neither tact nor intelligence, decision nor dignity.
+Miss Turner would not do for these girls at all."
+
+I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door.
+
+"You will not expect aid from me, or from any one," said Madame. "That
+would at once set you down as incompetent for your office."
+
+I opened the door, let her pass with courtesy, and followed her. There
+were three schoolrooms, all large. That dedicated to the second
+division, where I was to figure, was considerably the largest, and
+accommodated an assemblage more numerous, more turbulent, and
+infinitely more unmanageable than the other two. In after days, when I
+knew the ground better, I used to think sometimes (if such a comparison
+may be permitted), that the quiet, polished, tame first division was to
+the robust, riotous, demonstrative second division, what the English
+House of Lords is to the House of Commons.
+
+The first glance informed me that many of the pupils were more than
+girls--quite young women; I knew that some of them were of noble family
+(as nobility goes in Labassecour), and I was well convinced that not
+one amongst them was ignorant of my position in Madame's household. As
+I mounted the estràde (a low platform, raised a step above the
+flooring), where stood the teacher's chair and desk, I beheld opposite
+to me a row of eyes and brows that threatened stormy weather--eyes full
+of an insolent light, and brows hard and unblushing as marble. The
+continental "female" is quite a different being to the insular "female"
+of the same age and class: I never saw such eyes and brows in England.
+Madame Beck introduced me in one cool phrase, sailed from the room, and
+left me alone in my glory.
+
+I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the under-current of
+life and character it opened up to me. Then first did I begin rightly
+to see the wide difference that lies between the novelist's and poet's
+ideal "jeune fille" and the said "jeune fille" as she really is.
+
+It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down
+predetermined that a _bonne d'enfants_ should not give them lessons in
+English. They knew they had succeeded in expelling obnoxious teachers
+before now; they knew that Madame would at any time throw overboard a
+professeur or maitresse who became unpopular with the school--that she
+never assisted a weak official to retain his place--that if he had not
+strength to fight, or tact to win his way, down he went: looking at
+"Miss Snowe," they promised themselves an easy victory.
+
+Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angélique opened the campaign by
+a series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into murmurs
+and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and echoed more
+loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon became
+oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and exercised
+under such cruel constraint.
+
+Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have
+gained a hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a
+poor creature, and in many respects actually was so, yet nature had
+given me a voice that could make itself heard, if lifted in excitement
+or deepened by emotion. In the second place, while I had no flow, only
+a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary circumstances, yet--under
+stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous mass--I could, in
+English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their proceedings
+as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with some
+sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the ringleaders,
+and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less knavish
+followers, it seemed to me that one might possibly get command over
+this wild herd, and bring them into training, at least. All I could now
+do was to walk up to Blanche--Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young
+baronne--the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious--stand
+before her desk, take from under her hand her exercise-book, remount
+the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I found very
+stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school, tear
+the blotted page in two.
+
+This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone,
+quite in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished
+energy. I looked at her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like
+night, broad strong eyebrows, decided features, and a dark, mutinous,
+sinister eye: I noted that she sat close by a little door, which door,
+I was well aware, opened into a small closet where books were kept. She
+was standing up for the purpose of conducting her clamour with freer
+energies. I measured her stature and calculated her strength. She seemed
+both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and the attack
+unexpected, I thought I might manage her.
+
+Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly
+could, in short, _ayant l'air de rien_, I slightly pushed the door and
+found it was ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had turned on
+her. In another instant she occupied the closet, the door was shut, and
+the key in my pocket.
+
+It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name, and a Catalonian by
+race, was the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her
+associates; the act of summary justice above noted proved popular:
+there was not one present but, in her heart, liked to see it done. They
+were stilled for a moment; then a smile--not a laugh--passed from desk
+to desk: then--when I had gravely and tranquilly returned to the
+estrade, courteously requested silence, and commenced a dictation as if
+nothing at all had happened--the pens travelled peacefully over the
+pages, and the remainder of the lesson passed in order and industry.
+
+"C'est bien," said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a
+little exhausted. "Ca ira."
+
+She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time.
+
+From that day I ceased to be nursery governess, and became English
+teacher. Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of me
+she had extracted from Mr. Wilson, at half the expense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ISIDORE.
+
+
+My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching
+others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It was
+pleasant. I felt I was getting, on; not lying the stagnant prey of
+mould and rust, but polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen
+edge with constant use. Experience of a certain kind lay before me, on
+no narrow scale. Villette is a cosmopolitan city, and in this school
+were girls of almost every European nation, and likewise of very varied
+rank in life. Equality is much practised in Labassecour; though not
+republican in form, it is nearly so in substance, and at the desks of
+Madame Beck's establishment the young countess and the young bourgeoise
+sat side by side. Nor could you always by outward indications decide
+which was noble and which plebeian; except that, indeed, the latter had
+often franker and more courteous manners, while the former bore away
+the bell for a delicately-balanced combination of insolence and deceit.
+In the former there was often quick French blood mixed with the
+marsh-phlegm: I regret to say that the effect of this vivacious fluid
+chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with which flattery and fiction
+ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and livelier, but quite
+heartless and insincere.
+
+To do all parties justice, the honest aboriginal Labassecouriennes had
+an hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as
+could deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions,
+they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether
+untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck's
+house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above being
+ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it: to invent might not be
+precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of faults. "J'ai menti
+plusieurs fois," formed an item of every girl's and woman's monthly
+confession: the priest heard unshocked, and absolved unreluctant. If
+they had missed going to mass, or read a chapter of a novel, that was
+another thing: these were crimes whereof rebuke and penance were the
+unfailing weed.
+
+While yet but half-conscious of this state of things, and unlearned in
+its results, I got on in my new sphere very well. After the first few
+difficult lessons, given amidst peril and on the edge of a moral
+volcano that rumbled under my feet and sent sparks and hot fumes into
+my eyes, the eruptive spirit seemed to subside, as far as I was
+concerned. My mind was a good deal bent on success: I could not bear
+the thought of being baffled by mere undisciplined disaffection and
+wanton indocility, in this first attempt to get on in life. Many hours
+of the night I used to lie awake, thinking what plan I had best adopt
+to get a reliable hold on these mutineers, to bring this stiff-necked
+tribe under permanent influence. In, the first place, I saw plainly
+that aid in no shape was to be expected from Madame: her righteous plan
+was to maintain an unbroken popularity with the pupils, at any and
+every cost of justice or comfort to the teachers. For a teacher to seek
+her alliance in any crisis of insubordination was equivalent to
+securing her own expulsion. In intercourse with her pupils, Madame only
+took to herself what was pleasant, amiable, and recommendatory; rigidly
+requiring of her lieutenants sufficiency for every annoying crisis,
+where to act with adequate promptitude was to be unpopular. Thus, I
+must look only to myself.
+
+Imprimis--it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not
+to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very
+patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very rare
+flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental application
+they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the memory, the
+reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an English girl
+of not more than average capacity and docility would quietly take a
+theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and mastery, a
+Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it back to you
+with the phrase,--"Dieu, que c'est difficile! Je n'en veux pas. Cela
+m'ennuie trop."
+
+A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once,
+without hesitation, contest, or expostulation--proceed with even
+exaggerated care to smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the level
+of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and lay on
+the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the sting,
+perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice against this
+sort of attack, provided the sneer was not _sour_, but _hearty_, and
+that it held well up to them, in a clear, light, and bold type, so that
+she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They
+would riot for three additional lines to a lesson; but I never knew
+them rebel against a wound given to their self-respect: the little they
+had of that quality was trained to be crushed, and it rather liked the
+pressure of a firm heel than otherwise.
+
+By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and
+could make such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their
+case, the elder and more intelligent girls began rather to like me in
+their way: I noticed that whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in
+her soul the stirring of worthy emulation, or the quickening of honest
+shame, from that date she was won. If I could but once make their
+(usually large) ears burn under their thick glossy hair, all was
+comparatively well. By-and-by bouquets began to be laid on my desk in
+the morning; by way of acknowledgment for this little foreign
+attention, I used sometimes to walk with a select few during
+recreation. In the course of conversation it befel once or twice that I
+made an unpremeditated attempt to rectify some of their singularly
+distorted notions of principle; especially I expressed my ideas of the
+evil and baseness of a lie. In an unguarded moment, I chanced to say
+that, of the two errors; I considered falsehood worse than an
+occasional lapse in church-attendance. The poor girls were tutored to
+report in Catholic ears whatever the Protestant teacher said. An
+edifying consequence ensued. Something--an unseen, an indefinite, a
+nameless--something stole between myself and these my best pupils: the
+bouquets continued to be offered, but conversation thenceforth became
+impracticable. As I paced the alleys or sat in the berceau, a girl
+never came to my right hand but a teacher, as if by magic, appeared at
+my left. Also, wonderful to relate, Madame's shoes of silence brought
+her continually to my back, as quick, as noiseless and unexpected, as
+some wandering zephyr.
+
+The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual
+prospects was somewhat naïvely expressed to me on one occasion. A
+pensionnaire, to whom I had rendered some little service, exclaimed one
+day as she sat beside me: "Mademoiselle, what a pity you are a
+Protestant!"
+
+"Why, Isabelle?"
+
+"Parceque, quand vous serez morte--vous brûlerez tout de suite dans
+l'Enfer."
+
+"Croyez-vous?"
+
+"Certainement que j'y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d'ailleurs le
+prêtre me l'a dit."
+
+Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, _sotto voce_:
+"Pour assurer votre salut là-haut, on ferait bien de vous brûler toute
+vive ici-bas."
+
+I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Has the reader forgotten Miss Ginevra Fanshawe? If so, I must be
+allowed to re-introduce that young lady as a thriving pupil of Madame
+Beck's; for such she was. On her arrival in the Rue Fossette, two or
+three days after my sudden settlement there, she encountered me with
+very little surprise. She must have had good blood in her veins, for
+never was any duchess more perfectly, radically, unaffectedly
+_nonchalante_ than she: a weak, transient amaze was all she knew of the
+sensation of wonder. Most of her other faculties seemed to be in the
+same flimsy condition: her liking and disliking, her love and hate,
+were mere cobweb and gossamer; but she had one thing about her that
+seemed strong and durable enough, and that was--her selfishness.
+
+She was not proud; and--_bonne d'enfants_ as I was--she would forthwith
+have made of me a sort of friend and confidant. She teased me with a
+thousand vapid complaints about school-quarrels and household economy:
+the cookery was not to her taste; the people about her, teachers and
+pupils, she held to be despicable, because they were foreigners. I bore
+with her abuse of the Friday's salt fish and hard eggs--with her
+invective against the soup, the bread, the coffee--with some patience
+for a time; but at last, wearied by iteration, I turned crusty, and put
+her to rights: a thing I ought to have done in the very beginning, for
+a salutary setting down always agreed with her.
+
+Much longer had I to endure her demands on me in the way of work. Her
+wardrobe, so far as concerned articles of external wear, was well and
+elegantly supplied; but there were other habiliments not so carefully
+provided: what she had, needed frequent repair. She hated
+needle-drudgery herself, and she would bring her hose, &c. to me in
+heaps, to be mended. A compliance of some weeks threatening to result
+in the establishment of an intolerable bore--I at last distinctly told
+her she must make up her mind to mend her own garments. She cried on
+receiving this information, and accused me of having ceased to be her
+friend; but I held by my decision, and let the hysterics pass as they
+could.
+
+Notwithstanding these foibles, and various others needless to
+mention--but by no means of a refined or elevating character--how
+pretty she was! How charming she looked, when she came down on a sunny
+Sunday morning, well-dressed and well-humoured, robed in pale lilac
+silk, and with her fair long curls reposing on her white shoulders.
+Sunday was a holiday which she always passed with friends resident in
+town; and amongst these friends she speedily gave me to understand was
+one who would fain become something more. By glimpses and hints it was
+shown me, and by the general buoyancy of her look and manner it was ere
+long proved, that ardent admiration--perhaps genuine love--was at her
+command. She called her suitor "Isidore:" this, however, she intimated
+was not his real name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize
+him--his own, she hinted, not being "very pretty." Once, when she had
+been bragging about the vehemence of "Isidore's" attachment, I asked if
+she loved him in return.
+
+"Comme cela," said she: "he is handsome, and he loves me to
+distraction, so that I am well amused. Ca suffit."
+
+Finding that she carried the thing on longer than, from her very fickle
+tastes, I had anticipated, I one day took it upon me to make serious
+inquiries as to whether the gentleman was such as her parents, and
+especially her uncle--on whom, it appeared, she was dependent--would be
+likely to approve. She allowed that this was very doubtful, as she did
+not believe "Isidore" had much money.
+
+"Do you encourage him?" I asked.
+
+"Furieusement sometimes," said she.
+
+"Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?"
+
+"Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don't want to be married. I am too young."
+
+"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing in
+the end, he will be made miserable."
+
+"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and,
+disappointed if he didn't."
+
+"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?" said I.
+
+"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, à ce qu'on dit. Mrs.
+Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his
+way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh
+in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger."
+
+Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore;
+whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to
+favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she
+had neither words nor the power of putting them together so as to make
+graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him:
+nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched
+her heart or dwelt in her memory--that he was "beau, mais plutôt bel
+homme que joli garçon," was all she could assert. My patience would
+often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but
+for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave,
+went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage
+was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very
+plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with
+equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She
+laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had
+paid her a compliment.
+
+Miss Ginevra's school-studies were little better than nominal; there
+were but three things she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing,
+and dancing; also embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs which she
+could not afford to buy ready worked: such mere trifles as lessons in
+history, geography, grammar, and arithmetic, she left undone, or got
+others to do for her. Very much of her time was spent in visiting.
+Madame, aware that her stay at school was now limited to a certain
+period, which would not be extended whether she made progress or not,
+allowed her great licence in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley--her
+_chaperon_--a gay, fashionable lady, invited her whenever she had
+company at her own house, and sometimes took her to evening-parties at
+the houses of her acquaintance. Ginevra perfectly approved this mode of
+procedure: it had but one inconvenience; she was obliged to be well
+dressed, and she had not money to buy variety of dresses. All her
+thoughts turned on this difficulty; her whole soul was occupied with
+expedients for effecting its solution. It was wonderful to witness the
+activity of her otherwise indolent mind on this point, and to see the
+much-daring intrepidity to which she was spurred by a sense of
+necessity, and the wish to shine.
+
+She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley--boldly, I say: not with an air
+of reluctant shame, but in this strain:--
+
+"My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your
+party next week; you _must_ give me a book-muslin dress, and then a
+_ceinture bleu celeste_: _do_--there's an angel! will you?"
+
+The "darling Mrs. C." yielded at first; but finding that applications
+increased as they were complied with, she was soon obliged, like all
+Miss Fanshawe's friends, to oppose resistance to encroachment. After a
+while I heard no more of Mrs. Cholmondeley's presents; but still,
+visiting went on, and the absolutely necessary dresses continued to be
+supplied: also many little expensive _etcetera_--gloves, bouquets, even
+trinkets. These things, contrary to her custom, and even nature--for
+she was not secretive--were most sedulously kept out of sight for a
+time; but one evening, when she was going to a large party for which
+particular care and elegance of costume were demanded, she could not
+resist coming to my chamber to show herself in all her splendour.
+
+Beautiful she looked: so young, so fresh, and with a delicacy of skin
+and flexibility of shape altogether English, and not found in the list
+of continental female charms. Her dress was new, costly, and perfect. I
+saw at a glance that it lacked none of those finishing details which
+cost so much, and give to the general effect such an air of tasteful
+completeness.
+
+I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might
+survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best
+humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going to
+bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her delights
+but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what we are about, and
+find out the meaning of our magnificence"--and so put her off at arm's
+length, to undergo cooler inspection.
+
+"Shall I do?" was her question.
+
+"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I
+don't understand yours."
+
+"But how do I look?"
+
+"You look well dressed."
+
+She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct
+attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at this
+_parure_," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the bracelets: no one
+in the school has such a set--not Madame herself."
+
+"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those
+jewels?"
+
+"My uncle knows nothing about them."
+
+"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
+
+"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she
+never gives me anything now."
+
+I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly away.
+
+"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me
+when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
+
+"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your
+_parure_."
+
+For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
+
+"What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it--that is, not
+for the jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is certainly
+not paid for, but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the bill: he
+never notices items, but just looks at the total; and he is so rich,
+one need not care about a few guineas more or less."
+
+"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you
+you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in _my_ eyes, you will
+never look so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain straw
+bonnet you wore when I first saw you."
+
+"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply.
+"And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
+
+"Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to
+come flourishing and fluttering into my chamber--a mere jay in borrowed
+plumes. I have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss Fanshawe;
+and especially the peacock's eyes you call a _parure_: very pretty
+things, if you had bought them with money which was your own, and which
+you could well spare, but not at all pretty under present
+circumstances."
+
+"On est là pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!" was announced by the portress,
+and away she tripped.
+
+This semi-mystery of the _parure_ was not solved till two or three days
+afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession.
+
+"You need not be sulky with me," she began, "in the idea that I am
+running somebody, papa or M. de Bassompierre, deeply into debt. I
+assure you nothing remains unpaid for, but the few dresses I have
+lately had: all the rest is settled."
+
+"There," I thought, "lies the mystery; considering that they were not
+given you by Mrs. Cholmondeley, and that your own means are limited to
+a few shillings, of which I know you to be excessively careful."
+
+"Ecoutez!" she went on, drawing near and speaking in her most
+confidential and coaxing tone; for my "sulkiness" was inconvenient to
+her: she liked me to be in a talking and listening mood, even if I only
+talked to chide and listened to rail. "Ecoutez, chère grogneuse! I will
+tell you all how and about it; and you will then see, not only how
+right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. In the first place,
+I _must_ go out. Papa himself said that he wished me to see something
+of the world; he particularly remarked to Mrs. Cholmondeley, that,
+though I was a sweet creature enough, I had rather a
+bread-and-butter-eating, school-girl air; of which it was his special
+desire that I should get rid, by an introduction to society here,
+before I make my regular début in England. Well, then, if I go out, I
+_must_ dress. Mrs. Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will give nothing
+more; it would be too hard upon uncle to make him pay for _all_ the
+things I need: _that_ you can't deny--_that_ agrees with your own
+preachments. Well, but SOMEBODY who heard me (quite by chance, I assure
+you) complaining to Mrs. Cholmondeley of my distressed circumstances,
+and what straits I was put to for an ornament or two--_somebody_, far
+from grudging one a present, was quite delighted at the idea of being
+permitted to offer some trifle. You should have seen what a _blanc-bec_
+he looked when he first spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and
+positively trembled from fear of a repulse."
+
+"That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M.
+Isidore is the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that
+costly _parure_; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?"
+
+"You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows how
+to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow Isidore the
+pleasure and honour of expressing his homage by the offer of a trifle."
+
+"It comes to the same thing.... Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain truth,
+I don't very well understand these matters; but I believe you are doing
+very wrong--seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel certain
+that you will be able to marry M. Isidore; your parents and uncle have
+given their consent, and, for your part, you love him entirely?"
+
+"Mais pas du tout!" (she always had recourse to French when about to
+say something specially heartless and perverse). "Je suis sa reine,
+mais il n'est pas mon roi."
+
+"Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and coquetry.
+There is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by the
+good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel absolute indifference.
+You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or will avow."
+
+"No. I danced with a young officer the other night, whom I love a
+thousand times more than he. I often wonder why I feel so very cold to
+Isidore, for everybody says he is handsome, and other ladies admire
+him; but, somehow, he bores me: let me see now how it is...."
+
+And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her.
+
+"Yes!" I said, "try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To
+me it seems in a great mess--chaotic as a rag-bag."
+
+"It is something in this fashion," she cried out ere long: "the man is
+too romantic and devoted, and he expects something more of me than I
+find it convenient to be. He thinks I am perfect: furnished with all
+sorts of sterling qualities and solid virtues, such as I never had, nor
+intend to have. Now, one can't help, in his presence, rather trying to
+justify his good opinion; and it does so tire one to be goody, and to
+talk sense,--for he really thinks I am sensible. I am far more at my
+ease with you, old lady--you, you dear crosspatch--who take me at my
+lowest, and know me to be coquettish, and ignorant, and flirting, and
+fickle, and silly, and selfish, and all the other sweet things you and
+I have agreed to be a part of my character."
+
+"This is all very well," I said, making a strenuous effort to preserve
+that gravity and severity which ran risk of being shaken by this
+whimsical candour, "but it does not alter that wretched business of the
+presents. Pack them up, Ginevra, like a good, honest girl, and send
+them back."
+
+"Indeed, I won't," said she, stoutly.
+
+"Then you are deceiving M. Isidore. It stands to reason that by
+accepting his presents you give him to understand he will one day
+receive an equivalent, in your regard..."
+
+"But he won't," she interrupted: "he has his equivalent now, in the
+pleasure of seeing me wear them--quite enough for him: he is only
+bourgeois."
+
+This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the
+temporary weakness which had made me relax my tone and aspect. She
+rattled on:
+
+"My present business is to enjoy youth, and not to think of fettering
+myself, by promise or vow, to this man or that. When first I saw
+Isidore, I believed he would help me to enjoy it I believed he would be
+content with my being a pretty girl; and that we should meet and part
+and flutter about like two butterflies, and be happy. Lo, and behold! I
+find him at times as grave as a judge, and deep-feeling and thoughtful.
+Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et passionnés ne sont pas à mon
+goût. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better. Va pour les beaux
+fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les plaisirs! A bas les
+grandes passions et les sévères vertus!"
+
+She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
+
+"J'aime mon beau Colonel," she went on: "je n'aimerai jamais son rival.
+Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
+
+I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should
+be relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DR JOHN.
+
+
+Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the
+world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no
+deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous
+about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-being;
+but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon
+her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a
+genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the
+loving word.
+
+I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little
+bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their
+_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often pondered
+anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest, a puny
+and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its
+nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and
+panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand,
+so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child's sudden onset:
+"Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say unmoved, patiently permit it
+to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or kiss, or
+endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette.
+
+Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
+way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Désirée! Quel
+poison que cet enfant là!" were the expressions dedicated to her, alike
+in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted
+an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her
+_bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics,
+open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil
+their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet
+of the salle-à-manger, where she would smash articles of porcelain or
+glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the
+preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so
+contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the
+kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received
+report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was:
+
+"Désirée a besoin d'une surveillance toute particulière." Accordingly
+she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never
+once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the
+evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
+Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Désirée was
+kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and pillaged her
+mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame's work-table or toilet she
+could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she
+still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to confront
+the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value
+rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Désirée
+had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Désirée was not
+to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of
+theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors.
+Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly assume an air of
+belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the child till she
+tracked her: to her hiding-places--some hole in the garden-wall--some
+chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done, Madame would send
+Désirée out for a walk with her _bonne_, and profit by her absence to
+rob the robber. Désirée proved herself the true daughter of her astute
+parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray
+the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss.
+
+The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.
+Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue
+eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was
+an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling
+creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into
+perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top
+to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing
+the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the
+salle-à-manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
+cassé."
+
+At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true:
+one little plump arm hung powerless.
+
+"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
+de suite chercher un fiacre."
+
+In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and
+self-possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.
+
+It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that
+mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her
+mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the child's
+sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.
+
+We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the
+portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the
+small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor
+when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with endeavouring
+to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs) were appalling
+to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the stranger approached
+her bed; when he took her up, "Let alone!" she cried passionately, in
+her broken English (for she spoke English as did the other children).
+"I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!"
+
+"And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend," was the answer, in perfect
+English; "but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in
+his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence
+business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in
+right order."
+
+Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucrée_, fed her with some
+teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande; anybody
+could win her heart through her palate), promised her more when the
+operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance
+being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-armed woman;
+but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I did not like to
+touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there was no alternative,
+my hand was already extended to do what was requisite. I was
+anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand: hers was steady
+while mine trembled.
+
+"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.
+
+He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
+forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.
+
+"Merci, Madame; très bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
+finished. "Voilà un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille élans
+de sensibilité déplacée."
+
+He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was
+likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and
+manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well
+at him, and when a lamp was brought in--for it was evening and now
+waxing dusk--you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than woman,
+it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he _was_ young) had
+no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly tall in that little
+chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made women; his profile was
+clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye glanced from face to face
+rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often; but it had a most
+pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft,
+Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up
+one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it merited; there was
+something in it that pleased, but something too that brought surging up
+into the mind all one's foibles and weak points: all that could lay one
+open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this doubtful smile, and thought the
+owner genial: much as he had hurt her, she held out her hand to bid him
+a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he
+and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide
+of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured
+amenity, dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it
+difficult to describe.
+
+I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better; he
+had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As he
+passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one
+moment--not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing,
+that I almost necessarily looked up at him--a recollection which had
+been struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard
+his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I
+had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the trunk;
+who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as he
+passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his
+very tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under
+the dripping trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was, to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician's first visit
+to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr. Pillule
+being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why his
+temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had
+written their decree to the contrary.
+
+Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the
+antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing
+change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the
+timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for
+the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.
+
+I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little
+invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the
+nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his
+care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny
+and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should
+make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase
+and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.
+
+No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Désirée declared
+herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and
+captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came
+to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her
+tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother
+still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck
+as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of
+gravity and good faith.
+
+What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had
+taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of
+addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and
+he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)--that Dr. John consented
+tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics, and to fall in with her manoeuvres.
+He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid
+glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of
+self-consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to
+play his part in the farce. Désirée eat like a raven, gambolled day and
+night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged
+like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing
+her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters--over-flowed, in
+short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only languishing when
+her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit. Madame Beck, I
+knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in bed out of the
+way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the
+business.
+
+Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual
+attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the
+same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of
+concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the
+patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame
+caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much good
+sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not
+despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design
+to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the
+pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was
+independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he
+was often thoughtful and preoccupied.
+
+It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,
+or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly
+help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my
+presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a
+person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is
+given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's
+work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for
+Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks
+himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his countenance and
+movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar
+interest and attachment--all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and
+inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell--which wedded him to this
+demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a capital. He, I
+believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain
+behind them.
+
+Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat
+in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,
+whiskers, and complexion--the whole being of such a tone as a strong
+light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was
+driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the "golden
+image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new, sudden,
+and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering strength and
+power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the
+force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I
+only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice was
+arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval
+mirror fixed in the side of the window recess--by the aid of which
+reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden
+below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not without
+a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease under a
+direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and said, in a
+tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark
+a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character
+of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain enough to
+fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then be
+some defect. Dare I ask--what?"
+
+I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an
+irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of
+incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable
+inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared
+myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not in the
+habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he chose
+and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had dropped, and
+kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his stay. There is a
+perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by
+misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known,
+we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest
+man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather
+tickled than vexed at the mistake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.
+
+
+It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
+children, took a fever. Désirée, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
+together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way
+of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and
+Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at
+home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his visits. One or
+two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in other respects
+seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment. "Now, at last,"
+I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent directress will
+never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the pupils."
+
+The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
+venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
+the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
+handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angélique, her
+friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
+mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
+the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
+this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not
+to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
+school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
+parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
+been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
+were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
+ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
+yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
+as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
+her firmness on this occasion.
+
+She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody
+matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
+assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which on
+various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and complete
+success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would probably have
+failed.
+
+"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing joyously
+her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur créature
+du monde!" and go on to explain how she happened to be employing him
+for her own children, who were so fond of him they would scream
+themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how, where she
+had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose trust for
+others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary expedient in the
+world; Blanche and Angélique had the migraine; Dr. John had written a
+prescription; voilà tout!
+
+The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angélique saved her all
+remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician's praise;
+the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they were
+ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed, and
+the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large organ of
+philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is carried
+by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being the
+children's will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this
+occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying
+colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.
+
+To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest
+for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the
+whole house--pupils, teachers, servants included--affirmed that she was
+going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age seemed to
+make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.
+
+It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this
+idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of
+her former protégé, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally
+receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and
+benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about this time,
+marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the nightcap and
+shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits always found her with
+auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly fitted on, neat
+laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole toilette
+complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however,
+that her intention in this went further than just to show a very
+handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was
+not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she pleased.
+Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never tired of
+seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or colourless, or
+flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light, her
+cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things pleased in
+moderation, but with constancy.
+
+Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
+taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
+which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
+comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
+visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
+half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
+vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
+was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
+encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
+intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
+wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
+fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,
+never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
+terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever _do_
+love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited the end.
+
+For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the
+peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager
+look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite
+within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and
+farther beyond it.
+
+One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
+more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
+particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
+it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
+in order to consult him.
+
+The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
+his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
+to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
+and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes
+elapsed--ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be
+doing? Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still
+piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term,
+"Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to
+ascertain why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he
+vanished? Was he with Madame in the _salle-à-manger?_ Impossible: I had
+left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
+listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
+proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser
+drawing-rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the
+portress's cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended
+originally for a boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the
+oratory, a whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson,
+and just then joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it),
+whereof I yet remember these words "fraîchë," "brisë," and "Venisë."
+Under these circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly;
+had it only been to the purpose.
+
+Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
+cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed; a
+man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
+whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
+second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
+with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
+baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.
+
+The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
+believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
+some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
+impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
+sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
+hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
+seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
+him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
+room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
+and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
+grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
+surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to
+have passed?
+
+But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
+out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I
+glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart
+dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing
+save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass
+globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.
+
+Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.
+
+Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside; Madame stood before
+him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay
+composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the
+physician's own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in his
+looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and change of
+air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing indifference,
+telling her that she was "trop bonne," and that he felt perfectly well.
+Madame appealed to me--Dr. John following her movement with a slow
+glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made
+to a quarter so insignificant.
+
+"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
+thinner?"
+
+It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John's
+presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to
+remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took
+licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite
+significant.
+
+"He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some temporary
+cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed." I cannot tell how he
+took this speech, as I never sought his face for information. Georgette
+here began to ask me in her broken English if she might have a glass of
+_eau sucrée_. I answered her in English. For the first time, I fancy,
+he noticed that I spoke his language; hitherto he had always taken me
+for a foreigner, addressing me as "Mademoiselle," and giving in French
+the requisite directions about the children's treatment. He seemed on
+the point of making a remark; but thinking better of it, held his
+tongue.
+
+Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and
+bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air
+of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and spoiling.
+
+When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she
+rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable vanished
+from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified and morose.
+She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang for
+morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a glass
+upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white hair
+streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a shudder. In
+the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had the colour,
+could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth; and then,
+where were youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even _you_
+knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened
+towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come
+upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly
+"All-hail," and her soul rejected the intimacy.
+
+But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced
+five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to
+contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their
+influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very
+good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any
+philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young
+man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that
+the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a
+mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I broke it,
+and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering in good
+time its exquisite folly. "Somebody," I argued, "might as well
+sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that
+do?"
+
+I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make
+herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong
+feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably
+pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real
+business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her
+interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense
+which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these
+combined advantages she behaved wisely--she behaved well. Brava! once
+more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an Apollyon of a
+predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CASKET.
+
+
+Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,
+considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection
+at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to
+certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone
+around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how
+lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!
+
+There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been a
+convent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but I
+think some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter, and
+when it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy seclusion
+as ought to embosom a religious house--that something had happened on
+this site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had left to the
+place the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went of a black
+and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the year, seen in
+some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been built out some
+ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but certain
+convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet
+consecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of a
+pear-tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewed
+their perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants in
+autumn--you saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between the
+half-bared roots, a glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The
+legend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but still propagated, that
+this was the portal of a vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground,
+on whose surface grass grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl
+whom a monkish conclave of the drear middle ages had here buried alive
+for some sin against her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers had
+feared, through long generations after her poor frame was dust; her
+black robe and white veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade had
+mocked, as they fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.
+
+Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its
+charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;
+on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising
+moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than
+feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the
+gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful
+about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large
+berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a
+smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all
+along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of
+beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
+spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.
+
+Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
+Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
+pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
+college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
+limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down place
+enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the externes were
+gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies; pleasant was it
+then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the bells of St. Jean
+Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.
+
+I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
+the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
+mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
+could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
+the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
+evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
+Protestant, exempted myself.
+
+"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay with
+us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
+presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
+enjoy these precious minutes."
+
+The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
+the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
+premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
+rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain attic
+loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the
+women-servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
+chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
+ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
+forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allée
+défendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
+liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
+establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
+but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
+thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
+leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
+was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully
+shunned.
+
+From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of
+avoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For
+a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by
+degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such
+shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades, certainly
+not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to
+offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my
+identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this strait and
+narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grew
+between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past
+autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton,
+the cuisinière, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seat
+clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely
+or not I don't know; but she _seemed_ sincere.
+
+"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
+Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allée, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is quiet
+and shady."
+
+"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonté; and she kindly
+recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, that
+as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble myself
+to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to come
+there, to talk English with me.
+
+On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed
+from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of
+the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the
+city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce
+ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streets
+brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling
+through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolled
+curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped the
+curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to
+festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay
+instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though
+often I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was
+not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only
+reach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere,
+could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no
+hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.
+
+A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her
+through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible
+beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood
+knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curve
+leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field,
+in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside a
+stately spire in this continental capital.
+
+Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I
+spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_ feel.
+About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future--such
+a future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I
+studiously held the quick of my nature.
+
+At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidents
+of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they
+woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
+could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane
+shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to their
+saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was
+roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself, and
+creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, with
+my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it was
+wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round the
+night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too
+resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and
+full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to
+man--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced
+by white and blinding bolts.
+
+I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,
+for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me
+upwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was
+necessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after the
+manner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. Unlike
+Sisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and at
+intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did the
+temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.
+
+To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet
+in the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,
+something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on the
+soothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of which
+the sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding a
+reflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed sleeper,
+over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying without. Jael,
+the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her captive; but
+more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber coming home.
+By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy sweetness of the
+night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point,
+but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.
+
+Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been
+the harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude
+Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too
+often is.
+
+Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,
+the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows
+here are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look
+up and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree overhead
+shook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone at my feet.
+
+Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it
+was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of
+that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline
+clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even in
+my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to read
+print of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile was a
+box, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid opened in
+my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely folded bit of
+pink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise." I wore indeed a
+dress of French grey.
+
+Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had
+not had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of commodity
+I held between my finger and thumb at this moment?
+
+Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very
+thoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;
+one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future
+husband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospective
+bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
+had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
+which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
+had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
+town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
+were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet with
+some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze assured
+them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that my
+experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and I
+took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me. There was
+not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and did not
+testify to having received an admiring beam from our young doctor's
+blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however humbling it may
+sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue eyes
+were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin.
+So it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often at
+their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but did not trouble
+myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed so certain of
+treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in settled
+conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it ran--I
+translate:--
+
+"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
+scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
+to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
+with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
+secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
+teacher--une véritable bégueule Britannique à ce que vous dites--espèce
+de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et
+revêche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty in
+allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight
+veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this precious
+effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been
+removed to a master's chamber--that favoured chamber, whose lattice
+overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, am
+admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and
+glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me, though a desert for you!--how I
+feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heart
+palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs,
+I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the waving
+of your grey dress--dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand.
+But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of
+those adorable eyes!--how a single glance would have revived me! I
+write this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I
+snatch an opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with a
+bouquet of flowers, the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee,
+my Peri--my all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"
+
+"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even closer
+reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the
+writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiancé of one of the engaged
+pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
+intended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the
+majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.
+But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--a
+very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,
+common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more
+definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress
+just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had grey
+dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort
+of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
+
+Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the
+dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to
+bed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lights
+extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated
+house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet
+close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved
+drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.
+
+All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautious
+tinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinet
+and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two minutes in
+parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the garden door,
+lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp, looking round
+vaguely.
+
+"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a été."
+
+"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
+familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
+it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks.
+It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour;
+but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly
+night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and on
+that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
+branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
+There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
+
+"Dr. John! it is found."
+
+He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held
+it in my hand.
+
+"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
+dragon.
+
+"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
+know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
+reveals."
+
+"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
+believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
+fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his calling
+me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured
+as he read.
+
+"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were the
+words that fell from him.
+
+I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
+matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
+be more to blame.
+
+"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell Madame
+Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"
+
+I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
+there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent to
+make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
+establishment.
+
+He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
+honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
+commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
+grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
+door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
+see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
+connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
+case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
+whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure me
+that none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business, I
+shall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the
+casket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the
+whole affair."
+
+"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
+offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
+
+I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly
+descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two
+minutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a cat,
+however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing could be
+lighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she turned a
+corner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She reappeared, and
+he was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing the door between
+him and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away, but I preferred to
+meet Madame openly.
+
+Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in
+the garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was
+I that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now to
+pounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No. Madame
+was all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she testified
+no shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in which I
+believe she was never surpassed by living thing, she even professed
+merely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."
+
+"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon was
+now gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait bon?
+que l'air est frais!"
+
+And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns with
+her down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she
+leaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the
+front-door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and
+"Bon soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for the
+night.
+
+I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my
+couch--smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour
+offered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind
+was busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,
+through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a
+glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night's
+transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of
+surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown
+into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,
+without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,
+or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few
+words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I
+thought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she should
+have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her
+premises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that time be
+able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay tempting her
+to disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and round in
+cobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved, like the
+foolish fly she was?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.
+
+
+I had occasion to smile--nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the
+space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in the
+last chapter.
+
+Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of
+any English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset,
+and all the next day was one of dry storm--dark, beclouded, yet
+rainless,--the streets were dim with sand and dust, whirled from the
+boulevards. I know not that even lovely weather would have tempted me
+to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it
+yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the
+garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their
+seclusion was now become precarious; their calm--insecure. That
+casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it
+overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision,
+and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants
+there were, indeed, trodden down by Dr. John in his search, and his
+hasty and heedless progress, which I wished to prop up, water, and
+revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the beds: but these, in
+spite of the strong wind, I found a moment's leisure to efface very
+early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a
+pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while the
+pupils settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers took up
+their needlework.
+
+The scene of the "etude du soir" was always the refectory, a much
+smaller apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for
+here none, save the boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered
+only a score. Two lamps hung from the ceiling over the two tables;
+these were lit at dusk, and their kindling was the signal for
+school-books being set aside, a grave demeanour assumed, general
+silence enforced, and then commenced "la lecture pieuse." This said
+"lecture pieuse" was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome
+mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason; and
+such a dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure, and
+thrive on as she best could.
+
+The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
+recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
+Hôtel de Ville.
+
+I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
+into my hands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the
+title, and perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as an
+unworthy heretic, it was only permitted me to drink in with my
+bewildered ears. This book contained legends of the saints. Good God!
+(I speak the words reverently) what legends they were. What gasconading
+rascals those saints must have been, if they first boasted these
+exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, however, were no
+more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed inwardly; there
+were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft of the book was
+far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each side of my head as
+I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom inflicted by Rome;
+the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly abused their office,
+trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies, making of countesses
+and princesses the most tormented slaves under the sun. Stories like
+that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary, recurred again and again, with
+all its dreadful viciousness, sickening tyranny and black impiety:
+tales that were nightmares of oppression, privation, and agony.
+
+I sat out this "lecture pieuse" for some nights as well as I could, and
+as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors by
+involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board of
+the table before me. But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and my
+temples, and my heart, and my wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep
+afterwards was so broken with excitement, that I could sit no longer.
+Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance of my person from
+the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. No Mause
+Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
+Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
+popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein
+in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I
+shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
+vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
+vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.
+
+When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
+carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
+unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought the
+long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate if the
+moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to their dim
+gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In summer it was
+never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own quarter of the
+long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber was lit by five
+casements large as great doors), and leaning out, looked forth upon the
+city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from the park or the
+palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own life,
+in my own still, shadow-world.
+
+This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
+mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly opened the
+door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which, like every other
+door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Before I
+_saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room, usually void: not that
+there was either stir or breath, or rustle of sound, but Vacuum lacked,
+Solitude was not at home. All the white beds--the "lits d'ange," as
+they were poetically termed--lay visible at a glance; all were empty:
+no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of a drawer cautiously slid out
+struck my ear; stepping a little to one side, my vision took a free
+range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I now commanded my own bed and my
+own toilet, with a locked work-box upon it, and locked drawers
+underneath.
+
+Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
+cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
+apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
+stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
+impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in turn: not an article
+of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper but was
+glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the
+adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished.
+Madame wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I
+will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been
+a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she
+was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements
+provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers--satisfied by their
+trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary
+to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The
+searcher might have turned and caught me; there would have been nothing
+for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had to come all at
+once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each other: down
+would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises, and _I_ should
+have looked into her eyes, and she into mine--we should have known that
+we could work together no more, and parted in this life for ever.
+
+Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and
+had no wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another
+employer whose yoke would be so light and so, easy of carriage; and
+truly I liked Madame for her capital sense, whatever I might think of
+her principles: as to her system, it did me no harm; she might work me
+with it to her heart's content: nothing would come of the operation.
+Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my
+heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.
+I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift
+and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran down
+the bannister.
+
+How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had
+certainly seen Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were.
+The spectacle of a suspicious nature so far misled by its own
+inventions, tickled me much. Yet as the laugh died, a kind of wrath
+smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was the rock struck, and
+Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and
+contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening:
+soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between
+them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me--I did not
+care twopence for her mistrust--but for other reasons. Complicated,
+disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However,
+that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.
+
+On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the closest
+subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent
+disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded
+as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had
+once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me, for
+we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for its
+sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there unstirred;
+my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars, were unrumpled.
+Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have felt much
+greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight and
+orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I
+bear malice?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key
+to that riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to
+useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he
+had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden,
+should have known that it _was_ dropped, and appeared so promptly on
+the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point that
+I began to entertain this daring suggestion: "Why may I not, in case I
+should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to explain this
+coincidence?"
+
+And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
+test him with such a question.
+
+Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly
+made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them
+altogether, had not Madame insisted on his giving an occasional call
+till the child should be quite well.
+
+She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to
+Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking
+the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de
+fièvre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance
+than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue
+dernièrement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house.
+"Well," she continued, "I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en
+fiacre. I shall call on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will
+that he sees her this evening; her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is
+quick; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from home."
+
+Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it
+was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme
+unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made
+"courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the
+first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit
+from Dr. John. The whole arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw,
+but without the least anxiety. "Ha! ha! Madame," laughed Light-heart
+the Beggar, "your crafty wits are on the wrong tack."
+
+She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
+_chapeau vert tendre_--hazardous, as to its tint, for any complexion
+less fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I wondered what
+she intended: whether she really would send Dr. John or not; or whether
+indeed he would come: he might be engaged.
+
+Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came;
+I had therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and
+palavering the little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette;
+she was a sensitive and a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or carry
+her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me lay my
+head on the pillow of her crib; she even put her little arms round my
+neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with which she pressed her
+cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain. Feeling of no
+kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure little
+source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart, and
+sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette
+murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. "And you _shall_
+sleep," thought I, "malgré maman and médecin, if they are not here in
+ten minutes."
+
+Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the
+staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine
+introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether
+peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette
+generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame's presence
+would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the
+cabinet--for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not
+a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her
+gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than
+if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
+
+"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
+a jerk of her chin.
+
+"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
+his pencil some harmless prescription.
+
+"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
+his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
+coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."
+
+"I found it: yes."
+
+"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
+very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
+courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point
+which, for others, seems unattainable!
+
+"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort
+of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
+character.
+
+"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
+thrown, since he came to seek it--how did he know?"
+
+"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
+saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."
+
+How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
+as then examining "Gustave."
+
+"Ah ça!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de
+mystère, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"
+
+"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.
+
+"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--à qui tout cela
+commençait à donner des idées."
+
+"Vraiment! vous en êtes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
+rejoinder.
+
+She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
+she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and
+genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
+
+"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
+month?" he asked.
+
+"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite readily.
+
+"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
+give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
+danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
+minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
+
+The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
+not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace
+in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering
+like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
+
+I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the
+ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor yet
+on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John's
+heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette's
+little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was the culprit?
+What was the ground--what the origin--what the perfect explanation of
+the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but how many yet
+remained obscure as night!
+
+"However," I said to myself, "it is no affair of yours;" and turning
+from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a
+questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the
+garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bed-side, was slowly
+drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes
+closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he
+should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate
+"good-night.". Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall
+houses bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated,
+cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white
+handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered
+from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after
+there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and
+light--billet the second, of course.
+
+"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.
+
+"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
+"What, is it?"
+
+"They have gone and done it again," was my reply. "A handkerchief waved
+and something fell:" and I pointed to the lattice, now closed and
+looking hypocritically blank.
+
+"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
+adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."
+
+Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper,
+lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct
+to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.
+
+He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it. "It
+is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said, looking
+at me.
+
+"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"
+
+"You don't yet know, then?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Have you no guess?"
+
+"None."
+
+"If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and
+thus secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but
+somewhat inexperienced being."
+
+"As a duenna?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added,
+musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face,
+anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would
+warrant him in recommending to my care and indulgence some ethereal
+creature, against whom powers of darkness were plotting. I felt no
+particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of ethereal
+creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed to me that
+I owed _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ help him then I would, and it
+lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance as might be, I
+intimated that "I was willing to do what I could towards taking care of
+any person in whom he might be interested.".
+
+"I am no farther interested than as a spectator," said he, with a
+modesty, admirable, as I thought, to witness. "I happen to be
+acquainted with the rather worthless character of the person, who, from
+the house opposite, has now twice invaded the sanctity of this place; I
+have also met in society the object at whom these vulgar attempts are
+aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate refinement ought, one would
+think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It is not so, however;
+and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would guard her from evil if I
+could. In person, however, I can do nothing I cannot come near her"--he
+paused.
+
+"Well, I am willing to help you," said I, "only tell me how." And
+busily, in my own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking
+this paragon, this pearl of great price, this gem without flaw. "It
+must be Madame," I concluded. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has the art
+even to _seem_ superior: but as to being unsuspicious, inexperienced,
+&c., Dr. John need not distract himself about that. However, this is
+just his whim, and I will not contradict him; he shall be humoured: his
+angel shall be an angel.
+
+"Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed," I
+continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of
+being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John
+had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no more
+coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was a
+little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a smile
+he turned and took his hat--he was going. My heart smote me.
+
+"I will--I will help you," said I eagerly. "I will do what you wish. I
+will watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who
+she is."
+
+"But you _must_ know," said he then with earnestness, yet speaking very
+low. "So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful! impossible that
+one house should contain two like her. I allude, of course--"
+
+Here the latch of Madame Beck's chamber-door (opening into the nursery)
+gave a sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been slightly
+convulsed; there was the suppressed explosion of an irrepressible
+sneeze. These little accidents will happen to the best of us.
+Madame--excellent woman! was then on duty. She had come home quietly,
+stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If she had not
+sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that unlucky
+sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came forward
+alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no novice to
+her habits but would have thought she had just come in, and scouted the
+idea of her ear having been glued to the key-hole for at least ten
+minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared she was "enrhumée," and
+then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en fiacre." The
+prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FÊTE.
+
+
+As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country. I
+was sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than before.
+But I must not complain. I lived in a house full of robust life; I
+might have had companions, and I chose solitude. Each of the teachers
+in turn made me overtures of special intimacy; I tried them all. One I
+found to be an honest woman, but a narrow thinker, a coarse feeler, and
+an egotist. The second was a Parisienne, externally refined--at heart,
+corrupt--without a creed, without a principle, without an affection:
+having penetrated the outward crust of decorum in this character, you
+found a slough beneath. She had a wonderful passion for presents; and,
+in this point, the third teacher--a person otherwise characterless and
+insignificant--closely resembled her. This last-named had also one
+other distinctive property--that of avarice. In her reigned the love of
+money for its own sake. The sight of a piece of gold would bring into
+her eyes a green glisten, singular to witness. She once, as a mark of
+high favour, took me up-stairs, and, opening a secret door, showed me a
+hoard--a mass of coarse, large coin--about fifteen guineas, in
+five-franc pieces. She loved this hoard as a bird loves its eggs. These
+were her savings. She would come and talk to me about them with an
+infatuated and persevering dotage, strange to behold in a person not
+yet twenty-five.
+
+The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and profligate (in
+disposition, that is: as to action, I do not know). That latter quality
+showed its snake-head to me but once, peeping out very cautiously. A
+curious kind of reptile it seemed, judging from the glimpse I got; its
+novelty whetted my curiosity: if it would have come out boldly, perhaps
+I might philosophically have stood my ground, and coolly surveyed the
+long thing from forked tongue to scaly tail-tip; but it merely rustled
+in the leaves of a bad novel; and, on encountering a hasty and
+ill-advised demonstration of wrath, recoiled and vanished, hissing. She
+hated me from that day.
+
+This Parisienne was always in debt; her salary being anticipated, not
+only in dress, but in perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, and
+condiments. What a cold, callous epicure she was in all things! I see
+her now. Thin in face and figure, sallow in complexion, regular in
+features, with perfect teeth, lips like a thread, a large, prominent
+chin, a well-opened, but frozen eye, of light at once craving and
+ingrate. She mortally hated work, and loved what she called pleasure;
+being an insipid, heartless, brainless dissipation of time.
+
+Madame Beck knew this woman's character perfectly well. She once talked
+to me about her, with an odd mixture of discrimination, indifference,
+and antipathy. I asked why she kept her in the establishment. She
+answered plainly, "because it suited her interest to do so;" and
+pointed out a fact I had already noticed, namely, that Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre possessed, in an almost unique degree, the power of keeping
+order amongst her undisciplined ranks of scholars. A certain petrifying
+influence accompanied and surrounded her: without passion, noise, or
+violence, she held them in check as a breezeless frost-air might still
+a brawling stream. She was of little use as far as communication of
+knowledge went, but for strict surveillance and maintenance of rules
+she was invaluable. "Je sais bien qu'elle n'a pas de principes, ni,
+peut-être, de moeurs," admitted Madame frankly; but added with
+philosophy, "son maintien en classe est toujours convenable et rempli
+même d'une certaine dignité: c'est tout ce qu'il faut. Ni les élèves ni
+les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par conséquent, moi non plus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains
+were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism
+pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was
+permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each
+mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from
+dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was seized
+and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to bring
+up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy, hale,
+joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. "Eat, drink, and live!"
+she says. "Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I hold their
+cure--guide their course: I guarantee their final fate." A bargain, in
+which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer just offers
+the same terms: "All this power will I give thee, and the glory of it;
+for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If
+thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine!"
+
+About this time--in the ripest glow of summer--Madame Beck's house
+became as merry a place as a school could well be. All day long the
+broad folding-doors and the two-leaved casements stood wide open:
+settled sunshine seemed naturalized in the atmosphere; clouds were far
+off, sailing away beyond sea, resting, no doubt, round islands such as
+England--that dear land of mists--but withdrawn wholly from the drier
+continent. We lived far more in the garden than under a roof: classes
+were held, and meals partaken of, in the "grand berceau." Moreover,
+there was a note of holiday preparation, which almost turned freedom
+into licence. The autumnal long vacation was but two months distant;
+but before that, a great day--an important ceremony--none other than
+the fête of Madame--awaited celebration.
+
+The conduct of this fête devolved chiefly on Mademoiselle St. Pierre:
+Madame herself being supposed to stand aloof, disinterestedly
+unconscious of what might be going forward in her honour. Especially,
+she never knew, never in the least suspected, that a subscription was
+annually levied on the whole school for the purchase of a handsome
+present. The polite tact of the reader will please to leave out of the
+account a brief, secret consultation on this point in Madame's own
+chamber.
+
+"What will you have this year?" was asked by her Parisian lieutenant.
+
+"Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their francs,"
+And Madame looked benign and modest.
+
+The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart;
+she always called her airs of "bonté"--"des grimaces." She never even
+professed to respect them one instant.
+
+"Vite!" she would say coldly. "Name the article. Shall it be jewellery
+or porcelain, haberdashery or silver?"
+
+"Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent."
+
+And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of
+plate.
+
+The programme of the fête-day's proceedings comprised: Presentation of
+plate, collation in the garden, dramatic performance (with pupils and
+teachers for actors), a dance and supper. Very gorgeous seemed the
+effect of the whole to me, as I well remember. Zélie St. Pierre
+understood these things and managed them ably.
+
+The play was the main point; a month's previous drilling being there
+required. The choice, too, of the actors required knowledge and care;
+then came lessons in elocution, in attitude, and then the fatigue of
+countless rehearsals. For all this, as may well be supposed, St. Pierre
+did not suffice: other management, other accomplishments than hers were
+requisite here. They were supplied in the person of a master--M. Paul
+Emanuel, professor of literature. It was never my lot to be present at
+the histrionic lessons of M. Paul, but I often saw him as he crossed
+the _carré_ (a square hall between the dwelling-house and
+school-house). I heard him, too, in the warm evenings, lecturing with
+open doors, and his name, with anecdotes of him, resounded in ones ears
+from all sides. Especially our former acquaintance, Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe,--who had been selected to take a prominent part in the
+play--used, in bestowing upon me a large portion of her leisure, to
+lard her discourse with frequent allusions to his sayings and doings.
+She esteemed him hideously plain, and used to profess herself
+frightened almost into hysterics at the sound of his step or voice. A
+dark little man he certainly was; pungent and austere. Even to me he
+seemed a harsh apparition, with his close-shorn, black head, his broad,
+sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide and quivering nostril, his
+thorough glance, and hurried bearing. Irritable he was; one heard that,
+as he apostrophized with vehemence the awkward squad under his orders.
+Sometimes he would break out on these raw amateur actresses with a
+passion of impatience at their falseness of conception, their coldness
+of emotion, their feebleness of delivery. "Ecoutez!" he would cry; and
+then his voice rang through the premises like a trumpet; and when,
+mimicking it, came the small pipe of a Ginevra, a Mathilde, or a
+Blanche, one understood why a hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce hiss
+of rage, rewarded the tame echo.
+
+"Vous n'êtes donc que des poupées," I heard him thunder. "Vous n'avez
+pas de passions--vous autres. Vous ne sentez donc rien? Votre chair est
+de neige, votre sang de glace! Moi, je veux que tout cela s'allume,
+qu'il ait une vie, une âme!"
+
+Vain resolve! And when he at last found it _was_ vain, he suddenly
+broke the whole business down. Hitherto he had been teaching them a
+grand tragedy; he tore the tragedy in morsels, and came next day with a
+compact little comic trifle. To this they took more kindly; he
+presently knocked it all into their smooth round pates.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre always presided at M. Emanuel's lessons, and I
+was told that the polish of her manner, her seeming attention, her tact
+and grace, impressed that gentleman very favourably. She had, indeed,
+the art of pleasing, for a given time, whom she would; but the feeling
+would not last: in an hour it was dried like dew, vanished like
+gossamer.
+
+The day preceding Madame's fête was as much a holiday as the fête
+itself. It was devoted to clearing out, cleaning, arranging and
+decorating the three schoolrooms. All within-doors was the gayest
+bustle; neither up-stairs nor down could a quiet, isolated person find
+rest for the sole of her foot; accordingly, for my part, I took refuge
+in the garden. The whole day did I wander or sit there alone, finding
+warmth in the sun, shelter among the trees, and a sort of companionship
+in my own thoughts. I well remember that I exchanged but two sentences
+that day with any living being: not that I felt solitary; I was glad to
+be quiet. For a looker-on, it sufficed to pass through the rooms once
+or twice, observe what changes were being wrought, how a green-room and
+a dressing-room were being contrived, a little stage with scenery
+erected, how M. Paul Emanuel, in conjunction with Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre, was directing all, and how an eager band of pupils, amongst
+them Ginevra Fanshawe, were working gaily under his control.
+
+The great day arrived. The sun rose hot and unclouded, and hot and
+unclouded it burned on till evening. All the doors and all the windows
+were set open, which gave a pleasant sense of summer freedom--and
+freedom the most complete seemed indeed the order of the day. Teachers
+and pupils descended to breakfast in dressing-gowns and curl-papers:
+anticipating "avec délices" the toilette of the evening, they seemed to
+take a pleasure in indulging that forenoon in a luxury of slovenliness;
+like aldermen fasting in preparation for a feast. About nine o'clock
+A.M., an important functionary, the "coiffeur," arrived. Sacrilegious
+to state, he fixed his head-quarters in the oratory, and there, in
+presence of _bénitier_, candle, and crucifix, solemnised the mysteries
+of his art. Each girl was summoned in turn to pass through his hands;
+emerging from them with head as smooth as a shell, intersected by
+faultless white lines, and wreathed about with Grecian plaits that
+shone as if lacquered. I took my turn with the rest, and could hardly
+believe what the glass said when I applied to it for information
+afterwards; the lavished garlandry of woven brown hair amazed me--I
+feared it was not all my own, and it required several convincing pulls
+to give assurance to the contrary. I then acknowledged in the coiffeur
+a first-rate artist--one who certainly made the most of indifferent
+materials.
+
+The oratory closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions,
+arrayings and bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever
+must be an enigma, how they contrived to spend so much time in doing so
+little. The operation seemed close, intricate, prolonged: the result
+simple. A clear white muslin dress, a blue sash (the Virgin's colours),
+a pair of white, or straw-colour kid gloves--such was the gala uniform,
+to the assumption whereof that houseful of teachers and pupils devoted
+three mortal hours. But though simple, it must be allowed the array was
+perfect--perfect in fashion, fit, and freshness; every head being also
+dressed with exquisite nicety, and a certain compact taste--suiting the
+full, firm comeliness of Labassecourien contours, though too stiff for
+any more flowing and flexible style of beauty--the general effect was,
+on the whole, commendable.
+
+In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling
+myself to be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was
+not in me to put on a transparent white dress: something thin I must
+wear--the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics
+sufferance, so I had sought through a dozen shops till I lit upon a
+crape-like material of purple-gray--the colour, in short, of dun mist,
+lying on a moor in bloom. My _tailleuse_ had kindly made it as well as
+she could: because, as she judiciously observed, it was "si triste--si
+pen voyant," care in the fashion was the more imperative: it was well
+she took this view of the matter, for I, had no flower, no jewel to
+relieve it: and, what was more, I had no natural rose of complexion.
+
+We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of
+daily drudgery, but they _will_ force upon us their unwelcome blank on
+those bright occasions when beauty should shine.
+
+However, in this same gown of shadow, I felt at home and at ease; an
+advantage I should not have enjoyed in anything more brilliant or
+striking. Madame Beck, too, kept me in countenance; her dress was
+almost as quiet as mine, except that she wore a bracelet, and a large
+brooch bright with gold and fine stones. We chanced to meet on the
+stairs, and she gave me a nod and smile of approbation. Not that she
+thought I was looking well--a point unlikely to engage her
+interest--but she considered me dressed "convenablement," "décemment,"
+and la Convenance et la Décence were the two calm deities of Madame's
+worship. She even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding
+an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a
+sarcasm on the other teachers (whom she had just been complimenting to
+their faces). "Nothing so absurd," she said, "as for des femmes mûres
+'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'--quant à la. St. Pierre,
+elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingénue."
+
+Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a
+pleasure in betaking myself--not to the garden, where servants were
+busy propping up long tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in
+readiness for the collation but to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet,
+cool, and clean; their walls fresh stained, their planked floors fresh
+scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh gathered adorning the recesses in
+pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying the great windows.
+
+Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the
+others, and taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key, a
+volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read. The
+glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large
+berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to
+meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush
+bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the stilly
+hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were
+beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to
+lure me along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of
+dreamland--just then, the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to
+which that much-tried instrument had ever thrilled, snatched me back to
+consciousness.
+
+Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or servants,
+or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, went and came on their several
+errands. Moreover, there was good reason to expect it would ring all
+the afternoon, since about one hundred externes were yet to arrive in
+carriages or fiacres: nor could it be expected to rest during the
+evening, when parents and friends would gather thronging to the play.
+Under these circumstances, a ring--even a sharp ring--was a matter of
+course: yet this particular peal had an accent of its own, which chased
+my dream, and startled my book from my knee.
+
+I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
+on through vestibule--along corridor, across carré, through first
+division, second division, grand salle--strode a step, quick, regular,
+intent. The closed door of the first classe--my sanctuary--offered no
+obstacle; it burst open, and a paletôt and a bonnet grec filled the
+void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
+into me.
+
+"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant pis.
+Toute Anglaise, et, par conséquent, toute bégueule qu'elle soit--elle
+fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."
+
+Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not
+caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon
+the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess----, play you must: I am
+planted there."
+
+"What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?" I inquired: for M. Paul
+Emanuel it was, and in a state of no little excitement.
+
+"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the
+prude. I read your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play
+you can; play you must."
+
+"But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?"
+
+"There is no time to be lost," he went on, now speaking in French; "and
+let us thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all minauderies.
+You must take a part."
+
+"In the vaudeville?"
+
+"In the vaudeville. You have said it."
+
+I gasped, horror-struck. _What_ did the little man mean?
+
+"Listen!" he said. "The case shall be stated, and you shall then answer
+me Yes, or No; and according to your answer shall I ever after estimate
+you."
+
+The scarce-suppressed impetus of a most irritable nature glowed in his
+cheek, fed with sharp shafts his glances, a nature--the injudicious,
+the mawkish, the hesitating, the sullen, the affected, above all, the
+unyielding, might quickly render violent and implacable. Silence and
+attention was the best balm to apply: I listened.
+
+"The whole matter is going to fail," he began. "Louise Vanderkelkov has
+fallen ill--at least so her ridiculous mother asserts; for my part, I
+feel sure she might play if she would: it is only good-will that lacks.
+She was charged with a _rôle_, as you know, or do _not_ know--it is
+equal: without that _rôle_ the play is stopped. There are now but a few
+hours in which to learn it: not a girl in this school would hear
+reason, and accept the task. Forsooth, it is not an interesting, not an
+amiable, part; their vile _amour-propre_--that base quality of which
+women have so much--would revolt from it. Englishwomen are either the
+best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait que je les déteste comme la
+peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to an
+Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer--Yes, or No?"
+
+A thousand objections rushed into my mind. The foreign language, the
+limited time, the public display... Inclination recoiled, Ability
+faltered, Self-respect (that "vile quality") trembled. "Non, non, non!"
+said all these; but looking up at M. Paul, and seeing in his vexed,
+fiery, and searching eye, a sort of appeal behind all its menace, my
+lips dropped the word "oui". For a moment his rigid countenance relaxed
+with a quiver of content: quickly bent up again, however, he went on,--
+
+"Vite à l'ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your _rôle_: read." And I
+read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and stamped. He
+gave me a lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a disagreeable part--a
+man's--an empty-headed fop's. One could put into it neither heart nor
+soul: I hated it. The play--a mere trifle--ran chiefly on the efforts
+of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair coquette. One lover was
+called the "Ours," a good and gallant but unpolished man, a sort of
+diamond in the rough; the other was a butterfly, a talker, and a
+traitor: and I was to be the butterfly, talker, and traitor.
+
+I did my best--which was bad, I know: it provoked M. Paul; he fumed.
+Putting both hands to the work, I endeavoured to do better than my
+best; I presume he gave me credit for good intentions; he professed to
+be partially content. "Ca ira!" he cried; and as voices began sounding
+from the garden, and white dresses fluttering among the trees, he
+added: "You must withdraw: you must be alone to learn this. Come with
+me."
+
+Without being allowed time or power to deliberate, I found myself in
+the same breath convoyed along as in a species of whirlwind, up-stairs,
+up two pair of stairs, nay, actually up three (for this fiery little
+man seemed as by instinct to know his way everywhere); to the solitary
+and lofty attic was I borne, put in and locked in, the key being, in
+the door, and that key he took with him and vanished.
+
+The attic was no pleasant place: I believe he did not know how
+unpleasant it was, or he never would have locked me in with so little
+ceremony. In this summer weather, it was hot as Africa; as in winter,
+it was always cold as Greenland. Boxes and lumber filled it; old
+dresses draped its unstained wall--cobwebs its unswept ceiling. Well
+was it known to be tenanted by rats, by black beetles, and by
+cockroaches--nay, rumour affirmed that the ghostly Nun of the garden
+had once been seen here. A partial darkness obscured one end, across
+which, as for deeper mystery, an old russet curtain was drawn, by way
+of screen to a sombre band of winter cloaks, pendent each from its pin,
+like a malefactor from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and
+behind that curtain, the Nun was said to issue. I did not believe this,
+nor was I troubled by apprehension thereof; but I saw a very dark and
+large rat, with a long tail, come gliding out from that squalid alcove;
+and, moreover, my eye fell on many a black-beetle, dotting the floor.
+These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, than it would be wise to
+say, as also did the dust, lumber, and stifling heat of the place. The
+last inconvenience would soon have become intolerable, had I not found
+means to open and prop up the skylight, thus admitting some freshness.
+Underneath this aperture I pushed a large empty chest, and having
+mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped from both the dust, I gathered
+my dress (my best, the reader must remember, and therefore a legitimate
+object of care) fastidiously around me, ascended this species of
+extempore throne, and being seated, commenced the acquisition of my
+task; while I learned, not forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the
+black-beetles and cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of
+the rats, I sat in mortal dread.
+
+My impression at first was that I had undertaken what it really was
+impossible to perform, and I simply resolved to do my best and be
+resigned to fail. I soon found, however, that one part in so short a
+piece was not more than memory could master at a few hours' notice. I
+learned and learned on, first in a whisper, and then aloud. Perfectly
+secure from human audience, I acted my part before the garret-vermin.
+Entering into its emptiness, frivolity, and falsehood, with a spirit
+inspired by scorn and impatience, I took my revenge on this "fat," by
+making him as fatuitous as I possibly could.
+
+In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into evening;
+and I, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew excessively hungry.
+Now I thought of the collation, which doubtless they were just then
+devouring in the garden far below. (I had seen in the vestibule a
+basketful of small _pâtés à la crême_, than which nothing in the whole
+range of cookery seemed to me better). A _pâté_, or a square of cake,
+it seemed to me would come very _àpropos;_ and as my relish for those
+dainties increased, it began to appear somewhat hard that I should pass
+my holiday, fasting and in prison. Remote as was the attic from the
+street-door and vestibule, yet the ever-tinkling bell was faintly
+audible here; and also the ceaseless roll of wheels, on the tormented
+pavement. I knew that the house and garden were thronged, and that all
+was gay and glad below; here it began to grow dusk: the beetles were
+fading from my sight; I trembled lest they should steal on me a march,
+mount my throne unseen, and, unsuspected, invade my skirts. Impatient
+and apprehensive, I recommenced the rehearsal of my part merely to kill
+time. Just as I was concluding, the long-delayed rattle of the key in
+the lock came to my ear--no unwelcome sound. M. Paul (I could just see
+through the dusk that it _was_ M. Paul, for light enough still lingered
+to show the velvet blackness of his close-shorn head, and the sallow
+ivory of his brow) looked in.
+
+"Brava!" cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the
+threshold. "J'ai tout entendu. C'est assez bien. Encore!"
+
+A moment I hesitated.
+
+"Encore!" said he sternly. "Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidité!"
+
+Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it
+alone.
+
+"Enfin, elle sait," said he, half dissatisfied, "and one cannot be
+fastidious or exacting under the circumstances." Then he added, "You
+may yet have twenty minutes for preparation: au revoir!" And he was
+going.
+
+"Monsieur," I called out, taking courage.
+
+"Eh bien! Qu'est-ce que c'est, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"J'ai bien faim."
+
+"Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?"
+
+"I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here."
+
+"Ah! C'est vrai," cried he.
+
+In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse
+repetition of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic,
+instantly took me down--down--down to the very kitchen. I thought I
+should have gone to the cellar. The cook was imperatively ordered to
+produce food, and I, as imperatively, was commanded to eat. To my great
+joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I had feared wine and
+sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should like a
+_petit pâté à la crême_ I cannot tell; but he went out and procured me
+one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate and drank,
+keeping the _petit pâté_ till the last, as a _bonne bouche_. M. Paul
+superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me more than I could
+swallow.
+
+"A la bonne heure," he cried, when I signified that I really could take
+no more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the additional
+roll on which he had just spread butter. "You will set me down as a
+species of tyrant and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret; whereas,
+after all, I am no such thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel courage
+and strength to appear?"
+
+I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused,
+and could hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order
+of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant
+force sufficient to crush him at once.
+
+"Come then," said he, offering his hand.
+
+I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to
+run at his side in order to keep pace. In the carré he stopped a
+moment: it was lit with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes were
+open, and so were the equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in tubs,
+and tall flowers in pots, ornamented these portals on each side; groups
+of ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress stood and walked amongst the
+flowers. Within, the long vista of the school-rooms presented a
+thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, streaming multitude, all
+rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were lustres burning
+overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green curtain, a row of
+footlights.
+
+"Nest-ce pas que c'est beau?" demanded my companion.
+
+I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul
+discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my
+pains.
+
+"I will do my best, but I wish it was over," said I; then I asked: "Are
+we to walk through that crowd?"
+
+"By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the
+garden--here."
+
+In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me
+somewhat. It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing windows
+lit the court brightly, and even the alleys--dimly. Heaven was
+cloudless, and grand with the quiver of its living fires. How soft are
+the nights of the Continent! How bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no
+chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh as morning.
+
+Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the first
+classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we passed, and
+then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the first classe from
+the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so full of light: it
+deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it stifled me, it was so
+hot, choking, thronged.
+
+"De l'ordre! Du silence!" cried M. Paul. "Is this chaos?", he demanded;
+and there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many gestures, he
+turned out half the persons present, and obliged the remnant to fall
+into rank. Those left were all in costume: they were the performers,
+and this was the green-room. M. Paul introduced me. All stared and some
+tittered. It was a surprise: they had not expected the Englishwoman
+would play in a _vaudeville_. Ginevra Fanshawe, beautifully dressed for
+her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty, turned on me a pair of eyes
+as round as beads. In the highest spirit, unperturbed by fear or
+bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of shining off before
+hundreds--my entrance seemed to transfix her with amazement in the
+midst of her joy. She would have exclaimed, but M. Paul held her and
+all the rest in check.
+
+Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.
+
+"You, too, must be dressed for your part."
+
+"Dressed--dressed like a man!" exclaimed Zélie St. Pierre, darting
+forwards; adding with officiousness, "I will dress her myself."
+
+To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had
+consented to take a man's name and part; as to his dress--_halte là!_
+No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might storm,
+might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice as
+resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in utterance.
+
+He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he
+stood silent. But Zélie again interposed.
+
+"She will make a capital _petit-mâitre_. Here are the garments,
+all--all complete: somewhat too large, but--I will arrange all that.
+Come, chère amie--belle Anglaise!"
+
+And she sneered, for I was not "belle." She seized my hand, she was
+drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable--neutral.
+
+"You must not resist," pursued St. Pierre--for resist I did. "You will
+spoil all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the
+company, sacrifice everything to your _amour-propre_. This would be too
+bad--monsieur will never permit this?"
+
+She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her one,
+and then he gave me one. "Stop!" he said slowly, arresting St. Pierre,
+who continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody awaited the
+decision. He was not angry, not irritated; I perceived that, and took
+heart.
+
+"You do not like these clothes?" he asked, pointing to the masculine
+vestments.
+
+"I don't object to some of them, but I won't have them all."
+
+"How must it be, then? How accept a man's part, and go on the stage
+dressed as a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true--a
+_vaudeville de pensionnat;_ certain modifications I might sanction, yet
+something you must have to announce you as of the nobler sex."
+
+"And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody
+must meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress
+myself."
+
+Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave
+it to me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone,
+I grew calm, and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman's garb
+without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a
+little vest, a collar, and cravat, and a paletôt of small dimensions;
+the whole being the costume of a brother of one of the pupils. Having
+loosened my hair out of its braids, made up the long back-hair close,
+and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my
+hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He
+looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then
+added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid--un peu
+d'aplomb, M. Lucien, et tout ira bien."
+
+St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.
+
+I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon her
+and saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I should
+feel disposed to call her out.
+
+"After the play, after the play," said M. Paul. "I will then divide my
+pair of pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according
+to form: it will only be the old quarrel of France and England."
+
+But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M. Paul,
+setting us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general addressing
+soldiers about to charge. I don't know what he said, except that he
+recommended each to penetrate herself with a sense of her personal
+insignificance. God knows I thought this advice superfluous for some of
+us. A bell tinkled. I and two more were ushered on to the stage. The
+bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very first words.
+
+"Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it," whispered M. Paul in my
+ear. "Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats."
+
+He vanished. The curtain drew up--shrivelled to the ceiling: the bright
+lights, the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought of the
+black-beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my say
+badly; but I said it. That first speech was the difficulty; it revealed
+to me this fact, that it was not the crowd I feared so much as my own
+voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd were nothing to me. Nor did
+I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and my voice took its
+true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of nothing but the
+personage I represented--and of M. Paul, who was listening, watching,
+prompting in the side-scenes.
+
+By-and-by, feeling the right power come--the spring demanded gush and
+rise inwardly--I became sufficiently composed to notice my
+fellow-actors. Some of them played very well; especially Ginevra
+Fanshawe, who had to coquette between two suitors, and managed
+admirably: in fact she was in her element. I observed that she once or
+twice threw a certain marked fondness and pointed partiality into her
+manner towards me--the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she
+favour me, such glances did she dart out into the listening and
+applauding crowd, that to me--who knew her--it presently became evident
+she was acting _at_ some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her
+gesture, and ere long discovered that she had at least singled out a
+handsome and distinguished aim for her shafts; full in the path of
+those arrows--taller than other spectators, and therefore more sure to
+receive them--stood, in attitude quiet but intent, a well-known
+form--that of Dr. John.
+
+The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr.
+John's look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew
+out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I performed; I threw
+it into my wooing of Ginevra. In the "Ours," or sincere lover, I saw
+Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I hardened my heart, rivalled
+and out-rivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but where _he_ was
+outcast _I_ could please. Now I know I acted as if wishful and resolute
+to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-changed the
+nature of the _rôle_, gilding it from top to toe. Between the acts M.
+Paul, told us he knew not what possessed us, and half expostulated.
+"C'est peut-être plus beau que votre modèle," said he, "mais ce n'est
+pas juste." I know not what possessed me either; but somehow, my
+longing was to eclipse the "Ours," _i.e._, Dr. John. Ginevra was
+tender; how could I be otherwise than chivalric? Retaining the letter,
+I recklessly altered the spirit of the _rôle_. Without heart, without
+interest, I could not play it at all. It must be played--in went the
+yearned-for seasoning--thus favoured, I played it with relish.
+
+What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and
+do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold,
+reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere
+long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please
+myself. Yet the next day, when I thought it over, I quite disapproved
+of these amateur performances; and though glad that I had obliged M.
+Paul, and tried my own strength for once, I took a firm resolution,
+never to be drawn into a similar affair. A keen relish for dramatic
+expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and
+exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight,
+but it would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and
+longing must be put by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with
+the lock of a resolution which neither Time nor Temptation has since
+picked.
+
+No sooner was the play over, and _well_ over, than the choleric and
+arbitrary M. Paul underwent a metamorphosis. His hour of managerial
+responsibility past, he at once laid aside his magisterial austerity;
+in a moment he stood amongst us, vivacious, kind, and social, shook
+hands with us all round, thanked us separately, and announced his
+determination that each of us should in turn be his partner in the
+coming ball. On his claiming my promise, I told him I did not dance.
+"For once I must," was the answer; and if I had not slipped aside and
+kept out of his way, he would have compelled me to this second
+performance. But I had acted enough for one evening; it was time I
+retired into myself and my ordinary life. My dun-coloured dress did
+well enough under a paletôt on the stage, but would not suit a waltz or
+a quadrille. Withdrawing to a quiet nook, whence unobserved I could
+observe--the ball, its splendours and its pleasures, passed before me
+as a spectacle.
+
+Again Ginevra Fanshawe was the belle, the fairest and the gayest
+present; she was selected to open the ball: very lovely she looked,
+very gracefully she danced, very joyously she smiled. Such scenes were
+her triumphs--she was the child of pleasure. Work or suffering found
+her listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded
+her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made
+her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet and
+plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like a
+humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake
+her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room; elsewhere
+she drooped dispirited.
+
+Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere sake
+of M. Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces that
+night for the edification of her companions only, or for that of the
+parents and grand-parents, who filled the carré, and lined the
+ball-room; under circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so
+chilly and vapid, Ginevra would scarce have deigned to walk one
+quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness would have replaced animation
+and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the otherwise heavy festal
+mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment which gave it
+zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her choicest
+attractions.
+
+In the ball-room, indeed, not a single male spectator was to be seen
+who was not married and a father--M. Paul excepted--that gentleman,
+too, being the sole creature of his sex permitted to lead out a pupil
+to the dance; and this exceptional part was allowed him, partly as a
+matter of old-established custom (for he was a kinsman of Madame
+Beck's, and high in her confidence), partly because he would always
+have his own way and do as he pleased, and partly because--wilful,
+passionate, partial, as he might be--he was the soul of honour, and
+might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect
+security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of
+the girls--it may be noted in parenthesis--were not pure-minded at all,
+very much otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural
+coarseness in M. Paul's presence, than they dare tread purposely on his
+corns, laugh in his face during a stormy apostrophe, or speak above
+their breath while some crisis of irritability was covering his human
+visage with the mask of an intelligent tiger. M. Paul, then, might
+dance with whom he would--and woe be to the interference which put him
+out of step.
+
+Others there were admitted as spectators--with (seeming) reluctance,
+through prayers, by influence, under restriction, by special and
+difficult exercise of Madame Beck's gracious good-nature, and whom she
+all the evening--with her own personal surveillance--kept far aloof at
+the remotest, drearest, coldest, darkest side of the carré--a small,
+forlorn band of "jeunes gens;" these being all of the best families,
+grown-up sons of mothers present, and whose sisters were pupils in the
+school. That whole evening was Madame on duty beside these "jeunes
+gens"--attentive to them as a mother, but strict with them as a dragon.
+There was a sort of cordon stretched before them, which they wearied
+her with prayers to be permitted to pass, and just to revive themselves
+by one dance with that "belle blonde," or that "jolie brune," or "cette
+jeune fille magnifique aux cheveux noirs comme le jais."
+
+"Taisez-vous!" Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. "Vous ne
+passerez pas à moins que ce ne soit sur mon cadavre, et vous ne
+danserez qu'avec la nonnette du jardin" (alluding to the legend). And
+she majestically walked to and fro along their disconsolate and
+impatient line, like a little Bonaparte in a mouse-coloured silk gown.
+
+Madame knew something of the world; Madame knew much of human nature. I
+don't think that another directress in Villette would have dared to
+admit a "jeune homme" within her walls; but Madame knew that by
+granting such admission, on an occasion like the present, a bold stroke
+might be struck, and a great point gained.
+
+In the first place, the parents were made accomplices to the deed, for
+it was only through their mediation it was brought about. Secondly: the
+admission of these rattlesnakes, so fascinating and so dangerous,
+served to draw out Madame precisely in her strongest character--that of
+a first-rate _surveillante_. Thirdly: their presence furnished a most
+piquant ingredient to the entertainment: the pupils knew it, and saw
+it, and the view of such golden apples shining afar off, animated them
+with a spirit no other circumstance could have kindled. The children's
+pleasure spread to the parents; life and mirth circulated quickly round
+the ball-room; the "jeunes gens" themselves, though restrained, were
+amused: for Madame never permitted them to feel dull--and thus Madame
+Beck's fête annually ensured a success unknown to the fête of any other
+directress in the land.
+
+I observed that Dr. John was at first permitted to walk at large
+through the classes: there was about him a manly, responsible look,
+that redeemed his youth, and half-expiated his beauty; but as soon as
+the ball began, Madame ran up to him.
+
+"Come, Wolf; come," said she, laughing: "you wear sheep's clothing, but
+you must quit the fold notwithstanding. Come; I have a fine menagerie
+of twenty here in the carré: let me place you amongst my collection."
+
+"But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice."
+
+"Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety.
+Sortez, sortez, au plus vite."
+
+She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon.
+
+Ginevra being, I suppose, tired with dancing, sought me out in my
+retreat. She threw herself on the bench beside me, and (a demonstration
+I could very well have dispensed with) cast her arms round my neck.
+
+"Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!" she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half
+hysterical.
+
+"What in the world is the matter?" I drily said.
+
+"How do I look--how do I look to-night?" she demanded.
+
+"As usual," said I; "preposterously vain."
+
+"Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of
+you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel
+it, I see it--for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room,
+where I can view my shape from head to foot. Will you go with me now,
+and let us two stand before it?"
+
+"I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your
+bent."
+
+The dressing-room was very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm
+through mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance
+remonstrance, or remark, I stood and let her self-love have its feast
+and triumph: curious to see how much it could swallow--whether it was
+possible it could feed to satiety--whether any whisper of consideration
+for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate its vainglorious
+exultation.
+
+Not at all. She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all
+sides; she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she
+spread her dress, and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with
+mock respect, she said: "I would not be you for a kingdom."
+
+The remark was too _naïve_ to rouse anger; I merely said: "Very good."
+
+"And what would _you_ give to be ME?" she inquired.
+
+"Not a bad sixpence--strange as it may sound," I replied. "You are but
+a poor creature."
+
+"You don't think so in your heart."
+
+"No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only
+occasionally turn you over in my brain."
+
+"Well, but," said she, in an expostulatory tone, "just listen to the
+difference of our positions, and then see how happy am I, and how
+miserable are you."
+
+"Go on; I listen."
+
+"In the first place: I am the daughter of a gentleman of family, and
+though my father is not rich, I have expectations from an uncle. Then,
+I am just eighteen, the finest age possible. I have had a continental
+education, and though I can't spell, I have abundant accomplishments. I
+_am_ pretty; _you_ can't deny that; I may have as many admirers as I
+choose. This very night I have been breaking the hearts of two
+gentlemen, and it is the dying look I had from one of them just now,
+which puts me in such spirits. I do so like to watch them turn red and
+pale, and scowl and dart fiery glances at each other, and languishing
+ones at me. There is _me_--happy ME; now for _you_, poor soul!
+
+"I suppose you are nobody's daughter, since you took care of little
+children when you first came to Villette: you have no relations; you
+can't call yourself young at twenty-three; you have no attractive
+accomplishments--no beauty. As to admirers, you hardly know what they
+are; you can't even talk on the subject: you sit dumb when the other
+teachers quote their conquests. I believe you never were in love, and
+never will be: you don't know the feeling, and so much the better, for
+though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will you
+ever break. Isn't it all true?"
+
+"A good deal of it is true as gospel, and shrewd besides. There must be
+good in you, Ginevra, to speak so honestly; that snake, Zélie St.
+Pierre, could not utter what you have uttered. Still, Miss Fanshawe,
+hapless as I am, according to your showing, sixpence I would not give
+to purchase you, body and soul."
+
+"Just because I am not clever, and that is all _you_ think of. Nobody
+in the world but you cares for cleverness."
+
+"On the contrary, I consider you _are_ clever, in your way--very smart
+indeed. But you were talking of breaking hearts--that edifying
+amusement into the merits of which I don't quite enter; pray on whom
+does your vanity lead you to think you have done execution to-night?"
+
+She approached her lips to my ear--"Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are
+both here," she whispered.
+
+"Oh! they are? I should like to see them."
+
+"There's a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me,
+I will point them out."
+
+She proudly led the way--"But you cannot see them well from the
+classes," said she, turning, "Madame keeps them too far off. Let us
+cross the garden, enter by the corridor, and get close to them behind:
+we shall be scolded if we are seen, but never mind."
+
+For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went--penetrated into
+the corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the _carré_,
+yet keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view of the band of
+"jeunes gens."
+
+I believe I could have picked out the conquering de Hamal even
+undirected. He was a straight-nosed, very correct-featured little
+dandy. I say _little_ dandy, though he was not beneath the middle
+standard in stature; but his lineaments were small, and so were his
+hands and feet; and he was pretty and smooth, and as trim as a doll: so
+nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted and gloved and cravated--he
+was charming indeed. I said so. "What, a dear personage!" cried I, and
+commended Ginevra's taste warmly; and asked her what she thought de
+Hamal might have done with the precious fragments of that heart she had
+broken--whether he kept them in a scent-vial, and conserved them in
+otto of roses? I observed, too, with deep rapture of approbation, that
+the colonel's hands were scarce larger than Miss Fanshawe's own, and
+suggested that this circumstance might be convenient, as he could wear
+her gloves at a pinch. On his dear curls, I told her I doated: and as
+to his low, Grecian brow, and exquisite classic headpiece, I confessed
+I had no language to do such perfections justice.
+
+"And if he were your lover?" suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra.
+
+"Oh! heavens, what bliss!" said I; "but do not be inhuman, Miss
+Fanshawe: to put such thoughts into my head is like showing poor
+outcast Cain a far, glimpse of Paradise."
+
+"You like him, then?"
+
+"As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers."
+
+Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she
+could then readily credit that they were mine too.
+
+"Now for Isidore," I went on. I own I felt still more curious to see
+him than his rival; but Ginevra was absorbed in the latter.
+
+"Alfred was admitted here to-night," said she, "through the influence
+of his aunt, Madame la Baronne de Dorlodot; and now, having seen him,
+can you not understand why I have been in such spirits all the evening,
+and acted so well, and danced with such life, and why I am now happy as
+a queen? Dieu! Dieu! It was such good fun to glance first at him and
+then at the other, and madden them both."
+
+"But that other--where is he? Show me Isidore."
+
+"I don't like."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I am ashamed of him."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Because--because" (in a whisper) "he has such--such whiskers,
+orange--red--there now!"
+
+"The murder is out," I subjoined. "Never mind, show him all the same; I
+engage not to faint."
+
+She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me.
+
+"You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor."
+
+"There is no draught, Dr. John," said I, turning.
+
+"She takes cold so easily," he pursued, looking at Ginevra with extreme
+kindness. "She is delicate; she must be cared for: fetch her a shawl."
+
+"Permit me to judge for myself," said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. "I
+want no shawl."
+
+"Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated."
+
+"Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing."
+
+The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was
+hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he
+turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty
+of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.
+
+"She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her," said I, folding
+it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her
+arms. "Is that Isidore?" I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.
+
+She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have given
+her a dozen.
+
+"C'est lui-même," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
+Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"
+
+Dr. John now passed on.
+
+"The Colonel-Count!" I echoed. "The doll--the puppet--the manikin--the
+poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his
+foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman--handsome as a
+vision--offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises
+to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and
+struggles of life--and you hang back--you scorn, you sting, you torture
+him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where is it?
+Does it lie all in your beauty--your pink and white complexion, and
+your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend his
+neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection, his
+tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble, cordial
+love--and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only
+dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him;
+but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?"
+
+"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."
+
+I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a
+seat and told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she
+meant in the end to accept--the man or the monkey.
+
+"Him you call the man," said she, "is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and
+answers to the name of John!--cela suffit: je n'en veux pas. Colonel de
+Hamal is a gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners, sweet
+appearance, with pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like an
+Italian. Then too he is the most delightful company possible--a man
+quite in my way; not sensible and serious like the other; but one with
+whom I can talk on equal terms--who does not plague and bore, and
+harass me with depths, and heights, and passions, and talents for which
+I have no taste. There now. Don't hold me so fast."
+
+I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue her.
+
+Somehow I could not avoid returning once more in the direction of the
+corridor to get another glimpse of Dr. John; but I met him on the
+garden-steps, standing where the light from a window fell broad. His
+well-proportioned figure was not to be mistaken, for I doubt whether
+there was another in that assemblage his equal. He carried his hat in
+his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine brow were most handsome
+and manly. _His_ features were not delicate, not slight like those of a
+woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble; though well cut, they
+were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to lose in expression or
+significance what they gained in unmeaning symmetry. Much feeling spoke
+in them at times, and more sat silent in his eye. Such at least were my
+thoughts of him: to me he seemed all this. An inexpressible sense of
+wonder occupied me, as I looked at this man, and reflected that _he_
+could not be slighted.
+
+It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our
+terms of acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to
+view him in the crowd--myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I
+withdrew. But he was looking out for me, or rather for her who had been
+with me: therefore he descended the steps, and followed me down the
+alley.
+
+"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew
+her," said he.
+
+"Yes: I know her."
+
+"Intimately?"
+
+"Quite as intimately as I wish."
+
+"What have you done with her now?"
+
+"Am I her keeper?" I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, "I
+have shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she escaped
+out of my hands and ran away."
+
+"Would you favour me," he asked, "by watching over her this one
+evening, and observing that she does nothing imprudent--does not, for
+instance, run out into the night-air immediately after dancing?"
+
+"I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she
+likes her own way too well to submit readily to control."
+
+"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
+
+"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
+
+"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell _you_
+how."
+
+"And why me?"
+
+"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
+
+"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend. That is
+precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she ever
+speak of me to you?"
+
+"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I must
+add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered that
+you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within that
+brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the person,
+under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that she is the
+magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her sake you
+venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by rivals."
+
+"You know all?"
+
+"I know so much."
+
+"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society.
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see
+her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore' she
+often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of
+confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her remarks?
+I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented with
+uncertainty as to how I stand with her."
+
+"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."
+
+"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"
+
+"I can," thought I, "but it would not do to communicate that general
+idea to you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would
+not believe me."
+
+"You are silent," he pursued. "I suppose you have no good news to
+impart. No matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion,
+it is a sign I do not deserve her."
+
+"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
+Colonel de Hamal?"
+
+"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being, and
+would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal, I
+fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me, all
+his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your beautiful
+young friend."
+
+"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel
+who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not
+serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."
+
+"Are you not a little severe?"
+
+"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You
+should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young
+friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of
+tender considerateness for her delicate nature."
+
+"She is so lovely, one cannot but be loving towards her. You--every
+woman older than herself, must feel for such a simple, innocent,
+girlish fairy a sort of motherly or elder-sisterly fondness. Graceful
+angel! Does not your heart yearn towards her when she pours into your
+ear her pure, childlike confidences? How you are privileged!" And he
+sighed.
+
+"I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then," said I.
+"But excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant? What
+a god-like person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face--perfect!
+Model one in putty or clay, you could not make a better or straighter,
+or neater; and then, such classic lips and chin--and his
+bearing--sublime."
+
+"De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered
+hero."
+
+"You, Dr. John, and every man of a less-refined mould than he, must
+feel for him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the coarser
+deities may be supposed to have borne the young, graceful Apollo."
+
+"An unprincipled, gambling little jackanapes!" said Dr. John curtly,
+"whom, with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and lay
+low in the kennel if I liked."
+
+"The sweet seraph!" said I. "What a cruel idea! Are you not a little
+severe, Dr. John?"
+
+And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond
+myself--venturing out of what I looked on as my natural
+habits--speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled
+me strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I
+anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay
+lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr.
+John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on his
+illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward
+to an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn.
+
+The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the
+reflex from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was
+melancholy. How I wished that he could feel heart's-ease! How I grieved
+that he brooded over pain, and pain from such a cause! He, with his
+great advantages, _he_ to love in vain! I did not then know that the
+pensiveness of reverse is the best phase for some minds; nor did I
+reflect that some herbs, "though scentless when entire, yield fragrance
+when they're bruised."
+
+"Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve," I broke out. "If there is in
+Ginevra one spark of worthiness of your affection, she will--she _must_
+feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr. John. Who should
+hope, if not you?"
+
+In return for this speech I got--what, it must be supposed, I
+deserved--a look of surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation. We
+parted, and I went into the house very chill. The clocks struck and the
+bells tolled midnight; people were leaving fast: the fête was over; the
+lamps were fading. In another hour all the dwelling-house, and all the
+pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, but not asleep. To
+me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Following Madame Beck's fête, with its three preceding weeks of
+relaxation, its brief twelve hours' burst of hilarity and dissipation,
+and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of reaction;
+two months of real application, of close, hard study. These two months,
+being the last of the "année scolaire," were indeed the only genuine
+working months in the year. To them was procrastinated--into them
+concentrated, alike by professors, mistresses, and pupils--the main
+burden of preparation for the examinations preceding the distribution
+of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work in good earnest;
+masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the wheel, to urge
+on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more promising. A
+showy demonstration--a telling exhibition--must be got up for public
+view, and all means were fair to this end.
+
+I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own
+business to mind; and _my_ task was not the least onerous, being to
+imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they
+considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the
+English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was an
+almost impossible pronunciation--the lisping and hissing dentals of the
+Isles.
+
+The examination-day arrived. Awful day! Prepared for with anxious care,
+dressed for with silent despatch--nothing vaporous or fluttering
+now--no white gauze or azure streamers; the grave, close, compact was
+the order of the toilette. It seemed to me that I was this day,
+especially doomed--the main burden and trial falling on me alone of all
+the female teachers. The others were not expected to examine in the
+studies they taught; the professor of literature, M. Paul, taking upon
+himself this duty. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and sundry
+reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any
+colleague; he would not have help. Madame herself, who evidently rather
+wished to undertake the examination in geography--her favourite study,
+which she taught well--was forced to succumb, and be subordinate to her
+despotic kinsman's direction. The whole staff of instructors, male and
+female, he set aside, and stood on the examiner's estrade alone. It
+irked him that he was forced to make one exception to this rule. He
+could not manage English: he was obliged to leave that branch of
+education in the English teacher's hands; which he did, not without a
+flash of naïve jealousy.
+
+A constant crusade against the "amour-propre" of every human being but
+himself, was the crotchet of this able, but fiery and grasping little
+man. He had a strong relish for public representation in his own
+person, but an extreme abhorrence of the like display in any other. He
+quelled, he kept down when he could; and when he could not, he fumed
+like a bottled storm.
+
+On the evening preceding the examination-day, I was walking in the
+garden, as were the other teachers and all the boarders. M. Emanuel
+joined me in the "allée défendue;" his cigar was at his lips; his
+paletôt--a most characteristic garment of no particular shape--hung
+dark and menacing; the tassel of his bonnet grec sternly shadowed his
+left temple; his black whiskers curled like those of a wrathful cat;
+his blue eye had a cloud in its glitter.
+
+"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez
+trôner comme une reine; demain--trôner à mes côtés? Sans doute vous
+savourez d'avance les délices de l'autorité. Je crois voir en je ne
+sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!"
+
+Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken. I did not--could
+not--estimate the admiration or the good opinion of tomorrow's audience
+at the same rate he did. Had that audience numbered as many personal
+friends and acquaintance for me as for him, I know not how it might
+have been: I speak of the case as it stood. On me school-triumphs shed
+but a cold lustre. I had wondered--and I wondered now--how it was that
+for him they seemed to shine as with hearth-warmth and hearth-glow.
+_He_ cared for them perhaps too much; _I_, probably, too little.
+However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I liked, for instance, to
+see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature, and woke his spirit; it
+threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows over his dun face, and into
+his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that his black hair and blue eyes
+were "une de ses beautés"). There was a relish in his anger; it was
+artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but never hypocritical. I uttered
+no disclaimer then of the complacency he attributed to me; I merely
+asked where the English examination came in--whether at the
+commencement or close of the day?
+
+"I hesitate," said he, "whether at the very beginning, before many
+persons are come, and when your aspiring nature will not be gratified
+by a large audience, or quite at the close, when everybody is tired,
+and only a jaded and worn-out attention will be at your service."
+
+"Que vous êtes dur, Monsieur!" I said, affecting dejection.
+
+"One ought to be 'dur' with you. You are one of those beings who must
+be _kept down_. I know you! I know you! Other people in this house see
+you pass, and think that a colourless shadow has gone by. As for me, I
+scrutinized your face once, and it sufficed."
+
+"You are satisfied that you understand me?"
+
+Without answering directly, he went on, "Were you not gratified when
+you succeeded in that vaudeville? I watched you and saw a passionate
+ardour for triumph in your physiognomy. What fire shot into the glance!
+Not mere light, but flame: je me tiens pour averti."
+
+"What feeling I had on that occasion, Monsieur--and pardon me, if I
+say, you immensely exaggerate both its quality and quantity--was quite
+abstract. I did not care for the vaudeville. I hated the part you
+assigned me. I had not the slightest sympathy with the audience below
+the stage. They are good people, doubtless, but do I know them? Are
+they anything to me? Can I care for being brought before their view
+again to-morrow? Will the examination be anything but a task to me--a
+task I wish well over?"
+
+"Shall I take it out of your hands?"
+
+"With all my heart; if you do not fear failure."
+
+"But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few
+words: par exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stares--est-ce bien dit? My
+opinion is that it would be better to give up the thing altogether: to
+have no English examination, eh?"
+
+"If Madame consents, I consent."
+
+"Heartily?"
+
+"Very heartily."
+
+He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly.
+
+"Donnez-moi la main," said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out of
+his face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead.
+
+"Come, we will not be rivals, we will be friends," he pursued. "The
+examination shall take place, and I will choose a good moment; and
+instead of vexing and hindering, as I felt half-inclined ten minutes
+ago--for I have my malevolent moods: I always had from childhood--I
+will aid you sincerely. After all, you are solitary and a stranger, and
+have your way to make and your bread to earn; it may be well that you
+should become known. We will be friends: do you agree?"
+
+"Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better
+than a triumph."
+
+"Pauvrette?" said he, and turned away and left the alley.
+
+The examination passed over well; M. Paul was as good as his word, and
+did his best to make my part easy. The next day came the distribution
+of prizes; that also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went home,
+and now began the long vacation.
+
+That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not. Madame Beck went,
+the first day of the holidays, to join her children at the sea-side;
+all the three teachers had parents or friends with whom they took
+refuge; every professor quitted the city; some went to Paris, some to
+Boue-Marine; M. Paul set forth on a pilgrimage to Rome; the house was
+left quite empty, but for me, a servant, and a poor deformed and
+imbecile pupil, a sort of crétin, whom her stepmother in a distant
+province would not allow to return home.
+
+My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its chords.
+How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless! How vast
+and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the forsaken
+garden--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed. Looking
+forward at the commencement of those eight weeks, I hardly knew how I
+was to live to the end. My spirits had long been gradually sinking; now
+that the prop of employment was withdrawn, they went down fast. Even to
+look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no comfort, offered
+no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil in reliance on
+future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on
+me--a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end of all things
+earthly. Alas! When I had full leisure to look on life as life must be
+looked on by such as me, I found it but a hopeless desert: tawny sands,
+with no green fields, no palm-tree, no well in view. The hopes which
+are dear to youth, which bear it up and lead it on, I knew not and
+dared not know. If they knocked at my heart sometimes, an inhospitable
+bar to admission must be inwardly drawn. When they turned away thus
+rejected, tears sad enough sometimes flowed: but it could not be
+helped: I dared not give such guests lodging. So mortally did I fear
+the sin and weakness of presumption.
+
+Religious reader, you will preach to me a long sermon about what I have
+just written, and so will you, moralist: and you, stern sage: you,
+stoic, will frown; you, cynic, sneer; you, epicure, laugh. Well, each
+and all, take it your own way. I accept the sermon, frown, sneer, and
+laugh; perhaps you are all right: and perhaps, circumstanced like me,
+you would have been, like me, wrong. The first month was, indeed, a
+long, black, heavy month to me.
+
+The crétin did not seem unhappy. I did my best to feed her well and
+keep her warm, and she only asked food and sunshine, or when that
+lacked, fire. Her weak faculties approved of inertion: her brain, her
+eyes, her ears, her heart slept content; they could not wake to work,
+so lethargy was their Paradise.
+
+Three weeks of that vacation were hot, fair, and dry, but the fourth
+and fifth were tempestuous and wet. I do not know why that change in
+the atmosphere made a cruel impression on me, why the raging storm and
+beating rain crushed me with a deadlier paralysis than I had
+experienced while the air had remained serene; but so it was; and my
+nervous system could hardly support what it had for many days and
+nights to undergo in that huge empty house. How I used to pray to
+Heaven for consolation and support! With what dread force the
+conviction would grasp me that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be
+conciliated. I did not, in my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of
+God for this; I concluded it to be a part of his great plan that some
+must deeply suffer while they live, and I thrilled in the certainty
+that of this number, I was one.
+
+It was some relief when an aunt of the crétin, a kind old woman, came
+one day, and took away my strange, deformed companion. The hapless
+creature had been at times a heavy charge; I could not take her out
+beyond the garden, and I could not leave her a minute alone: for her
+poor mind, like her body, was warped: its propensity was to evil. A
+vague bent to mischief, an aimless malevolence, made constant vigilance
+indispensable. As she very rarely spoke, and would sit for hours
+together moping and mowing, and distorting her features with
+indescribable grimaces, it was more like being prisoned with some
+strange tameless animal, than associating with a human being. Then
+there were personal attentions to be rendered which required the nerve
+of a hospital nurse; my resolution was so tried, it sometimes fell
+dead-sick. These duties should not have fallen on me; a servant, now
+absent, had rendered them hitherto, and in the hurry of holiday
+departure, no substitute to fill this office had been provided. This
+tax and trial were by no means the least I have known in life. Still,
+menial and distasteful as they were, my mental pain was far more
+wasting and wearing. Attendance on the crétin deprived me often of the
+power and inclination to swallow a meal, and sent me faint to the fresh
+air, and the well or fountain in the court; but this duty never wrung
+my heart, or brimmed my eyes, or scalded my cheek with tears hot as
+molten metal.
+
+The crétin being gone, I was free to walk out. At first I lacked
+courage to venture very far from the Rue Fossette, but by degrees I
+sought the city gates, and passed them, and then went wandering away
+far along chaussées, through fields, beyond cemeteries, Catholic and
+Protestant, beyond farmsteads, to lanes and little woods, and I know
+not where. A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me to rest; a want of
+companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly
+famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid
+afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise.
+
+While wandering in solitude, I would sometimes picture the present
+probable position of others, my acquaintance. There was Madame Beck at
+a cheerful watering-place with her children, her mother, and a whole
+troop of friends who had sought the same scene of relaxation. Zélie St.
+Pierre was at Paris, with her relatives; the other teachers were at
+their homes. There was Ginevra Fanshawe, whom certain of her
+connections had carried on a pleasant tour southward. Ginevra seemed to
+me the happiest. She was on the route of beautiful scenery; these
+September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest and
+vintage matured under their mellow beam. These gold and crystal moons
+rose on her vision over blue horizons waved in mounted lines.
+
+But all this was nothing; I too felt those autumn suns and saw those
+harvest moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and
+turf, deep out of their influence; for I could not live in their light,
+nor make them comrades, nor yield them affection. But Ginevra had a
+kind of spirit with her, empowered to give constant strength and
+comfort, to gladden daylight and embalm darkness; the best of the good
+genii that guard humanity curtained her with his wings, and canopied
+her head with his bending form. By True Love was Ginevra followed:
+never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It
+seemed to me impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined
+her grateful in secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day
+to show how much she loved: I pictured her faithful hero half conscious
+of her coy fondness, and comforted by that consciousness: I conceived
+an electric chord of sympathy between them, a fine chain of mutual
+understanding, sustaining union through a separation of a hundred
+leagues--carrying, across mound and hollow, communication by prayer and
+wish. Ginevra gradually became with me a sort of heroine. One day,
+perceiving this growing illusion, I said, "I really believe my nerves
+are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too much a
+malady is growing upon it--what shall I do? How shall I keep well?"
+
+Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last a
+day and night of peculiarly agonizing depression were succeeded by
+physical illness, I took perforce to my bed. About this time the Indian
+summer closed and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine dark and
+wet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf,
+dishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--I lay in a strange
+fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in
+the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A
+rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied--Sleep never
+came!
+
+I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she
+brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste,
+that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but
+sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a
+nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very
+tone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night a
+cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no well,
+but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea. Suffering,
+brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for mortal lips,
+tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank and woke, I thought
+all was over: the end come and past by. Trembling fearfully--as
+consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some fellow-creature to
+help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was near enough to catch
+the wild summons--Goton in her far distant attic could not hear--I rose
+on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over me: indescribably was
+I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the horrors of that dream
+I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-loved dead, who had
+loved _me_ well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated: galled was my
+inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future.
+Motive there was none why I should try to recover or wish to live; and
+yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and haughty voice in which Death
+challenged me to engage his unknown terrors. When I tried to pray I
+could only utter these words: "From my youth up Thy terrors have I
+suffered with a troubled mind."
+
+Most true was it.
+
+On bringing me my tea next morning Goton urged me to call in a doctor.
+I would not: I thought no doctor could cure me.
+
+One evening--and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got
+up--I dressed myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness
+of the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white
+beds were turning into spectres--the coronal of each became a
+death's-head, huge and sun-bleached--dead dreams of an elder world and
+mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes. That evening
+more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate
+was of stone, and Hope a false idol--blind, bloodless, and of granite
+core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its
+climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling
+as they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I
+thought, than it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling,
+and I deemed its influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming
+night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping. It seemed to me that
+at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all
+pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became
+alleviated--that insufferable thought of being no more loved--no more
+owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary--I was sure this hope would
+shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was
+crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain
+quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I
+could not be delirious, for I had sense and recollection to put on warm
+clothing), forth I set. The bells of a church arrested me in passing;
+they seemed to call me in to the _salut_, and I went in. Any solemn
+rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, any opening for appeal to God
+was as welcome to me then as bread to one in extremity of want. I knelt
+down with others on the stone pavement. It was an old solemn church,
+its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light shed through
+stained glass.
+
+Few worshippers were assembled, and, the _salut_ over, half of them
+departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess. I did
+not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy quiet
+sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space,
+breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the confessional.
+I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was whispered back; she
+returned consoled. Another went, and another. A pale lady, kneeling
+near me, said in a low, kind voice:--"Go you now, I am not quite
+prepared."
+
+Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my
+mind had run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step
+could not make me more wretched than I was; it might soothe me.
+
+The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me;
+he only quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man,
+but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it with
+the phlegm of custom. I hesitated; of the formula of confession I was
+ignorant: instead of commencing, then, with the prelude usual, I
+said:--"Mon père, je suis Protestante."
+
+He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the cast
+of physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his profile
+and brow he was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in years, he did
+not, I think, lack feeling or intelligence. He inquired, not unkindly,
+why, being a Protestant, I came to him?
+
+I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I
+had been living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a
+pressure of affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer
+endure the weight.
+
+"Was it a sin, a crime?" he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured
+him on this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere
+outline of my experience.
+
+He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. "You take me unawares," said
+he. "I have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know our
+routine, and are prepared; but this makes a great break in the common
+course of confession. I am hardly furnished with counsel fitting the
+circumstances."
+
+Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of
+communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet
+consecrated--the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating,
+long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it could not be again
+diffused--had done me good. I was already solaced.
+
+"Must I go, father?" I asked of him as he sat silent.
+
+"My daughter," he said kindly--and I am sure he was a kind man: he had
+a compassionate eye--"for the present you had better go: but I assure
+you your words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt to
+become formal and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your
+heart out; a thing seldom done. I would fain think your case over, and
+take it with me to my oratory. Were you of our faith I should know what
+to say--a mind so tossed can find repose but in the bosom of retreat,
+and the punctual practice of piety. The world, it is well known, has no
+satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy men have bidden penitents
+like you to hasten their path upward by penance, self-denial, and
+difficult good works. Tears are given them here for meat and
+drink--bread of affliction and waters of affliction--their recompence
+comes hereafter. It is my own conviction that these impressions under
+which you are smarting are messengers from God to bring you back to the
+true Church. You were made for our faith: depend upon it our faith
+alone could heal and help you--Protestantism is altogether too dry,
+cold, prosaic for you. The further I look into this matter, the more
+plainly I see it is entirely out of the common order of things. On no
+account would I lose sight of you. Go, my daughter, for the present;
+but return to me again."
+
+I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return.
+
+"You must not come to this church," said he: "I see you are ill, and
+this church is too cold; you must come to my house: I live----" (and he
+gave me his address). "Be there to-morrow morning at ten."
+
+In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil,
+and gathering round me my cloak, I glided away.
+
+Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that
+worthy priest's reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a
+Babylonish furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he
+was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
+softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting some
+sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre of root in
+reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to withstand. Had I gone
+to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, and comforting, and
+gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he would have tried to
+kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good works. I know not how
+it would all have ended. We all think ourselves strong in some points;
+we all know ourselves weak in many; the probabilities are that had I
+visited Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the hour and day appointed, I
+might just now, instead of writing this heretic narrative, be counting
+my beads in the cell of a certain Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of
+Crécy, in Villette. There was something of Fénélon about that benign
+old priest; and whatever most of his brethren may be, and whatever I
+may think of his Church and creed (and I like neither), of himself I
+must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind when I needed
+kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!
+
+Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets
+ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become
+possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the
+little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative
+impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope: she
+put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But I had
+become involved in a part of the city with which I was not familiar; it
+was the old part, and full of narrow streets of picturesque, ancient,
+and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be very collected, and I
+was still too careless of my own welfare and safety to be cautious; I
+grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network of turns unknown. I was
+lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of any passenger.
+
+If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost
+time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from
+north-west to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a
+sharp hail, like shot: it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I bent
+my head to meet it, but it beat me back. My heart did not fail at all
+in this conflict; I only wished that I had wings and could ascend the
+gale, spread and repose my pinions on its strength, career in its
+course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I suddenly felt
+colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I was
+weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the mass
+of frontage and the giant spire turned black and vanished from my eyes.
+Instead of sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch
+headlong down an abyss. I remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AULD LANG SYNE.
+
+
+Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw,
+or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept
+her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling
+imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and
+come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and
+deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While
+she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's
+threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more,
+all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of
+whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
+
+I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a
+moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were
+hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a
+racking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me,
+red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, like
+thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled, wondering
+into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I
+knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall--a lamp not a lamp. I
+should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the
+commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye
+rested on struck it as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each in
+his place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and regular
+working.
+
+Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed
+from the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and tempest
+were excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house I had
+been carried--but what house?
+
+I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Still
+half-dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me;
+whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was
+puzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw
+accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white
+beds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. "Surely,"
+thought I, "it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carried
+me!" And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask.
+Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last I
+took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on a
+clear-shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue relieved
+a ground of shaded fawn; pale walls over which a slight but endless
+garland of azure forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered amongst myriad
+gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the space between
+two windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw
+myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked spectral; my eyes
+larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural, by contrast
+with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not only from the
+furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, that
+this was an unknown room in an unknown house.
+
+Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I
+gazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a
+certain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a
+blue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all, two
+little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed chair,
+of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of brilliant
+flowers on a dark ground.
+
+Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old
+acquaintance were all about me, and "auld lang syne" smiled out of
+every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of
+which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered "heads;"
+the velvets circling the white throats; the swell of the full muslin
+kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon the
+mantel-shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive
+tea-service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a white
+centre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass.
+Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the
+flaws or cracks, like any _clairvoyante_. Above all, there was a pair
+of handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line
+engravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding again, recalling
+hours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, a
+tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers, now
+so skeleton-like.
+
+Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of
+our Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant
+country. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year
+they and I had never met. I gasped audibly, "Where am I?"
+
+A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape
+inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the
+riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a
+common-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French nor
+English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding
+her phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead with
+some cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion on
+which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her
+post at the foot of the sofa.
+
+She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on her
+without interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or what
+she could have to do among the scenes, or with the days of my girlhood.
+Still more I marvelled what those scenes and days could now have to do
+with me.
+
+Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by
+saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there
+could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was
+sane. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not
+so clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens,
+the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damask
+furniture, were, in fact, precisely the same, in every minutest detail,
+with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been so
+thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother's house at
+Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different
+proportions and dimensions.
+
+I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to
+the gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the
+storm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from the
+church-steps, and "rising high into the air," as the eastern tale said,
+had he borne me over land and ocean, and laid me quietly down beside a
+hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth burned
+before its Lares no more--it went out long ago, and the household gods
+had been carried elsewhere.
+
+The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open, and,
+I suppose, deeming their expression perturbed and excited, she put down
+her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand; she
+poured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in hand, she
+approached me. What dark-tinged draught might she now be offering? what
+Genii-elixir or Magi-distillation?
+
+It was too late to inquire--I had swallowed it passively, and at once.
+A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain; softer and
+softer rose the flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. The
+pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to move;
+but, losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That kind bonne
+placed a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to do this, but
+do not remember seeing her resume her place: in the interval between
+the two acts, I "fell on sleep."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded
+me; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and
+blustering autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat--sure
+by the beating rain on the casement; sure by the "wuther" of wind
+amongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, the
+whiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I say _whiteness_--for the
+dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.
+
+I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of a
+long, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on encountering
+the limited area of a small cabinet--a cabinet with seagreen walls;
+also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there was one high
+lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two dozen little
+stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer, there was a
+toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white robe over a
+pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a pretty
+pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette, together with
+a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a washstand topped with
+a marble slab, and supplied with utensils of pale greenware,
+sufficiently furnished the tiny chamber.
+
+Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this
+simple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid?
+Merely this--These articles of furniture could not be real, solid
+arm-chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands--they must be the ghosts of
+such articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis--and,
+confounded as I was, I _did_ deny it--there remained but to conclude
+that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in short, that
+I was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the strangest
+figment with which delirium had ever harassed a victim.
+
+I knew--I was obliged to know--the green chintz of that little chair;
+the little snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated frame
+of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on the
+stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered at
+one corner;--all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as
+last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the
+drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.
+
+Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. And
+why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they came
+at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my distempered
+vision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone?
+As to that pincushion made of crimson satin, ornamented with gold beads
+and frilled with thread-lace, I had the same right to know it as to
+know the screens--I had made it myself. Rising with a start from the
+bed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined it. There was the
+cipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beds, and surrounded with an oval
+wreath embroidered in white silk. These were the initials of my
+godmother's name--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.
+
+"Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?" I muttered; and hastily pulling up
+the blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and
+discover _where_ I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsome
+buildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to see at
+the end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant of
+a town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street in a pleasant
+and ancient English city.
+
+I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering round
+the high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level, a
+lawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond--high
+forest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were now
+groaning under the gale of October, and between their trunks I traced
+the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, or
+were whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. Whatever landscape
+might lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches shut it
+out. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I did not
+know it at all.
+
+Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning my
+face to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became
+excluded. Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope,
+behold, on the green space between the divided and looped-up curtains,
+hung a broad, gilded picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was
+drawn--well drawn, though but a sketch--in water-colours; a head, a
+boy's head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youth
+of sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hair
+long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an arch
+mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at,
+especially for, those claiming a right to that youth's
+affections--parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little
+school-girl might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked
+as if when somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response to
+love: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine
+of faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips
+menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.
+
+Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered
+to myself--
+
+"Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the
+mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I
+used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding it
+in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance
+under their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well I
+liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of the
+mouth." I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that
+mouth, or of the chin; even _my_ ignorance knew that both were
+beautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: "How it was that
+what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?" Once, by
+way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms,
+told her to look at the picture.
+
+"Do you like it, Polly?" I asked. She never answered, but gazed long,
+and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as she
+said, "Put me down." So I put her down, saying to myself: "The child
+feels it too."
+
+All these things do I now think over, adding, "He had his faults, yet
+scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible." My
+reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, "Graham!"
+
+"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. "Do you want Graham?"
+
+I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If
+it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall,
+still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered
+living form opposite--a woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall,
+well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best became her
+matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good face; too
+marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or character. She
+was little changed; something sterner, something more robust--but she
+was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs. Bretton.
+
+I kept quiet, yet internally _I_ was much agitated: my pulse fluttered,
+and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
+
+"Madam, where am I?" I inquired.
+
+"In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind
+quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning."
+
+"I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my
+senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular:
+but you speak English, do you not, madam?"
+
+"I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long
+discourse in French."
+
+"You do not come from England?"
+
+"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You
+seem to know my son?"
+
+"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son--the picture there?"
+
+"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced
+his name."
+
+"Graham Bretton?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ----shire?"
+
+"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign
+school here: my son recognised you as such."
+
+"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"
+
+"My son shall tell you that by-and-by," said she; "but at present you
+are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast,
+and then sleep."
+
+Notwithstanding all I had undergone--the bodily fatigue, the
+perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather--it seemed that I was
+better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was
+abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid
+food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast
+being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward
+faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered,
+and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It was
+only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or
+three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth
+and a biscuit.
+
+As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild and
+cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary--very weary
+of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it confining: I
+longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering gloom, too,
+depressed me; I wanted to see--to feel firelight. Besides, I kept
+thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him?
+Certainly not till I left my room.
+
+At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to
+wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but,
+declining these attentions, I proceeded to dress myself:
+
+The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath,
+when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.
+
+"Dressed!" she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew--a
+pleasant smile, though not soft. "You are quite better then? Quite
+strong--eh?"
+
+She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost
+fancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of
+patronage in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had always
+experienced from her--a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it was
+not founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (in
+the last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree was
+mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the shelter
+the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further ceremony.
+
+"Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here."
+
+"I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the change,"
+was her reply. "Come then; here is an arm." And she offered me hers: I
+took it, and we descended one flight of carpeted steps to a landing
+where a tall door, standing open, gave admission into the blue-damask
+room. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic comfort! How
+warm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To render the
+picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table--an English tea, whereof
+the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from the solid
+silver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the same metal,
+to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding. I knew the
+very seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould, which
+always had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it, and
+there it was as of yore--set before Graham's plate with the silver
+knife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham was
+now, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," said my conductress, as my step faltered a little
+in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passed
+behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found another
+seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to make a fuss
+about any person or anything; without remonstrance she suffered me to
+have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the newspaper. I
+liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her movements were so
+young: she must have been now above fifty, yet neither her sinews nor
+her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of age. Though portly, she
+was alert, and though serene, she was at times impetuous--good health
+and an excellent temperament kept her green as in her spring.
+
+While she read, I perceived she listened--listened for her son. She was
+not the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no lull
+in the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind--roaring
+still unsatisfied--I well knew his mother's heart would be out with him.
+
+"Ten minutes behind his time," said she, looking at her watch; then, in
+another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight
+inclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some
+sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less
+practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel,
+lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from
+the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue
+chair--her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with
+impunity usurp it. And when that _one_ came up the stairs--which he
+soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as the
+wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in--
+
+"Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking
+curtly.
+
+"Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessing
+himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.
+
+"Don't you deserve cold tea, for being late?"
+
+"I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily."
+
+"Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but
+mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always
+leave that chair for the Old Lady."
+
+"So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. How
+is your patient, mamma?"
+
+"Will she come forward and speak for herself?" said Mrs. Bretton,
+turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham
+courteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure
+justifying his mother's unconcealed pride.
+
+"So you are come down," said he; "you must be better then--much better.
+I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was alarmed last
+night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, I
+certainly would not have left you; but my mother herself is something
+of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I saw the case was a
+fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What brought it on, I have yet
+to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I trust you really do feel
+better?"
+
+"Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."
+
+For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host of
+mine--this Graham Bretton, _was_ Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what
+is more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is
+more, when I heard Graham's step on the stairs, I knew what manner of
+figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The
+discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated my perceptions
+long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten
+years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they
+mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference as
+would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John
+Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he
+had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the
+excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I
+first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back,
+when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification
+of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point,
+that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits
+of his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep tones
+the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of
+old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and
+lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his
+well-charactered brow.
+
+To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ at my discovery, had not
+suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling.
+On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked
+entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through,
+while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination which
+shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast
+light no farther.
+
+Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come
+forward and announce, "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in my
+teacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He
+heard me called "Miss," and "Miss Lucy;" he never heard the surname,
+"Snowe." As to spontaneous recognition--though I, perhaps, was still
+less changed than he--the idea never approached his mind, and why
+should I suggest it?
+
+During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal
+over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the
+cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst
+them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten
+minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me.
+Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, presently, "I have seldom seen a stronger
+likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
+
+"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One
+would think you had an attack of second sight."
+
+"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing to
+me.
+
+"Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is
+your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not
+know your ways."
+
+"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she
+like, Graham?"
+
+"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to
+solve it!"
+
+"And you have known her some time, you say--ever since you first began
+to attend the school in the Rue Fossette:--yet you never mentioned to
+me that singular resemblance!"
+
+"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
+not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"
+
+"Stupid boy! look at her."
+
+Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must end,
+so I thought it best to anticipate.
+
+"Dr. John," I said, "has had so much to do and think of, since he and I
+shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while I
+readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never
+occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at
+once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,
+perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without being
+particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make a
+bustle, and she preferred all sentimental demonstrations in bas-relief.
+So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single salute;
+yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we renewed old
+acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed of his
+paroxysm of astonishment.
+
+"Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so," at length he said;
+"for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected
+this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I
+recollect her perfectly, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,"
+he added, "you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all this
+time, and never mentioned it."
+
+"That I have," was my answer.
+
+Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as eccentric,
+but he was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay, too, he
+would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very closely,
+to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and, though he
+might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was by no means
+such as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.
+
+For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the
+circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight
+annoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my
+mind.
+
+"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."
+
+"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.
+
+"Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I
+wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to
+your usually averted eyes."
+
+"You see how it was now?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past
+times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to
+explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed
+conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John
+listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had
+known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had
+retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, with
+such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with
+the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of those
+on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity might
+set against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat her down
+with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not rash, yet
+valiant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to win from
+her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.
+
+In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided.
+Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small château,
+they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crécy); this
+country site being chosen for the sake of his mother's health, with
+which town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton,
+and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residue
+furniture of the former St. Ann's Street mansion as she had thought fit
+to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs, and
+the wraiths of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups.
+
+As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.
+
+"Miss Snowe must retire now," he said; "she is beginning to look very
+pale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the
+cause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last
+July, when I saw her enact with no little spirit the part of a very
+killing fine gentleman. As to last night's catastrophe, I am sure
+thereby hangs a tale, but we will inquire no further this evening.
+Good-night, Miss Lucy."
+
+And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted
+me up the one flight of stairs.
+
+When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I
+felt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehement
+attachment, not offering the tender solace of well-matched and
+congenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand of
+affection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; but
+towards whom my heart softened instinctively, and yearned with an
+importunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to check.
+
+"Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly," I
+implored: "let me be content with a temperate draught of this living
+stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome
+waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth's
+fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enough
+sustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, brief,
+unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!"
+
+Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_ repeating
+it, I steeped that pillow with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+LA TERRASSE.
+
+
+These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of
+the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
+They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that
+turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often
+opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenour of a
+life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on
+the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
+As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as
+you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to
+your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how you
+are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray
+with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for
+patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not
+_your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in _some_ shape, though
+perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for
+which it bled, the healing herald will descend, the cripple and the
+blind, and the dumb, and the possessed will be led to bathe. Herald,
+come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing, to
+see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are the "times" of Heaven:
+the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may
+enring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered
+generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and through
+pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again,
+and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first
+and sole angel visitant, him easterns call Azrael!
+
+I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
+intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand, with
+design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
+difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Here is an absurdity!" was her morning accost. "Not so," she added,
+and dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion--that
+fashion which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son, and
+by him vigorously resisted--in two minutes she consigned me captive to
+the French bed.
+
+"There you lie till afternoon," said she. "My boy left orders before he
+went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son is
+master and must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast."
+
+Presently she brought that meal--brought it with her own active
+hands--not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while
+I ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and
+esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to
+watch us, to wait on us, to approach us with the proximity of a nurse
+to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick
+room, whose presence is there a solace: but all this was Mrs. Bretton
+to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so
+well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion
+when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our
+natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are
+people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid,
+though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others
+with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live
+content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively
+black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her
+self-reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all beneficial to me as
+the atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her
+"the old lady;" it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the
+alacrity and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and
+around her.
+
+"I would bring my work here," she said, as she took from me the emptied
+teacup, "and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing John
+Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. 'Now, mamma,' he
+said, when he went out, 'take notice, you are not to knock up your
+god-daughter with gossip,' and he particularly desired me to keep close
+to my own quarters, and spare you my fine company. He says, Lucy, he
+thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look,--is that
+so?"
+
+I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that
+I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on
+this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details
+of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which
+I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region
+would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The
+difference between her and me might be figured by that between the
+stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of
+crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the
+life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old,
+dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough
+weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide
+between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never
+was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could
+not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own
+counsel, and spins no yarns.
+
+She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
+remember me before he went out.
+
+My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and
+cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after
+the morning hours were gone by,--those hours which always bring, even
+to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks
+waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be
+employed--when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of
+afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I
+then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.
+
+My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no
+colour about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of foam
+and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-shaped
+ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the
+ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin
+pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might
+have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale,
+subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell
+upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a
+tide retiring from a shore of the upper world--a world so high above
+that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers,
+could sound down in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a
+lullaby.
+
+Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light; with
+her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I
+made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.
+
+Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls
+earlier than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as I
+entered the parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the door,
+reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as closing day
+yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit,
+and tea was not yet brought up.
+
+As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother--who, I afterwards found, had
+been out in the open air all day--lay half-reclined in her
+deep-cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came
+forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he
+also spoke low: his mellow voice never had any sharpness in it;
+modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than
+startle slumber.
+
+"This is a quiet little château," he observed, after inviting me to sit
+near the casement. "I don't know whether you may have noticed it in
+your walks: though, indeed, from the chaussée it is not visible; just a
+mile beyond the Porte de Crécy, you turn down a lane which soon becomes
+an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to the very
+door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built somewhat in the
+old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir than a château;
+they call it 'La Terrasse,' because its front rises from a broad turfed
+walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the avenue. See yonder!
+The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-boles."
+
+Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined
+or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted
+now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her flushed ascent,
+she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated up stainless into
+a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Bretton? Did it
+touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he
+sighed in watching it: sighed to himself quietly. No need to ponder the
+cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was wakened by beauty; I
+knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea pressed upon me that it
+was in some sort my duty to speak the name he meditated. Of course he
+was ready for the subject: I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude
+of comment, question and interest; a pressure of language and
+sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense of embarrassment how to
+begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my best, indeed my sole use.
+I had but to utter the idol's name, and love's tender litany would flow
+out. I had just found a fitting phrase, "You know that Miss Fanshawe is
+gone on a tour with the Cholmondeleys," and was opening my lips to
+speak to it, when he scattered my plans by introducing another theme.
+
+"The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his
+pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue
+Fossette, and told the cuisinière that you were safe and in good hands.
+Do you know that I actually found that she had not yet discovered your
+absence from the house: she thought you safe in the great dormitory.
+With what care you must have been waited on!"
+
+"Oh! all that is very conceivable," said I. "Goton could do nothing for
+me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had
+rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got
+tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
+school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
+believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
+been delighted to cook me côtelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
+them."
+
+"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"
+
+"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."
+
+"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"
+
+"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
+low-spirited."
+
+"Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
+give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
+Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
+neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
+be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise."
+
+Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
+right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the
+well-worn stamp of use.
+
+"Miss Snowe," recommenced Dr. John--my health, nervous system included,
+being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--"is it
+permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"
+
+I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
+idea?"
+
+"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt."
+
+"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
+learn how I fell into your hands."
+
+"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all
+day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
+character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
+similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
+interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
+symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
+set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
+the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
+past an old church belonging to a community of Béguines, I saw by a
+lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
+lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
+the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
+have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
+latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
+class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better informed,
+as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on me to stop:
+what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I alighted.
+
+"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
+is not dead.'
+
+"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
+at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
+bloodless, and nearly cold.
+
+"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.
+
+"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
+evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
+coupled with some things you had said--"
+
+"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"
+
+"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
+the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
+Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it
+seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should be out on
+such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
+you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
+of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
+might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little of
+the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn the
+locality of your home--did you impart that in your confession?"
+
+"I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
+indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will think
+me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I suppose it
+was all the fault of what you call my 'nervous system.' I cannot put
+the case into words, but my days and nights were grown intolerable: a
+cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling that would make its
+way, rush out, or kill me--like (and this you will understand, Dr.
+John) the current which passes through the heart, and which, if
+aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels,
+seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I
+wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I
+went and sought them in church and confessional. As to what I said, it
+was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong: my life has
+not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality:
+all I poured out was a dreary, desperate complaint."
+
+"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
+is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
+widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"
+
+"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
+fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."
+
+"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"
+
+"Me--Dr. John--me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I
+like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and
+Fate."
+
+"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
+suppose, at my bad grammar.
+
+"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
+the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
+yet, Père Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
+wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
+Fossette, your fevered wanderings--there must have been high fever--"
+
+"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
+that I was delirious, for I know differently."
+
+"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
+wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
+Béguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
+of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
+succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
+procured a fiacre and brought you here. Père Silas, old as he is, would
+carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
+certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
+restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
+arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left--the last duties
+were called for--the physician's last visit and the priest's last rite;
+extreme unction could not be deferred. Père Silas and myself departed
+together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave you in
+charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she followed
+successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Père Silas know where I
+live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
+thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
+for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
+for tea."
+
+Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up--astonished and indignant at
+herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
+prepared to deny that she had slept at all--her son came gaily to the
+attack.
+
+"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your
+slumbers."
+
+"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never
+_do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."
+
+"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
+circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."
+
+"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."
+
+"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a most
+sprightly woman of her size and age."
+
+"Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
+size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
+rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
+eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater
+tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you."
+
+"As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
+indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in
+green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to
+scold. It keeps her lively--it maintains the wholesome ferment of her
+spirits."
+
+The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
+fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
+atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
+Bretton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom; her dearest
+pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
+his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
+the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin's portion.
+Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own young
+idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could not
+tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe's conduct
+towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing, and
+repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with which
+she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his fine
+spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his
+subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation--_then_ Mrs. Bretton
+would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or both. Well--I
+thought so too.
+
+That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_ sweetly
+indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old troubles were
+not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I felt happier,
+easier, more at home. That night--instead of crying myself asleep--I
+went down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WE QUARREL.
+
+
+During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
+seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
+quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
+but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
+lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
+theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
+sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
+outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
+and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
+delicately; anonymously as it were.
+
+"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"
+
+"Friend, forsooth!" thought I to myself: but it would not do to
+contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
+friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
+whom he meant?
+
+He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
+thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
+
+"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
+through the south of France?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"Do you and she correspond?"
+
+"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
+application for that privilege."
+
+"You have seen letters of her writing?"
+
+"Yes; several to her uncle."
+
+"They will not be deficient in wit and _naïveté_; there is so much
+sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"
+
+"She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
+Bassompierre: he who runs may read." (In fact, Ginevra's epistles to
+her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
+applications for cash.)
+
+"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
+think?"
+
+It was, and I said so.
+
+"I verily believe that all she does is well done," said Dr. John; and
+as I seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added "You,
+who know her, could you name a point in which she is deficient?"
+
+"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
+subjoined I, in thought.)
+
+"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.
+
+"Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in
+ascribing to me a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the
+felicity to enjoy. I have never been the depositary of her plans and
+secrets. You will find her particular friends in another sphere than
+mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for instance."
+
+He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
+his own!
+
+"Excuse her," he said; "judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion
+misleads her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow,
+and will return to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust. I
+know something of the Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish
+people; depend on it, at heart Ginevra values you beyond a score of
+such."
+
+"You are very kind," I said briefly.
+
+A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but
+I extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the
+humiliated, cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished
+Miss Fanshawe: but, reader, it was a hard submission.
+
+"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, I cannot take
+the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do me justice.
+De Hamal is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her: wretched
+delusion!"
+
+My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I suppose
+illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.
+
+"Dr. Bretton," I broke out, "there is no delusion like your own. On all
+points but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking,
+clear-sighted: on this exceptional point you are but a slave. I
+declare, where Miss Fanshawe is concerned, you merit no respect; nor
+have you mine."
+
+I got up, and left the room very much excited.
+
+This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again in
+the evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of
+common clay, not put together out of vulgar materials; while the
+outlines of his nature had been shaped with breadth and vigour, the
+details embraced workmanship of almost feminine delicacy: finer, much
+finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; than you could believe
+inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. Indeed, till some
+over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its effects, their
+acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; and the
+more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent in
+him: to feel, and to seize quickly another's feelings, are separate
+properties; a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John
+had the one in exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that
+he was not endowed with the other in equal degree, the reader will
+considerately refrain from passing to an extreme, and pronouncing him
+_un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the contrary, he was a kind, generous
+man. Make your need known, his hand was open. Put your grief into
+words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of perception,
+miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when Dr.
+John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at one
+glance his whole mechanism.
+
+To one who had named him "slave," and, on any point, banned him from
+respect, he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well
+applied, and the ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it was
+so: his mind even candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He
+sought in this accusation the cause of that ill-success which had got
+so galling a hold on his mental peace: Amid the worry of a
+self-condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold,
+both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice,
+no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's
+best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the
+table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I
+handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank
+you, Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my
+ear welcomed.
+
+For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my
+culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do
+at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage
+war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and
+stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr.
+John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any
+other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest place,
+among the highest stars, where her lover's highest flight of fancy
+chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to
+dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and again
+that eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew, and I
+was baffled. After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I wished
+I could have dared to go and sit near him, but it seemed that if I
+ventured to take that step, he would infallibly evince hostility and
+indignation. I longed to speak out, and I dared not whisper. His mother
+left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just murmured the
+words "Dr. Bretton."
+
+He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his
+mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might
+have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour
+in one thunder-clap.
+
+"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."
+
+He smiled that moment I spoke. "Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you
+don't respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I fear,
+I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where I wish
+to please, it seems I don't please."
+
+"Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the
+fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me
+unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply
+respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of
+others, what is that but an excellence?"
+
+"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"
+
+"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree to differ.
+Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."
+
+"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"
+
+"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
+that, to ease me of the heart-ache."
+
+"Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me
+a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I feel
+grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher."
+
+"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."
+
+Thus our quarrel ended.
+
+Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr.
+John undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give
+the feeling as at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character
+as it appeared when discovered.
+
+He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that
+misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my
+theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed,
+somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated.
+An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but
+very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two
+lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those
+few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail
+frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I
+think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in
+discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that
+if he would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was most
+interested, my expectation would always be answered, my wish always
+satisfied. It follows, as a matter of course, that I continued to hear
+much of "Ginevra."
+
+"Ginevra!" He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of her
+charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain prose
+knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to settle on
+her idea, even for me. Still, reader, I am free to confess, that he
+often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient with him.
+I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the pain of
+crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and new
+sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the
+delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still
+seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded
+about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. The fancy
+became rooted in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she was
+only coquetting to goad him, and that, at heart, she coveted everyone
+of his words and looks. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of my
+resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable
+gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the
+flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again. I
+chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience, that
+in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe _must_ intend eventually
+to accept him.
+
+"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
+assurance?"
+
+"The best grounds."
+
+"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"
+
+"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really
+amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her
+fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult."
+
+"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a
+little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an
+explanation--a full explanation: I must have it."
+
+"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
+you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Père
+Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for his
+poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your
+favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John--"
+
+"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."
+
+"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her hands
+filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for
+her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts
+the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could
+have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments,
+to purchase which your generosity must have verged on extravagance."
+
+The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
+flushed all over the face of her admirer.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my
+scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour
+in accepting them."
+
+"She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour that
+she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection,
+she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some
+rouleaux of gold pieces."
+
+"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for
+my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."
+
+I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and
+well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money's worth, and
+endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the
+most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years.
+
+He pursued. "You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap
+some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even
+pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me,
+she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to
+bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her
+ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully
+chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
+valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would hardly
+cast one look on my gift."
+
+"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
+you?"
+
+"No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to
+seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like
+quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build
+on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part,
+were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her
+incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture
+to believe the transaction advanced me one step."
+
+"Dr. John," I began, "Love is blind;" but just then a blue subtle ray
+sped sideways from Dr. John's eye: it reminded me of old days, it
+reminded me of his picture: it half led me to think that part, at
+least, of his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's _naïveté_ was
+assumed; it led me dubiously to conjecture that perhaps, in spite of
+his passion for her beauty, his appreciation of her foibles might
+possibly be less mistaken, more clear-sighted, than from his general
+language was presumable. After all it might be only a chance look, or
+at best the token of a merely momentary impression. Chance or
+intentional real or imaginary, it closed the conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of
+the vacation. Mrs. Bretton's kind management procured me this respite.
+Her son having one day delivered the dictum that "Lucy was not yet
+strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionnat," she at once
+drove over to the Rue Fossette, had an interview with the directress,
+and procured the indulgence, on the plea of prolonged rest and change
+being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, however, followed an
+attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz--a polite call
+from Madame Beck.
+
+That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
+château. I suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner
+of place Dr. John inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat
+interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw,
+pronounced the blue salon "une pièce magnifique," profusely
+congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes,
+aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my favour,
+and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost buoyancy,
+opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all sparkling
+with felicitations and protestations about his "château,"--"madame sa
+mère, la digne châtelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed, were very
+flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by the
+good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to Madame's
+fluent and florid French. In short, Madame shone in her very best phase
+that day, and came in and went out quite a living catherine-wheel of
+compliments, delight, and affability. Half purposely, and half to ask
+some question about school-business, I followed her to the carriage,
+and looked in after she was seated and the door closed. In that brief
+fraction of time what a change had been wrought! An instant ago, all
+sparkles and jests, she now sat sterner than a judge and graver than a
+sage. Strange little woman!
+
+I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame's devotion to him. How he
+laughed! What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine
+speeches, and repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an
+acute sense of humour, and was the finest company in the world--when he
+could forget Miss Fanshawe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To "sit in sunshine calm and sweet" is said to be excellent for weak
+people; it gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was
+recovering from her illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk
+with her in the garden by the hour together, beneath a certain wall
+hung with grapes, which the Southern sun was ripening: that sun
+cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as it mellowed and
+swelled the clustering fruit.
+
+There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose
+influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for
+the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these
+choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton's and his mother's. They
+liked to communicate happiness, as some like to occasion misery: they
+did it instinctively; without fuss, and apparently with little
+consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their
+minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little plan was
+proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was
+Dr. John's time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each
+brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they
+were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which
+left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet
+seldom over-driven, and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What
+he did was accomplished with the ease and grace of all-sufficing
+strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of high and unbroken
+energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy fortnight, more
+of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen in the
+whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of
+interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard;
+with willingness and spirit he communicates much noteworthy
+information. He never seemed to think it a trouble to talk to me, and,
+I am sure, it was never a task to me to listen. It was not his way to
+treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he rarely generalized, never prosed.
+He seemed to like nice details almost as much as I liked them myself:
+he seemed observant of character: and not superficially observant,
+either. These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse; and
+the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources, and not
+borrowing or stealing from books--here a dry fact, and there a trite
+phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion--ensured a freshness, as
+welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too, his disposition seemed to
+unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh day: to rise in new and nobler
+dawn.
+
+His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a
+better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville--the
+poor and crowded quarter of the city--that his errands there were as
+much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood
+presently that cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded
+unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds--he was
+achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good.
+The lower orders liked him well; his poor, patients in the hospitals
+welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.
+
+But stop--I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the
+partial eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not
+perfect, anymore than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him
+throughout: there was no hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I
+spent with him that in act or speech, or look, he did not betray
+something that was not of a god. A god could not have the cruel vanity
+of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity. No immortal could have resembled
+him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the present--in his
+passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely, by devoting it to
+material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting from it whatever it
+could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-love: his delight was to
+feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought of the price of
+provender, or care for the cost of keeping it sleek and high-pampered.
+
+The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two
+views which have been given of Graham Bretton--the public and
+private--the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public,
+he is shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his
+energies, as earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside
+picture, there is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he
+is; pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in
+receiving the same. Both portraits are correct.
+
+It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When
+you thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use
+had been achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it
+when placed ready for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed
+you by a smilingly-uttered observation or two, proving that his eye had
+been on the work from commencement to close: that he had noted the
+design, traced its progress, and marked its completion. It pleased him
+to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in his eye and play
+about his mouth.
+
+This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly
+and unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he
+called debts. When his mother worked for him, he paid her by showering
+about her his bright animal spirits, with even more affluence than his
+gay, taunting, teasing, loving wont. If Lucy Snowe were discovered to
+have put her hand to such work, he planned, in recompence, some
+pleasant recreation.
+
+I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge
+not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its
+galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object
+worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or science,
+he seemed to possess the "Open! Sesame." I never had a head for
+science, but an ignorant, blind, fond instinct inclined me to art. I
+liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I dearly liked to be left
+there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see much
+or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was necessary to
+maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half an hour would
+knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical lassitude and entire
+mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-reared child, much less the
+educated adult, who could not put me to shame, by the sustained
+intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal of a conversable,
+sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights or buildings, or any
+lions of public interest. Dr. Bretton was a cicerone after my own
+heart; he would take me betimes, ere the galleries were filled, leave
+me there for two or three hours, and call for me when his own
+engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was happy; happy, not always
+in admiring, but in examining, questioning, and forming conclusions. In
+the commencement of these visits, there was some misunderstanding and
+consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted
+approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the
+latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then
+self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet
+its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't
+praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue
+resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I
+might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually
+that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before
+ninety-nine out of a hundred of the exhibited frames.
+
+It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce as
+an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
+myself, standing before certain _chef-d'oeuvres_ bearing great names,
+"These are not a whit like nature. Nature's daylight never had that
+colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it is
+laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not ether;
+and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees." Several very
+well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no means
+the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores of
+marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of sketches,
+excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in the
+handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry whimsically
+applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which
+satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision.
+Nature's power here broke through in a mountain snow-storm; and there
+her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in this portrait
+proved clear insight into character; a face in that historical
+painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly reminded you that
+genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they grew dear as
+friends.
+
+One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
+certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set
+up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before
+it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of
+worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet,
+might be fain to complete the business sitting: this picture, I say,
+seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
+
+It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
+I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
+for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
+fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
+much butcher's meat--to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and
+liquids--must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that
+wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a
+couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round
+her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
+plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
+standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
+lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
+garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
+abundance of material--seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
+drapery--she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the
+wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and
+pans--perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets--were rolled here and
+there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst
+them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered
+the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalogue, I
+found that this notable production bore the name "Cleopatra."
+
+Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
+I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that
+while some of the details--as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very
+prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap;
+the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. Scarcely
+noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to me) I
+retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to studying
+this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I soon
+tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of some
+exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-fruit,
+mossy woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen through
+clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse and
+preposterous canvas.
+
+Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
+face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.
+
+"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."
+
+"Vous vous amusez! et à quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-moi
+le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre côté."
+
+I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned from
+Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant of
+insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled his
+temples.
+
+"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
+room.
+
+"I have no party."
+
+"You are not alone?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Did you come here unaccompanied?"
+
+"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."
+
+"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"
+
+"No; only Dr. Bretton."
+
+"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"By no means; I found it out for myself."
+
+M. Paul's hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
+bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
+certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.
+
+"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulières femmes
+que ces Anglaises!"
+
+"What is the matter, Monsieur?"
+
+"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the
+self-possession of a garçon, and look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
+look at it."
+
+"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."
+
+"If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And then, what
+does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody meddles with
+me."
+
+"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous là--là!"--setting down a chair with
+emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
+specially dreary "cadres."
+
+"Mais, Monsieur?"
+
+"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez
+pas--entendez-vous?--jusqu'à ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je
+vous donne la permission."
+
+"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"
+
+And "laids," indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in the
+catalogue "La vie d'une femme." They were painted rather in a
+remarkable style--flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented a
+"Jeune Fille," coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand, her
+dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up--the image of
+a most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a
+"Mariée," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her
+chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and
+showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The
+third, a "Jeune Mère," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy
+baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve,"
+being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the
+twain studiously surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a
+corner of some Père la Chaise. All these four "Anges" were grim and
+grey as burglars, and cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live
+with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As bad
+in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in hers.
+
+It was impossible to keep one's attention long confined to these
+master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
+gallery.
+
+A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
+Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
+crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were "des
+dames," and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
+"demoiselle" ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
+agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
+with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also, in
+the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A more
+despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor's chair. I
+noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself quite at his
+ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however, neglect to glance
+from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to make sure that I was
+obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-by, he again accosted
+me.
+
+"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
+
+"Yes, but I was now quite well."
+
+"Where had I spent the vacation?"
+
+"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
+
+"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
+
+"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the crétin) "was with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
+rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
+never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
+advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
+between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
+repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
+temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
+apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
+the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
+forbearance and compassion--such a claim as it was not in his nature to
+deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience and
+disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other; in
+which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
+feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
+character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
+aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
+both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their
+vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
+excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to fear
+him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
+apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
+confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
+however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
+nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
+
+"How did you get on with Marie Broc?" he asked, after some minutes'
+silence.
+
+"Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!"
+
+"You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps, charity.
+Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy."
+
+[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and
+self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of
+his soul.]
+
+"I don't know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
+her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief."
+
+"Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
+of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?"
+
+"Could Monsieur do it himself?"
+
+"Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse,
+fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such duties."
+
+"I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
+she made mouths at me instead of speaking."
+
+"You think you did great things?"
+
+"No; but as great as I _could_ do."
+
+"Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell sick."
+
+"Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill."
+
+"Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic
+mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it
+merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of
+Cleopatra."
+
+It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of
+the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had
+no present disposition to begin.
+
+"Cleopatra!" I repeated, quietly. "Monsieur, too, has been looking at
+Cleopatra; what does he think of her?"
+
+"Cela ne vaut rien," he responded. "Une femme superbe--une taille
+d'impératrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne
+voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour soeur. Aussi vous ne
+jeterez plus un seul coup d'oeil de sa côté."
+
+"But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been
+talking: I can see her quite well from this corner."
+
+"Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life."
+
+"Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them,
+allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation."
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended
+for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You
+nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk
+calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if
+some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you would
+issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire."
+
+"Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?"
+
+"How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an
+acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?"
+
+"I think so--Yes, I see there a person I know."
+
+In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any
+other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished, highly
+polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty! What
+womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his
+optics! with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and then, how
+engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow! Oh, the man
+of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of superior taste and tact! I
+observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was
+exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much
+was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character
+by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the
+interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his
+scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present
+abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I
+again looked round, he was gone.
+
+My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and dissimilar
+figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well as the port
+lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in visage, in shape,
+in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic little professor, as the
+fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the sloe in the wild thicket;
+as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian is unlike the rude and
+stubborn "sheltie." He was looking for me, but had not yet explored the
+corner where the schoolmaster had just put me. I remained quiet; yet
+another minute I would watch.
+
+He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a pleasure
+in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the Cleopatra. I
+doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the little Count;
+his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he
+stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I saw now that he
+was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.
+
+We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant to
+take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say
+about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a
+connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be
+fresh: very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to
+tell him some things he did not know--he listened so kindly, so
+teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright handsome
+head, to gather a woman's rather obscure and stammering explanation,
+should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he communicated
+information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence that left all
+his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of his giving, no
+fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.
+
+As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra
+(after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent
+me to the right about, and taking him to see the sweet series of
+pictures recommended to my attention.)
+
+"Pooh!" said he. "My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some
+French fops, yonder, designating her as 'le type du voluptueux;' if so,
+I can only say, 'le voluptueux' is little to my liking. Compare that
+mulatto with Ginevra!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE CONCERT.
+
+
+One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me to
+open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a word.
+
+"That will do," said she, when she had turned them over. "You must have
+a new one."
+
+She went out. She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me
+measured. "I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my
+own way in this little matter."
+
+Two days after came home--a pink dress!
+
+"That is not for me," I said, hurriedly, feeling that I would almost as
+soon clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.
+
+"We shall see whether it is for you or not," rejoined my godmother,
+adding with her resistless decision: "Mark my words. You will wear it
+this very evening."
+
+I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put me
+into it. A pink dress! I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not proved
+it.
+
+My godmother went on to decree that I was to go with her and Graham to
+a concert that same night: which concert, she explained, was a grand
+affair to be held in the large salle, or hall, of the principal musical
+society. The most advanced of the pupils of the Conservatoire were to
+perform: it was to be followed by a lottery "au bénéfice des pauvres;"
+and to crown all, the King, Queen, and Prince of Labassecour were to be
+present. Graham, in sending tickets, had enjoined attention to costume
+as a compliment due to royalty: he also recommended punctual readiness
+by seven o'clock.
+
+About six, I was ushered upstairs. Without any force at all, I found
+myself led and influenced by another's will, unconsulted, unpersuaded,
+quietly overruled. In short, the pink dress went on, softened by some
+drapery of black lace. I was pronounced to be en grande tenue, and
+requested to look in the glass. I did so with some fear and trembling;
+with more fear and trembling, I turned away. Seven o'clock struck; Dr.
+Bretton was come; my godmother and I went down. _She_ was clad in brown
+velvet; as I walked in her shadow, how I envied her those folds of
+grave, dark majesty! Graham stood in the drawing-room doorway.
+
+"I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to draw
+attention," was my uneasy aspiration.
+
+"Here, Lucy, are some flowers," said he, giving me a bouquet. He took
+no further notice of my dress than was conveyed in a kind smile and
+satisfied nod, which calmed at once my sense of shame and fear of
+ridicule. For the rest; the dress was made with extreme simplicity,
+guiltless of flounce or furbelow; it was but the light fabric and
+bright tint which scared me, and since Graham found in it nothing
+absurd, my own eye consented soon to become reconciled.
+
+I suppose people who go every night to places of public amusement, can
+hardly enter into the fresh gala feeling with which an opera or a
+concert is enjoyed by those for whom it is a rarity: I am not sure that
+I expected great pleasure from the concert, having but a very vague
+notion of its nature, but I liked the drive there well. The snug
+comfort of the close carriage on a cold though fine night, the pleasure
+of setting out with companions so cheerful and friendly, the sight of
+the stars glinting fitfully through the trees as we rolled along the
+avenue; then the freer burst of the night-sky when we issued forth to
+the open chaussée, the passage through the city gates, the lights there
+burning, the guards there posted, the pretence of inspection, to which
+we there submitted, and which amused us so much--all these small
+matters had for me, in their novelty, a peculiarly exhilarating charm.
+How much of it lay in the atmosphere of friendship diffused about me, I
+know not: Dr. John and his mother were both in their finest mood,
+contending animatedly with each other the whole way, and as frankly
+kind to me as if I had been of their kin.
+
+Our way lay through some of the best streets of Villette, streets
+brightly lit, and far more lively now than at high noon. How brilliant
+seemed the shops! How glad, gay, and abundant flowed the tide of life
+along the broad pavement! While I looked, the thought of the Rue
+Fossette came across me--of the walled-in garden and school-house, and
+of the dark, vast "classes," where, as at this very hour, it was my
+wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through the high,
+blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader in
+the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the "lecture pieuse." Thus
+must I soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future
+stole with timely sobriety across the radiant present.
+
+By this time we had got into a current of carriages all tending in one
+direction, and soon the front of a great illuminated building blazed
+before us. Of what I should see within this building, I had, as before
+intimated, but an imperfect idea; for no place of public entertainment
+had it ever been my lot to enter yet.
+
+We alighted under a portico where there was a great bustle and a great
+crowd, but I do not distinctly remember further details, until I found
+myself mounting a majestic staircase wide and easy of ascent, deeply
+and softly carpeted with crimson, leading up to great doors closed
+solemnly, and whose panels were also crimson-clothed.
+
+I hardly noticed by what magic these doors were made to roll back--Dr.
+John managed these points; roll back they did, however, and within was
+disclosed a hall--grand, wide, and high, whose sweeping circular walls,
+and domed hollow ceiling, seemed to me all dead gold (thus with nice
+art was it stained), relieved by cornicing, fluting, and garlandry,
+either bright, like gold burnished, or snow-white, like alabaster, or
+white and gold mingled in wreaths of gilded leaves and spotless lilies:
+wherever drapery hung, wherever carpets were spread, or cushions
+placed, the sole colour employed was deep crimson. Pendent from the
+dome, flamed a mass that dazzled me--a mass, I thought, of
+rock-crystal, sparkling with facets, streaming with drops, ablaze with
+stars, and gorgeously tinged with dews of gems dissolved, or fragments
+of rainbows shivered. It was only the chandelier, reader, but for me it
+seemed the work of eastern genii: I almost looked to see if a huge,
+dark, cloudy hand--that of the Slave of the Lamp--were not hovering in
+the lustrous and perfumed atmosphere of the cupola, guarding its
+wondrous treasure.
+
+We moved on--I was not at all conscious whither--but at some turn we
+suddenly encountered another party approaching from the opposite
+direction. I just now see that group, as it flashed--upon me for one
+moment. A handsome middle-aged lady in dark velvet; a gentleman who
+might be her son--the best face, the finest figure, I thought, I had
+ever seen; a third person in a pink dress and black lace mantle.
+
+I noted them all--the third person as well as the other two--and for
+the fraction of a moment believed them all strangers, thus receiving an
+impartial impression of their appearance. But the impression was hardly
+felt and not fixed, before the consciousness that I faced a great
+mirror, filling a compartment between two pillars, dispelled it: the
+party was our own party. Thus for the first, and perhaps only time in
+my life, I enjoyed the "giftie" of seeing myself as others see me. No
+need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of
+regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful;
+it might have been worse.
+
+At last, we were seated in places commanding a good general view of
+that vast and dazzling, but warm and cheerful hall. Already it was
+filled, and filled with a splendid assemblage. I do not know that the
+women were very beautiful, but their dresses were so perfect; and
+foreigners, even such as are ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to
+posses the art of appearing graceful in public: however blunt and
+boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with peignoir
+and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and
+arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala
+use--always brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with
+the "parure."
+
+Some fine forms there were here and there, models of a peculiar style
+of beauty; a style, I think, never seen in England; a solid, firm-set,
+sculptural style. These shapes have no angles: a caryatid in marble is
+almost as flexible; a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain
+still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters
+give to their madonnas: low-country classic features, regular but
+round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless calm,
+of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone offer a type.
+Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any; the
+smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to the
+smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the rounded
+arm and perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain.
+
+With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be
+perfectly acquainted: the inert force of the deep, settled love she
+bore herself, was wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud
+impotency to care for any other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins
+conducted no flow; placid lymph filled and almost obstructed her
+arteries.
+
+Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view--a sort of mark
+for all eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the
+magnetic influence of gaze or glance: cold, rounded, blonde, and
+beauteous as the white column, capitalled with gilding, which rose at
+her side.
+
+Observing that Dr. John's attention was much drawn towards her, I
+entreated him in a low voice "for the love of heaven to shield well his
+heart. You need not fall in love with _that_ lady," I said, "because, I
+tell you beforehand, you might die at her feet, and she would not love
+you again."
+
+"Very well," said he, "and how do you know that the spectacle of her
+grand insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to
+homage? The sting of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to
+my emotions: but" (shrugging his shoulders) "you know nothing about
+these things; I'll address myself to my mother. Mamma, I'm in a
+dangerous way."
+
+"As if that interested me!" said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Alas! the cruelty of my lot!" responded her son. "Never man had a more
+unsentimental mother than mine: she never seems to think that such a
+calamity can befall her as a daughter-in-law."
+
+"If I don't, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over
+my head: you have threatened me with it for the last ten years. 'Mamma,
+I am going to be married soon!' was the cry before you were well out of
+jackets."
+
+"But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden,
+when you think you are most secure, I shall go forth like Jacob or
+Esau, or any other patriarch, and take me a wife: perhaps of these
+which are of the daughters of the land."
+
+"At your peril, John Graham! that is all."
+
+"This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous old
+lady it is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the pale
+blue satin dress, and hair of paler brown, with 'reflets satinés' as
+those of her robe. Would you not feel proud, mamma, if I were to bring
+that goddess home some day, and introduce her to you as Mrs. Bretton,
+junior?"
+
+"You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse: that little château will not
+contain two mistresses; especially if the second be of the height,
+bulk, and circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid
+and satin."
+
+"Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!"
+
+"Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it be
+for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your eyes."
+
+During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full
+at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the
+semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping
+from floor to ceiling. The stage, too, or rather the wide temporary
+platform, larger than any stage, desert half an hour since, was now
+overflowing with life; round two grand pianos, placed about the centre,
+a white flock of young girls, the pupils of the Conservatoire, had
+noiselessly poured. I had noticed their gathering, while Graham and his
+mother were engaged in discussing the belle in blue satin, and had
+watched with interest the process of arraying and marshalling them. Two
+gentlemen, in each of whom I recognised an acquaintance, officered this
+virgin troop. One, an artistic-looking man, bearded, and with long
+hair, was a noted pianiste, and also the first music-teacher in
+Villette; he attended twice a week at Madame Beck's pensionnat, to give
+lessons to the few pupils whose parents were rich enough to allow their
+daughters the privilege of his instructions; his name was M. Josef
+Emanuel, and he was half-brother to M. Paul: which potent personage was
+now visible in the person of the second gentleman.
+
+M. Paul amused me; I smiled to myself as I watched him, he seemed so
+thoroughly in his element--standing conspicuous in presence of a wide
+and grand assemblage, arranging, restraining, over-aweing about one
+hundred young ladies. He was, too, so perfectly in earnest--so
+energetic, so intent, and, above all, so absolute: and yet what
+business had he there? What had he to do with music or the
+Conservatoire--he who could hardly distinguish one note from another? I
+knew that it was his love of display and authority which had brought
+him there--a love not offensive, only because so naive. It presently
+became obvious that his brother, M. Josef, was as much under his
+control as were the girls themselves. Never was such a little hawk of a
+man as that M. Paul! Ere long, some noted singers and musicians dawned
+upon the platform: as these stars rose, the comet-like professor set.
+Insufferable to him were all notorieties and celebrities: where he
+could not outshine, he fled.
+
+And now all was prepared: but one compartment of the hall waited to be
+filled--a compartment covered with crimson, like the grand staircase
+and doors, furnished with stuffed and cushioned benches, ranged on each
+side of two regal chairs, placed solemnly under a canopy.
+
+A signal was given, the doors rolled back, the assembly stood up, the
+orchestra burst out, and, to the welcome of a choral burst, enter the
+King, the Queen, the Court of Labassecour.
+
+Till then, I had never set eyes on living king or queen; it may
+consequently be conjectured how I strained my powers of vision to take
+in these specimens of European royalty. By whomsoever majesty is beheld
+for the first time, there will always be experienced a vague surprise
+bordering on disappointment, that the same does not appear seated, en
+permanence, on a throne, bonneted with a crown, and furnished, as to
+the hand, with a sceptre. Looking out for a king and queen, and seeing
+only a middle-aged soldier and a rather young lady, I felt half
+cheated, half pleased.
+
+Well do I recall that King--a man of fifty, a little bowed, a little
+grey: there was no face in all that assembly which resembled his. I had
+never read, never been told anything of his nature or his habits; and
+at first the strong hieroglyphics graven as with iron stylet on his
+brow, round his eyes, beside his mouth, puzzled and baffled instinct.
+Ere long, however, if I did not know, at least I felt, the meaning of
+those characters written without hand. There sat a silent sufferer--a
+nervous, melancholy man. Those eyes had looked on the visits of a
+certain ghost--had long waited the comings and goings of that strangest
+spectre, Hypochondria. Perhaps he saw her now on that stage, over
+against him, amidst all that brilliant throng. Hypochondria has that
+wont, to rise in the midst of thousands--dark as Doom, pale as Malady,
+and well-nigh strong as Death. Her comrade and victim thinks to be
+happy one moment--"Not so," says she; "I come." And she freezes the
+blood in his heart, and beclouds the light in his eye.
+
+Some might say it was the foreign crown pressing the King's brows which
+bent them to that peculiar and painful fold; some might quote the
+effects of early bereavement. Something there might be of both these;
+but these are embittered by that darkest foe of
+humanity--constitutional melancholy. The Queen, his wife, knew this: it
+seemed to me, the reflection of her husband's grief lay, a subduing
+shadow, on her own benignant face. A mild, thoughtful, graceful woman
+that princess seemed; not beautiful, not at all like the women of solid
+charms and marble feelings described a page or two since. Hers was a
+somewhat slender shape; her features, though distinguished enough, were
+too suggestive of reigning dynasties and royal lines to give
+unqualified pleasure. The expression clothing that profile was
+agreeable in the present instance; but you could not avoid connecting
+it with remembered effigies, where similar lines appeared, under phase
+ignoble; feeble, or sensual, or cunning, as the case might be. The
+Queen's eye, however, was her own; and pity, goodness, sweet sympathy,
+blessed it with divinest light. She moved no sovereign, but a
+lady--kind, loving, elegant. Her little son, the Prince of Labassecour,
+and young Duc de Dindonneau, accompanied her: he leaned on his mother's
+knee; and, ever and anon, in the course of that evening, I saw her
+observant of the monarch at her side, conscious of his beclouded
+abstraction, and desirous to rouse him from it by drawing his attention
+to their son. She often bent her head to listen to the boy's remarks,
+and would then smilingly repeat them to his sire. The moody King
+started, listened, smiled, but invariably relapsed as soon as his good
+angel ceased speaking. Full mournful and significant was that
+spectacle! Not the less so because, both for the aristocracy and the
+honest bourgeoisie of Labassecour, its peculiarity seemed to be wholly
+invisible: I could not discover that one soul present was either struck
+or touched.
+
+With the King and Queen had entered their court, comprising two or
+three foreign ambassadors; and with them came the elite of the
+foreigners then resident in Villette. These took possession of the
+crimson benches; the ladies were seated; most of the men remained
+standing: their sable rank, lining the background, looked like a dark
+foil to the splendour displayed in front. Nor was this splendour
+without varying light and shade and gradation: the middle distance was
+filled with matrons in velvets and satins, in plumes and gems; the
+benches in the foreground, to the Queen's right hand, seemed devoted
+exclusively to young girls, the flower--perhaps, I should rather say,
+the bud--of Villette aristocracy. Here were no jewels, no head-dresses,
+no velvet pile or silken sheen purity, simplicity, and aërial grace
+reigned in that virgin band. Young heads simply braided, and fair forms
+(I was going to write _sylph_ forms, but that would have been quite
+untrue: several of these "jeunes filles," who had not numbered more
+than sixteen or seventeen years, boasted contours as robust and solid
+as those of a stout Englishwoman of five-and-twenty)--fair forms robed
+in white, or pale rose, or placid blue, suggested thoughts of heaven
+and angels. I knew a couple, at least, of these "rose et blanche"
+specimens of humanity. Here was a pair of Madame Beck's late
+pupils--Mesdemoiselles Mathilde and Angélique: pupils who, during their
+last year at school, ought to have been in the first class, but whose
+brains never got them beyond the second division. In English, they had
+been under my own charge, and hard work it was to get them to translate
+rationally a page of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Also during three months
+I had one of them for my vis-à-vis at table, and the quantity of
+household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would habitually consume
+at "second déjeuner" was a real world's wonder--to be exceeded only by
+the fact of her actually pocketing slices she could not eat. Here be
+truths--wholesome truths, too.
+
+I knew another of these seraphs--the prettiest, or, at any rate, the
+least demure and hypocritical looking of the lot: she was seated by the
+daughter of an English peer, also an honest, though haughty-looking
+girl: both had entered in the suite of the British embassy. She (_i.e._
+my acquaintance) had a slight, pliant figure, not at all like the forms
+of the foreign damsels: her hair, too, was not close-braided, like a
+shell or a skull-cap of satin; it looked _like_ hair, and waved from
+her head, long, curled, and flowing. She chatted away volubly, and
+seemed full of a light-headed sort of satisfaction with herself and her
+position. I did not look at Dr. Bretton; but I knew that he, too, saw
+Ginevra Fanshawe: he had become so quiet, he answered so briefly his
+mother's remarks, he so often suppressed a sigh. Why should he sigh? He
+had confessed a taste for the pursuit of love under difficulties; here
+was full gratification for that taste. His lady-love beamed upon him
+from a sphere above his own: he could not come near her; he was not
+certain that he could win from her a look. I watched to see if she
+would so far favour him. Our seat was not far from the crimson benches;
+we must inevitably be seen thence, by eyes so quick and roving as Miss
+Fanshawe's, and very soon those optics of hers were upon us: at least,
+upon Dr. and Mrs. Bretton. I kept rather in the shade and out of sight,
+not wishing to be immediately recognised: she looked quite steadily at
+Dr. John, and then she raised a glass to examine his mother; a minute
+or two afterwards she laughingly whispered her neighbour; upon the
+performance commencing, her rambling attention was attracted to the
+platform.
+
+On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my
+impressions thereanent: and, indeed, it would not be worth while to
+record them, as they were the impressions of an ignorance crasse. The
+young ladies of the Conservatoire, being very much frightened, made
+rather a tremulous exhibition on the two grand pianos. M. Josef Emanuel
+stood by them while they played; but he had not the tact or influence
+of his kinsman, who, under similar circumstances, would certainly have
+_compelled_ pupils of his to demean themselves with heroism and
+self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the hysteric débutantes
+between two fires--terror of the audience, and terror of himself--and
+would have inspired them with the courage of desperation, by making the
+latter terror incomparably the greater: M. Josef could not do this.
+
+Following the white muslin pianistes, came a fine, full-grown, sulky
+lady in white satin. She sang. Her singing just affected me like the
+tricks of a conjuror: I wondered how she did it--how she made her voice
+run up and down, and cut such marvellous capers; but a simple Scotch
+melody, played by a rude street minstrel, has often moved me more
+deeply.
+
+Afterwards stepped forth a gentleman, who, bending his body a good deal
+in the direction of the King and Queen, and frequently approaching his
+white-gloved hand to the region of his heart, vented a bitter outcry
+against a certain "fausse Isabelle." I thought he seemed especially to
+solicit the Queen's sympathy; but, unless I am egregiously mistaken,
+her Majesty lent her attention rather with the calm of courtesy than
+the earnestness of interest. This gentleman's state of mind was very
+harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up his musical exposition of
+the same.
+
+Some rousing choruses struck me as the best part of the evening's
+entertainment. There were present deputies from all the best provincial
+choral societies; genuine, barrel-shaped, native Labassecouriens. These
+worthies gave voice without mincing the matter their hearty exertions
+had at least this good result--the ear drank thence a satisfying sense
+of power.
+
+Through the whole performance--timid instrumental duets, conceited
+vocal solos, sonorous, brass-lunged choruses--my attention gave but one
+eye and one ear to the stage, the other being permanently retained in
+the service of Dr. Bretton: I could not forget him, nor cease to
+question how he was feeling, what he was thinking, whether he was
+amused or the contrary. At last he spoke.
+
+"And how do you like it all, Lucy? You are very quiet," he said, in his
+own cheerful tone.
+
+"I am quiet," I said, "because I am so very, _very_ much interested:
+not merely with the music, but with everything about me."
+
+He then proceeded to make some further remarks, with so much equanimity
+and composure that I began to think he had really not seen what I had
+seen, and I whispered--"Miss Fanshawe is here: have you noticed her?"
+
+"Oh, yes! and I observed that you noticed her too."
+
+"Is she come with Mrs. Cholmondeley, do you think?"
+
+"Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes; Ginevra was
+in _her_ train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady ----'s train, who was
+in the Queen's train. If this were not one of the compact little minor
+European courts, whose very formalities are little more imposing than
+familiarities, and whose gala grandeur is but homeliness in Sunday
+array, it would sound all very fine."
+
+"Ginevra saw you, I think?"
+
+"So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you
+withdrew yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little
+spectacle which you were spared."
+
+I did not ask what; I waited voluntary information, which was presently
+given.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he said, "has a companion with her--a lady of rank. I
+happen to know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in
+professionally. She is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent, and
+I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation by
+making a butt of her neighbours."
+
+"What neighbours?"
+
+"Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural: nothing,
+I suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois doctor; but my
+mother! I never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know, the curling lip,
+and sarcastically levelled glass thus directed, gave me a most curious
+sensation?"
+
+"Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were
+in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no
+scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy
+King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly. To
+a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred."
+
+"But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe in
+the light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my
+divinity--the angel of my career?"
+
+"Hem! There was your mistake."
+
+"To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance,
+there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her divine.
+Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not quite
+open with you in discussing that subject: the warmth with which you
+took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your lights,
+I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was. It was
+that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal. Still her
+beauty retained its fascination: three days--three hours ago, I was
+very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant in beauty,
+my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be
+the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at _me_, and,
+while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me: through myself,
+she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done
+through my mother."
+
+He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so
+little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye as just now.
+
+"Lucy," he recommenced, "look well at my mother, and say, without fear
+or favour, in what light she now appears to you."
+
+"As she always does--an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though
+gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence, constitutionally
+composed and cheerful."
+
+"So she seems to me--bless her! The merry may laugh _with_ mamma, but
+the weak only will laugh _at_ her. She shall not be ridiculed, with my
+consent, at least; nor without my--my scorn--my antipathy--my--"
+
+He stopped: and it was time--for he was getting excited--more it seemed
+than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had witnessed
+double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The glow of his
+complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve which disdain
+gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and striking phase.
+Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and serene, is not a
+pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of vindictive thrill which
+passed through his strong young frame.
+
+"Do I frighten you, Lucy?" he asked.
+
+"I cannot tell why you are so very angry."
+
+"For this reason," he muttered in my ear. "Ginevra is neither a pure
+angel, nor a pure-minded woman."
+
+"Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her."
+
+"Too much for me. _I_ can see where _you_ are blind. Now dismiss the
+subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma: I will assert that she
+is flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself."
+
+"John, I will certainly rouse you if you are not better conducted. Will
+you and Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?"
+
+They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the
+previous dialogue had taken place.
+
+"_You_ hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs, which are
+genuine, against your paste brooch--"
+
+"My paste brooch, Graham? Profane boy! you know that it is a stone of
+value."
+
+"Oh! that is one of your superstitions: you were cheated in the
+business."
+
+"I am cheated in fewer things than you imagine. How do you happen to be
+acquainted with young ladies of the court, John? I have observed two of
+them pay you no small attention during the last half-hour."
+
+"I wish you would not observe them."
+
+"Why not? Because one of them satirically levels her eyeglass at me?
+She is a pretty, silly girl: but are you apprehensive that her titter
+will discomfit the old lady?"
+
+"The sensible, admirable old lady! Mother, you are better to me than
+ten wives yet."
+
+"Don't be demonstrative, John, or I shall faint, and you will have to
+carry me out; and if that burden were laid upon you, you would reverse
+your last speech, and exclaim, 'Mother, ten wives could hardly be worse
+to me than you are!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The concert over, the Lottery "au bénéfice des pauvres" came next: the
+interval between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest
+imaginable stir and commotion. The white flock was cleared from the
+platform; a busy throng of gentlemen crowded it instead, making
+arrangements for the drawing; and amongst these--the busiest of
+all--re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but active,
+alive with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did
+work! How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own
+shoulder to the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to
+remove the pianos, &c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his
+own. The redundancy of his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous:
+in my mind I both disapproved and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in
+the midst of prejudice and annoyance, I could not, while watching,
+avoid perceiving a certain not disagreeable naïveté in all he did and
+said; nor could I be blind to certain vigorous characteristics of his
+physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast with a throng of
+tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power of his
+forehead, pale, broad, and full--the mobility of his most flexible
+mouth. He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he
+signally possessed.
+
+Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained
+standing, for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The
+crimson compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long
+cloud of gentlemen, breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow
+line of ladies; two or three officer-like men approached the King and
+conversed with him. The Queen, leaving her chair, glided along the rank
+of young ladies, who all stood up as she passed; and to each in turn I
+saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness--a gracious word, look or
+smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and Ginevra Fanshawe,
+she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and especially
+the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification. They were
+afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle of gentlemen
+gathered round them; amongst these--the nearest to Ginevra--stood the
+Count de Hamal.
+
+"This room is stiflingly hot," said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden
+impatience. "Lucy--mother--will you come a moment to the fresh air?"
+
+"Go with him, Lucy," said Mrs. Bretton. "I would rather keep my seat."
+
+Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham's desire must take
+precedence of my own; I accompanied him.
+
+We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to feel
+it; but it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread cloudless. I
+was wrapped in a fur shawl. We took some turns on the pavement; in
+passing under a lamp, Graham encountered my eye.
+
+"You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?"
+
+"I was only fearing that you were grieved."
+
+"Not at all: so be of good cheer--as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my
+persuasion is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung, I
+may seem to droop for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has
+yet gone through my whole system. You have always seen me cheerful at
+home?"
+
+"Generally."
+
+"I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for
+a dozen beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank
+you, Miss Fanshawe!" And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and
+made a mock reverence.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in
+ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled
+from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice."
+
+"You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel
+differently to-morrow."
+
+"_I_ heated and indignant! You don't know me. On the contrary, the heat
+is gone: I am as cool as the night--which, by the way, may be too cool
+for you. We will go back."
+
+"Dr. John, this is a sudden change."
+
+"Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it--two good reasons:
+I have told you one. But now let us re-enter."
+
+We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was
+excited confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we
+had to pass: it was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance
+round--indeed I half fancied I heard my name pronounced--I saw quite
+near, the ubiquitous, the inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me
+gravely and intently: at me, or rather at my pink dress--sardonic
+comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his habit to indulge in
+strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, at Madame
+Beck's--a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive
+impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it--my sombre daily attire
+not being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to permit any
+new encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I would
+ignore his presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to the
+sleeve of Dr. John's coat; finding in that same black sleeve a prospect
+more redolent of pleasure and comfort, more genial, more friendly, I
+thought, than was offered by the dark little Professor's unlovely
+visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to sanction the preference by
+looking down and saying in his kind voice, "Ay, keep close to my side,
+Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of persons."
+
+I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence,
+mesmeric or otherwise--an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but
+effective--I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there
+he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he
+had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking
+but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I
+bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and
+sternest of nods in return.
+
+"Whom have you made angry, Lucy?" whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. "Who
+is that savage-looking friend of yours?"
+
+"One of the professors at Madame Beck's: a very cross little man."
+
+"He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it
+all about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this."
+
+"No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I
+looked at your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him,
+he thinks I have failed in respect."
+
+"The little--" began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have
+added, for at that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of
+the crowd. M. Paul had rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way
+with such utter disregard to the convenience and security of all
+around, that a very uncomfortable pressure was the consequence.
+
+"I think he is what he himself would call 'méchant,'" said Dr. Bretton.
+I thought so, too.
+
+Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at
+last regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an
+hour; it was an animating and amusing scene; and as we each held
+tickets, we shared in the alternations of hope and fear raised by each
+turn of the wheel. Two little girls, of five and six years old, drew
+the numbers: and the prizes were duly proclaimed from the platform.
+These prizes were numerous, though of small value. It so fell out that
+Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a cigar-case, his a lady's
+head-dress--a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, with a streamer
+of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was excessively anxious
+to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to hear reason, and to
+this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I look at it, to remind
+me of old times, and one happy evening.
+
+Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm's length between his
+finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and
+embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over,
+he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground
+between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the
+treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not come to
+the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm like
+an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had issued.
+
+Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed
+natural and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily described;
+there was something in it peculiar, and, in its way, original. I read
+in it no common mastery of the passions, and a fund of deep and healthy
+strength which, without any exhausting effort, bore down Disappointment
+and extracted her fang. His manner, now, reminded me of qualities I had
+noticed in him when professionally engaged amongst the poor, the
+guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-Ville: he looked at once
+determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who could help liking him?
+_He_ betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with
+considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from _him_
+broke no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; _his_
+lips let fall no caustic that burned to the bone; _his_ eye shot no
+morose shafts that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your
+heart: beside him was rest and refuge--around him, fostering sunshine.
+
+And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once
+angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated--once
+alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more
+than once; not stealthily or humbly, but with a movement of hardy, open
+observation. De Hamal was now a fixture beside her; Mrs. Cholmondeley
+sat near, and they and she were wholly absorbed in the discourse,
+mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats were as much astir
+as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some apparently
+animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand and arm; a
+handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its gleam
+flickered in Dr. John's eye--quickening therein a derisive, ireful
+sparkle; he laughed:----
+
+"I think," he said, "I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of
+offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no
+grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after
+all, I know she is a girl of family."
+
+"But you don't know her education, Dr. John," said I. "Tossed about all
+her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the
+plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from
+what she says, I believe her father and mother were brought up much as
+she has been brought up."
+
+"I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in the
+thought," said he.
+
+"She tells me," I answered, "that they are poor at home; she always
+speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as
+these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they
+occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their
+opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and
+inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered
+reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of sustaining
+a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the only state of
+things, she has seen from childhood upwards."
+
+"I believe it--and I thought to mould her to something better: but,
+Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in
+looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence
+directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between them
+immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome light on
+my mind."
+
+"How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep
+up?"
+
+"Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the
+true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look
+marking mutual and secret understanding--it was neither girlish nor
+innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give
+or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I
+would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap--and be
+sure that she was honest."
+
+I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case:
+Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I
+told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to
+trust her with his honour.
+
+"The only thing," said I, "with which you may safely trust her. She
+would unscrupulously damage a husband's purse and property, recklessly
+try his patience and temper: I don't think she would breathe, or let
+another breathe, on his honour."
+
+"You are becoming her advocate," said he. "Do you wish me to resume my
+old chains?"
+
+"No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long
+remain. Yet be, at the same time, just."
+
+"I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly
+estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen are
+rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma, too, is
+excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we stay
+longer."
+
+"I tired, John?" cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and
+as wide-awake as her son. "I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave
+us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most
+jaded by sunrise."
+
+"I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you are
+the most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It must
+then be on the plea of your son's delicate nerves and fragile
+constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment."
+
+"Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose
+you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For
+shame, Lucy! At your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made me
+a shade paler. Come away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old
+lady as much as you please, but, for my part, I shall take charge of
+the bandbox and turban."
+
+Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken off
+with kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do to
+take care of myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of the
+gay "confusion worse confounded" succeeding to the King and Queen's
+departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded us, and promptly made us a lane
+through the crowd. Graham followed, apostrophizing his mother as the
+most flourishing grisette it had ever been his good fortune to see
+charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to mark her
+affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that
+she intended one day to wear it.
+
+The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we
+found the carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as
+at a fire-side; and the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than
+the drive to the concert. Pleasant it was, even though the
+coachman--having spent in the shop of a "marchand de vin" a portion of
+the time we passed at the concert--drove us along the dark and solitary
+chaussée far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; we, who were
+occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration till, at
+last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the
+château a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the world's
+end, as she declared seemed now to be the case, for she believed we had
+been an hour and a half en route, and had not yet taken the turn down
+the avenue.
+
+Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with
+unfamiliar rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else invisible
+sunk-fences, began to conjecture how matters were, and calling a halt
+and descending, he mounted the box and took the reins himself. Thanks
+to him, we arrived safe at home about an hour and a half beyond our
+time.
+
+Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat
+supper spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter dawn
+was actually breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off my pink
+dress and lace mantle with happier feelings than I had experienced in
+putting them on. Not all, perhaps, who had shone brightly arrayed at
+that concert could say the same; for not all had been satisfied with
+friendship--with its calm comfort and modest hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+REACTION.
+
+
+Yet three days, and then I must go back to the _pensionnat_. I almost
+numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I have
+retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them: they
+were already gone while I yet feared their departure.
+
+"Lucy will not leave us to-day," said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at
+breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite."
+
+"I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word," said I. "I
+long to get the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette
+again. I must go this morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed
+and corded."
+
+It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said
+he would accompany, me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all day,
+and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of words.
+Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I could
+have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave
+them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend: that
+is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they could not tell.
+On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their experience.
+
+It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck's
+door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had
+rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a
+night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at
+this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very
+shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye, while,
+with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at
+which I stood--a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had
+briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that
+rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination to
+do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best kept
+there.
+
+Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just
+that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their
+departure--consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
+
+"Don't come in," said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the
+well-lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that "the water
+stood in my eyes," for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly
+shown such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal--to relieve--when,
+physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in his
+power.
+
+"Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true
+friends. We will not forget you."
+
+"Nor will I forget you, Dr. John."
+
+My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go,
+but he was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content his
+generous impulses.
+
+"Lucy,"--stepping after me--"shall you feel very solitary here?"
+
+"At first I shall."
+
+"Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I'll tell
+you what I'll do. I'll write--just any cheerful nonsense that comes
+into my head--shall I?"
+
+"Good, gallant heart!" thought I to myself; but I shook my head,
+smiling, and said, "Never think of it: impose on yourself no such task.
+_You_ write to _me_!--you'll not have time."
+
+"Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!"
+
+He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen--the pang
+was experienced.
+
+Allowing myself no time to think or feel--swallowing tears as if they
+had been wine--I passed to Madame's sitting-room to pay the necessary
+visit of ceremony and respect. She received me with perfectly
+well-acted cordiality--was even demonstrative, though brief, in her
+welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. From the salle-à-manger I
+proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers were now
+assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I
+think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory.
+
+"And will Graham really write?" I questioned, as I sank tired on the
+edge of the bed.
+
+Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long,
+dim chamber, whispered sedately--"He may write once. So kind is his
+nature, it may stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it
+_cannot_ be continued--it _may_ not be repeated. Great were that folly
+which should build on such a promise--insane that credulity which
+should mistake the transitory rain-pool, holding in its hollow one
+draught, for the perennial spring yielding the supply of seasons."
+
+I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered
+me, laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my ear
+with the chill blue lips of eld.
+
+"If," muttered she, "if he _should_ write, what then? Do you meditate
+pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your answer. Hope
+no delight of heart--no indulgence of intellect: grant no expansion to
+feeling--give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no friendly
+exchange: foster no genial intercommunion...."
+
+"But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide," I pleaded.
+
+"No," said she, "I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You
+converse imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of
+inferiority--no encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury
+stamp your language...."
+
+"But," I again broke in, "where the bodily presence is weak and the
+speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
+language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
+achieve?"
+
+Reason only answered, "At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
+its influence to animate any writing of yours!"
+
+"But if I feel, may I _never_ express?"
+
+"_Never!_" declared Reason.
+
+I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never--never--oh, hard word! This
+hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she
+could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and
+broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of
+bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to
+despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to
+defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
+Imagination--_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.
+We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible
+revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me
+she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has
+chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should
+have died of her ill-usage her stint, her chill, her barren board, her
+icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who
+holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often has Reason turned me out by
+night, in mid-winter, on cold snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed
+bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has she vowed her stores held nothing
+more for me--harshly denied my right to ask better things.... Then,
+looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling stars, of
+which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and attent.
+A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet
+flight to the waste--bringing all round her a sphere of air borrowed of
+eternal summer; bringing perfume of flowers which cannot
+fade--fragrance of trees whose fruit is life; bringing breezes pure
+from a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it. My hunger has this
+good angel appeased with food, sweet and strange, gathered amongst
+gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in the first fresh
+hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the insufferable
+fears which weep away life itself--kindly given rest to deadly
+weariness--generously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair.
+Divine, compassionate, succourable influence! When I bend the knee to
+other than God, it shall be at thy white and winged feet, beautiful on
+mountain or on plain. Temples have been reared to the Sun--altars
+dedicated to the Moon. Oh, greater glory! To thee neither hands build,
+nor lips consecrate: but hearts, through ages, are faithful to thy
+worship. A dwelling thou hast, too wide for walls, too high for dome--a
+temple whose floors are space--rites whose mysteries transpire in
+presence, to the kindling, the harmony of worlds!
+
+Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of
+martyrs; for achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity
+unquestioned, thine essence foils decay!
+
+This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and
+she came with comfort: "Sleep," she said. "Sleep, sweetly--I gild thy
+dreams!"
+
+She kept her word, and watched me through a night's rest; but at dawn
+Reason relieved the guard. I awoke with a sort of start; the rain was
+dashing against the panes, and the wind uttering a peevish cry at
+intervals; the night-lamp was dying on the black circular stand in the
+middle of the dormitory: day had already broken. How I pity those whom
+mental pain stuns instead of rousing! This morning the pang of waking
+snatched me out of bed like a hand with a giant's gripe. How quickly I
+dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice-cold
+water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like other
+dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin.
+
+Ere long the bell rang its _réveillée_ to the whole school. Being
+dressed, I descended alone to the refectory, where the stove was lit
+and the air was warm; through the rest of the house it was cold, with
+the nipping severity of a continental winter: though now but the
+beginning of November, a north wind had thus early brought a wintry
+blight over Europe: I remember the black stoves pleased me little when
+I first came; but now I began to associate with them a sense of
+comfort, and liked them, as in England we like a fireside.
+
+Sitting down before this dark comforter, I presently fell into a deep
+argument with myself on life and its chances, on destiny and her
+decrees. My mind, calmer and stronger now than last night, made for
+itself some imperious rules, prohibiting under deadly penalties all
+weak retrospect of happiness past; commanding a patient journeying
+through the wilderness of the present, enjoining a reliance on faith--a
+watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue while they guide, and awe
+while they illumine--hushing the impulse to fond idolatry, checking the
+longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose rivers are, perhaps,
+never to be, reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet pastures are to
+be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit of a Nebo.
+
+By degrees, a composite feeling of blended strength and pain wound
+itself wirily round my heart, sustained, or at least restrained, its
+throbbings, and made me fit for the day's work. I lifted my head.
+
+As I said before, I was sitting near the stove, let into the wall
+beneath the refectory and the carré, and thus sufficing to heat both
+apartments. Piercing the same wall, and close beside the stove, was a
+window, looking also into the carré; as I looked up a cap-tassel, a
+brow, two eyes, filled a pane of that window; the fixed gaze of those
+two eyes hit right against my own glance: they were watching me. I had
+not till that moment known that tears were on my cheek, but I felt them
+now.
+
+This was a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion,
+where not a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was
+at hand to note and to divine. And this new, this out-door, this male
+spy, what business had brought him to the premises at this unwonted
+hour? What possible right had he to intrude on me thus? No other
+professor would have dared to cross the carré before the class-bell
+rang. M. Emanuel took no account of hours nor of claims: there was some
+book of reference in the first-class library which he had occasion to
+consult; he had come to seek it: on his way he passed the refectory. It
+was very much his habit to wear eyes before, behind, and on each side
+of him: he had seen me through the little window--he now opened the
+refectory door, and there he stood.
+
+"Mademoiselle, vous êtes triste."
+
+"Monsieur, j'en ai bien le droit."
+
+"Vous êtes malade de coeur et d'humeur," he pursued. "You are at once
+mournful and mutinous. I see on your cheek two tears which I know are
+hot as two sparks, and salt as two crystals of the sea. While I speak
+you eye me strangely. Shall I tell you of what I am reminded while
+watching you?"
+
+"Monsieur, I shall be called away to prayers shortly; my time for
+conversation is very scant and brief at this hour--excuse----"
+
+"I excuse everything," he interrupted; "my mood is so meek, neither
+rebuff nor, perhaps, insult could ruffle it. You remind me, then, of a
+young she wild creature, new caught, untamed, viewing with a mixture of
+fire and fear the first entrance of the breaker-in."
+
+Unwarrantable accost!--rash and rude if addressed to a pupil; to a
+teacher inadmissible. He thought to provoke a warm reply; I had seen
+him vex the passionate to explosion before now. In me his malice should
+find no gratification; I sat silent.
+
+"You look," said he, "like one who would snatch at a draught of sweet
+poison, and spurn wholesome bitters with disgust."
+
+"Indeed, I never liked bitters; nor do I believe them wholesome. And to
+whatever is sweet, be it poison or food, you cannot, at least, deny its
+own delicious quality--sweetness. Better, perhaps, to die quickly a
+pleasant death, than drag on long a charmless life."
+
+"Yet," said he, "you should take your bitter dose duly and daily, if I
+had the power to administer it; and, as to the well-beloved poison, I
+would, perhaps, break the very cup which held it."
+
+I sharply turned my head away, partly because his presence utterly
+displeased me, and partly because I wished to shun questions: lest, in
+my present mood, the effort of answering should overmaster self-command.
+
+"Come," said he, more softly, "tell me the truth--you grieve at being
+parted from friends--is it not so?"
+
+The insinuating softness was not more acceptable than the inquisitorial
+curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down on the bench
+about two yards from me, and persevered long, and, for him, patiently,
+in attempts to draw me into conversation--attempts necessarily
+unavailing, because I _could_ not talk. At last I entreated to be let
+alone. In uttering the request, my voice faltered, my head sank on my
+arms and the table. I wept bitterly, though quietly. He sat a while
+longer. I did not look up nor speak, till the closing door and his
+retreating step told me that he was gone. These tears proved a relief.
+
+I had time to bathe my eyes before breakfast, and I suppose I appeared
+at that meal as serene as any other person: not, however, quite as
+jocund-looking as the young lady who placed herself in the seat
+opposite mine, fixed on me a pair of somewhat small eyes twinkling
+gleefully, and frankly stretched across the table a white hand to be
+shaken. Miss Fanshawe's travels, gaieties, and flirtations agreed with
+her mightily; she had become quite plump, her cheeks looked as round as
+apples. I had seen her last in elegant evening attire. I don't know
+that she looked less charming now in her school-dress, a kind of
+careless peignoir of a dark-blue material, dimly and dingily plaided
+with black. I even think this dusky wrapper gave her charms a triumph;
+enhancing by contrast the fairness of her skin, the freshness of her
+bloom, the golden beauty of her tresses.
+
+"I am glad you are come back, Timon," said she. Timon was one of her
+dozen names for me. "You don't know how often I have wanted you in this
+dismal hole."
+
+"Oh, have you? Then, of course, if you wanted me, you have something
+for me to do: stockings to mend, perhaps." I never gave Ginevra a
+minute's or a farthing's credit for disinterestedness.
+
+"Crabbed and crusty as ever!" said she. "I expected as much: it would
+not be you if you did not snub one. But now, come, grand-mother, I hope
+you like coffee as much, and pistolets as little as ever: are you
+disposed to barter?"
+
+"Take your own way."
+
+This way consisted in a habit she had of making me convenient. She did
+not like the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being strong
+or sweet enough to suit her palate; and she had an excellent appetite,
+like any other healthy school-girl, for the morning pistolets or rolls,
+which were new-baked and very good, and of which a certain allowance
+was served to each. This allowance being more than I needed, I gave
+half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, though many others
+used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would sometimes give
+me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of the draught;
+hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don't know why I
+chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another; nor why, if
+two had to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel, as sometimes
+happened--for instance, when we took a long walk into the country, and
+halted for refreshment at a farm--I always contrived that she should be
+my convive, and rather liked to let her take the lion's share, whether
+of the white beer, the sweet wine, or the new milk: so it was, however,
+and she knew it; and, therefore, while we wrangled daily, we were never
+alienated.
+
+After breakfast my custom was to withdraw to the first classe, and sit
+and read, or think (oftenest the latter) there alone, till the
+nine-o'clock bell threw open all doors, admitted the gathered rush of
+externes and demi-pensionnaires, and gave the signal for entrance on
+that bustle and business to which, till five P.M., there was no relax.
+
+I was just seated this morning, when a tap came to the door.
+
+"Pardon, Mademoiselle," said a pensionnaire, entering gently; and
+having taken from her desk some necessary book or paper, she withdrew
+on tip-toe, murmuring as she passed me, "Que mademoiselle est
+appliquée!"
+
+Appliquée, indeed! The means of application were spread before me, but
+I was doing nothing; and had done nothing, and meant to do nothing.
+Thus does the world give us credit for merits we have not. Madame Beck
+herself deemed me a regular bas-bleu, and often and solemnly used to
+warn me not to study too much, lest "the blood should all go to my
+head." Indeed, everybody in the Rue Fossette held a superstition that
+"Meess Lucie" was learned; with the notable exception of M. Emanuel,
+who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite inscrutable to me, had
+obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used
+to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee over
+their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about this
+penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure in
+reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose
+style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly stamped;
+flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and
+meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was concerned,
+God had limited its powers and, its action--thankful, I trust, for the
+gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments, not restlessly
+eager after higher culture.
+
+The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without tap,
+in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known who
+this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told with
+wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my
+co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment.
+When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German
+would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous
+Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the
+playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the "Pas de Géant," or
+to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called "Un, deux,
+trois," were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little
+attentions had ceased some time ago--ceased, too, without my finding it
+necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I had
+now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one
+quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe made
+no scruple of--at times--catching me as I was crossing the carré,
+whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the
+mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra
+Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon "my learned leisure." She carried
+a huge music-book under her arm.
+
+"Go to your practising," said I to her at once: "away with you to the
+little salon!"
+
+"Not till I have had a talk with you, chère amie. I know where you have
+been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced sacrificing to
+the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I saw you at the
+concert the other night, dressed, actually, like anybody else. Who is
+your tailleuse?"
+
+"Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!--a fiddlestick!
+Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don't want your company."
+
+"But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little
+reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manoeuvre
+with our gifted compatriote--the learned 'ourse Britannique.' And so,
+Ourson, you know Isidore?"
+
+"I know John Bretton."
+
+"Oh, hush!" (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums
+with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell
+me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my
+behaviour the other night? Wasn't I cruel?"
+
+"Do you think I noticed you?"
+
+"It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to
+watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady--my
+future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little rude
+in quizzing her."
+
+"Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what _you_ did, don't make
+yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive _your_ sneer."
+
+"She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me
+what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up."
+
+"He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal."
+
+"Did he?" she cried with delight. "He noticed that? How charming! I
+thought he would be mad with jealousy.
+
+"Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to
+give you up?"
+
+"Oh! you know he _can't_ do that: but wasn't he mad?"
+
+"Quite mad," I assented; "as mad as a March hare."
+
+"Well, and how _ever_ did you get him home?"
+
+"How _ever_, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy
+us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us,
+fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong,
+somehow, and we lost our way."
+
+"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe--"
+
+"I assure you it is fact--and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would _not_
+stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and _would_ ride outside."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards--when he _did_ reach home--the scene transcends
+description."
+
+"Oh, but describe it--you know it is such fun!"
+
+"Fun for _you_, Miss Fanshawe? but" (with stern gravity) "you know the
+proverb--'What is sport to one may be death to another.'"
+
+"Go on, there's a darling Timon."
+
+"Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart."
+
+"I have--such an immensity, you don't know!"
+
+"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton
+rejecting his supper in the first instance--the chicken, the sweetbread
+prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then----but
+it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it
+to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy,
+had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that
+night."
+
+"He wouldn't lie still?"
+
+"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in,
+but the thing was to keep them tucked in."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra,
+anathematizing that demon, de Hamal--raving about golden locks, blue
+eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"
+
+"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"
+
+"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the
+first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has
+encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we
+will have an end of this. Go away to your practising."
+
+And I opened the door.
+
+"But you have not told me all."
+
+"You had better not wait until I _do_ tell you all. Such extra
+communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!"
+
+"Cross thing!" said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe
+was my territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of
+quittance from me.
+
+Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her
+than I was then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast between
+the reality and my description--to remember Dr. John enjoying the drive
+home, eating his supper with relish, and retiring to rest with
+Christian composure. It was only when I saw him really unhappy that I
+felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of his suffering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of
+school, and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of
+custom. One afternoon, in crossing the carré, on my way to the first
+classe, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of "style and
+literature," I saw, standing by one of the long and large windows,
+Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as usual, was quite nonchalante.
+She always "stood at ease;" one of her hands rested in her
+apron-pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter,
+whereof Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately
+studied the seal.
+
+A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain in
+its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last
+night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I
+should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that
+white envelope, with the spot of red wax in the middle, I know not. No;
+I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from
+Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp
+of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the
+Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him.
+Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the
+class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps,
+exempt me from notice; but, if caught lingering in the carré, I should
+be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated, to
+enforce perfect silence, to take out my work, and to commence it amidst
+the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. Emanuel entered with his
+vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant bow,
+prophetic of choler.
+
+As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of
+flashing lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career halted
+midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window, his back
+to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look--such a look as might
+have licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant--a look
+of scowling distrust.
+
+"Voilà! pour vous," said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and
+placing on my desk a letter--the very letter I had seen in Rosine's
+hand--the letter whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop's-eye
+of vermilion-red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the
+retina of an inward vision. I knew it, I felt it to be the letter of my
+hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the ransom
+from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his unwarrantably interfering
+habits, had taken from the portress, and now delivered it himself.
+
+I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes: I
+held in my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at
+least, contain a sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial,
+satisfying. And here was the direction, "Miss Lucy Snowe," in a clean,
+clear, equal, decided hand; and here was the seal, round, full, deftly
+dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well-cut impress of
+initials, "J. G. B." I experienced a happy feeling--a glad emotion
+which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For
+once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy:
+not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy
+chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot
+live; not a mess of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago--which,
+indeed, at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and
+preternatural sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely
+loathe; longing deliriously for natural and earth-grown food, wildly
+praying Heaven's Spirits to reclaim their own spirit-dew and
+essence--an aliment divine, but for mortals deadly. It was neither
+sweet hail nor small coriander-seed--neither slight wafer, nor luscious
+honey, I had lighted on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter,
+nourishing and salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh,
+healthful, and life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch
+demanded of his son Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his
+last breath. It was a godsend; and I inwardly thanked the God who had
+vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked man, crying, "Thank you, thank
+you, Monsieur!"
+
+Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and
+strode to his estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man, though
+he had good points.
+
+Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once
+and with haste, as if Esau's shaft flew every day?
+
+I knew better. The cover with its address--the seal, with its three
+clear letters--was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from
+the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept
+locked by day. I went to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling
+lest Madame should creep up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer,
+unlocked a box, and took out a case, and--having feasted my eyes with
+one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame
+and delight, to my lips--I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair
+and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up box
+and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,
+feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream. Strange,
+sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had not yet
+read: did not yet know the number of its lines.
+
+When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a
+pestilence! Some pupil had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to
+suit his ear and taste, and now she and others were weeping, and he was
+raving from his estrade, almost livid. Curious to mention, as I
+appeared, he fell on me.
+
+"Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the
+conduct befitting ladies?--and did I permit and, he doubted not,
+encourage them to strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to
+mince and mash it between their teeth, as if they had some base cause
+to be ashamed of the words they uttered? Was this modesty? He knew
+better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment--the offspring or the forerunner
+of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing, this mincing
+and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this general
+affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the first
+class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable petites
+maîtresses, and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of
+the third division."
+
+What could I say to all this? Really nothing; and I hoped he would
+allow me to be silent. The storm recommenced.
+
+"Every answer to his queries was then refused? It seemed to be
+considered in _that_ place--that conceited boudoir of a first classe,
+with its pretentious book-cases, its green-baized desks, its rubbish of
+flower-stands, its trash of framed pictures and maps, and its foreign
+surveillante, forsooth!--it seemed to be the fashion to think _there_
+that the Professor of Literature was not worthy of a reply! These were
+new ideas; imported, he did not doubt, straight from 'la Grande
+Bretagne:' they savoured of island insolence and arrogance."
+
+Lull the second--the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a
+tear for the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like
+snow-statues before the intemperate heat of M. Emanuel: I not yet much
+shaken, sitting down, and venturing to resume my work.
+
+Something--either in my continued silence or in the movement of my
+hand, stitching--transported M. Emanuel beyond the last boundary of
+patience; he actually sprang from his estrade. The stove stood near my
+desk, he attacked it; the little iron door was nearly dashed from its
+hinges, the fuel was made to fly.
+
+"Est-ce que vous avez l'intention de m'insulter?" said he to me, in a
+low, furious voice, as he thus outraged, under pretence of arranging
+the fire.
+
+It was time to soothe him a little if possible.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur," said I, "I would not insult you for the world. I
+remember too well that you once said we should be friends."
+
+I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think, through
+the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still
+there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger--a kind of passion of
+emotion--that specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor
+much afraid, yet I wept.
+
+"Allons, allons!" said he presently, looking round and seeing the
+deluge universal. "Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only
+one pocket-handkerchief," he added, "but if I had twenty, I would offer
+you each one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here, Miss
+Lucy."
+
+And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a
+person who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his
+impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer--declined
+accepting the same--et cetera. But I too plainly felt this would never
+do: the slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient
+treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief half-way, received it
+with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my seat, and
+retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial
+care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor
+thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast at
+these implements; he hated them mortally, considering sewing a source
+of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very eloquent
+lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the close. Ere he
+had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining out--tears were
+exchanged for smiles.
+
+In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.
+
+"And your letter?" said he, this time not quite fiercely.
+
+"I have not yet read it, Monsieur."
+
+"Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a boy,
+I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?"
+
+The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-rising
+warmth in my face from revealing as much.
+
+"You promise yourself a pleasant moment," said he, "in reading that
+letter; you will open it when alone--n'est-ce pas? Ah! a smile answers.
+Well, well! one should not be too harsh; 'la jeunesse n'a qu'un temps.'"
+
+"Monsieur, Monsieur!" I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he
+turned to go, "do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a
+friend's letter. Without reading it, I can vouch for that."
+
+"Je conçois, je conçois: on sait ce que c'est qu'un ami. Bonjour,
+Mademoiselle!"
+
+"But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief."
+
+"Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall
+read the billet's tenor in your eyes."
+
+When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the
+schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to
+take their customary recreation before the five-o'clock dinner, I stood
+a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm.
+For some reason--gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the golden
+glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its buoyancy,
+made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above all, solaced
+at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in the case, box,
+drawer up-stairs,--I fell to playing with the handkerchief as if it
+were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it--as it fell. The
+game was stopped by another hand than mine--a hand emerging from a
+paletôt-sleeve and stretched over my shoulder; it caught the
+extemporised plaything and bore it away with these sullen words:
+
+"Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets."
+
+Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and,
+ubiquity: one never knew either his whim or his whereabout.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy
+recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of
+study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the
+clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame
+was safely settled in the salle-à-manger in company with her mother and
+some friends; I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for one
+half-hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my petition at
+the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, "Mais certainement,
+chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;" and, light in hand, I
+mounted noiseless to the dormitory.
+
+Great was my chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed
+indisposed,--greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap
+borders, the "figure chiffonnée" of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine
+at this moment, it is true--but certain to wake and overwhelm me with
+chatter when the interruption would be least acceptable: indeed, as I
+watched her, a slight twinkling of the eyelids warned me that the
+present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, assumed to cover sly
+vigilance over "Timon's" movements; she was not to be trusted. And I
+had so wished to be alone, just to read my precious letter in peace.
+
+Well, I must go to the classes. Having sought and found my prize in its
+casket, I descended. Ill-luck pursued me. The classes were undergoing
+sweeping and purification by candle-light, according to hebdomadal
+custom: benches were piled on desks, the air was dim with dust, damp
+coffee-grounds (used by Labassecourien housemaids instead of
+tea-leaves) darkened the floor; all was hopeless confusion. Baffled,
+but not beaten, I withdrew, bent as resolutely as ever on finding
+solitude _somewhere_.
+
+Taking a key whereof I knew the repository, I mounted three staircases
+in succession, reached a dark, narrow, silent landing, opened a
+worm-eaten door, and dived into the deep, black, cold garret. Here none
+would follow me--none interrupt--not Madame herself. I shut the
+garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of
+drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter;
+trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal.
+
+"Will it be long--will it be short?" thought I, passing my hand across
+my eyes to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south-wind shower.
+
+It was long.
+
+"Will it be cool?--will it be kind?"
+
+It was kind.
+
+To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind:
+to my longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it
+was.
+
+So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fulness of
+delight in this taste of fruition--such, perhaps, as many a human being
+passes through life without ever knowing. The poor English teacher in
+the frosty garret, reading by a dim candle guttering in the wintry air,
+a letter simply good-natured--nothing more; though that good-nature
+then seemed to me godlike--was happier than most queens in palaces.
+
+Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could be but brief; yet,
+while it lasted it was genuine and exquisite: a bubble--but a sweet
+bubble--of real honey-dew. Dr. John had written to me at length; he had
+written to me with pleasure; he had written with benignant mood,
+dwelling with sunny satisfaction on scenes that had passed before his
+eyes and mine,--on places we had visited together--on conversations we
+had held--on all the little subject-matter, in short, of the last few
+halcyon weeks. But the cordial core of the delight was, a conviction
+the blithe, genial language generously imparted, that it had been
+poured out not merely to content _me_--but to gratify _himself_. A
+gratification he might never more desire, never more seek--an
+hypothesis in every point of view approaching the certain; but _that_
+concerned the future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no
+want; full, pure, perfect, it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph
+seemed to have rested beside me, leaned towards my heart, and reposed
+on its throb a softening, cooling, healing, hallowing wing. Dr. John,
+you pained me afterwards: forgiven be every ill--freely forgiven--for
+the sake of that one dear remembered good!
+
+Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there
+evil influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was
+near me?
+
+Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely
+and certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor: a
+sort of gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by
+the malefactor cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was
+long--but as I live! I saw in the middle of that ghostly chamber a
+figure all black and white; the skirts straight, narrow, black; the
+head bandaged, veiled, white.
+
+Say what you will, reader--tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I
+was unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I dreamed;
+this I vow--I saw there--in that room--on that night--an image like--a
+NUN.
+
+I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have
+swooned. It receded: I made for the door. How I descended all the
+stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my
+course to Madame's sitting-room: I burst in. I said--
+
+"There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw something.
+Go and look at it, all of you!"
+
+I said, "All of you;" for the room seemed to me full of people, though
+in truth there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame
+Kint, who was out of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her
+brother, M. Victor Kint, and another gentleman, who, when I entered the
+room, was conversing with the old lady, and had his back towards the
+door.
+
+My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt cold
+and shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me. I
+urged them to go to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me good
+and gave me courage: it seemed as if there were some help and hope,
+with men at hand. I turned to the door, beckoning them to follow. They
+wanted to stop me, but I said they must come this way: they must see
+what I had seen--something strange, standing in the middle of the
+garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the drawers with the
+light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be defied for its
+sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew I was followed:
+they were obliged to come.
+
+Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the
+light was out. Happily some one--Madame, I think, with her usual calm
+sense--had brought a lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they
+came up, a ray pierced the opaque blackness. There stood the bougie
+quenched on the drawers; but where was the letter? And I looked for
+_that_ now, and not for the nun.
+
+"My letter! my letter!" I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I
+groped on the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To
+have my bit of comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had well
+tasted its virtue!
+
+I don't know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they
+asked me questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they
+prattled about this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or
+crack in the sky-light--I know not what. "Something or somebody has
+been here," was sagely averred.
+
+"Oh! they have taken my letter!" cried the grovelling, groping,
+monomaniac.
+
+"What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?" asked a known voice in
+my ear. Could I believe that ear? No: and I looked up. Could I trust my
+eyes? Had I recognised the tone? Did I now look on the face of the
+writer of that very letter? Was this gentleman near me in this dim
+garret, John Graham--Dr. Bretton himself?
+
+Yes: it was. He had been called in that very evening to prescribe for
+some access of illness in old Madame Kint; he was the second gentleman
+present in the salle-à-manger when I entered.
+
+"Was it _my_ letter, Lucy?"
+
+"Your own: yours--the letter you wrote to me. I had come here to read
+it quietly. I could not find another spot where it was possible to have
+it to myself. I had saved it all day--never opened it till this
+evening: it was scarcely glanced over: I _cannot bear_ to lose it. Oh,
+my letter!"
+
+"Hush! don't cry and distress yourself so cruelly. What is it worth?
+Hush! Come out of this cold room; they are going to send for the police
+now to examine further: we need not stay here--come, we will go down."
+
+A warm hand, taking my cold fingers, led me down to a room where there
+was a fire. Dr. John and I sat before the stove. He talked to me and
+soothed me with unutterable goodness, promising me twenty letters for
+the one lost. If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose
+deep-inflicted lacerations never heal--cutting injuries and insults of
+serrated and poison-dripping edge--so, too, there are consolations of
+tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo:
+caressing kindnesses--loved, lingered over through a whole life,
+recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed
+shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. I have been
+told since that Dr. Bretton was not nearly so perfect as I thought him:
+that his actual character lacked the depth, height, compass, and
+endurance it possessed in my creed. I don't know: he was as good to me
+as the well is to the parched wayfarer--as the sun to the shivering
+jailbird. I remember him heroic. Heroic at this moment will I hold him
+to be.
+
+He asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I
+thought, but did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins.
+I only answered that I had so few letters to care for.
+
+"I am sure you did not read it," said he; "or you would think nothing
+of it!"
+
+"I read it, but only once. I want to read it again. I am sorry it is
+lost." And I could not help weeping afresh.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a
+relationship), here--_here_ is your letter. Why is it not better worth
+such tears, and such tenderly exaggerating faith?"
+
+Curious, characteristic manoeuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter on
+the floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it up. He
+had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had wrought with a
+whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would ever have
+acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree cooler
+than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.
+
+Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing
+torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it
+broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.
+
+"Are you satisfied now?" asked Dr. John.
+
+I replied that I was--satisfied and happy.
+
+"Well then," he proceeded, "how do you feel physically? Are you growing
+calmer? Not much: for you tremble like a leaf still."
+
+It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I felt
+no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.
+
+"You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was
+quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only
+spoke of 'something,' not defining _what_. Was it a man? Was it an
+animal? What was it?"
+
+"I never will tell exactly what I saw," said I, "unless some one else
+sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but
+otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming."
+
+"Tell me," said Dr. Bretton; "I will hear it in my professional
+character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I
+read, perhaps, all you would conceal--in your eye, which is curiously
+vivid and restless: in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in
+your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me."
+
+"You would laugh--?"
+
+"If you don't tell me you shall have no more letters."
+
+"You are laughing now."
+
+"I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I have
+a right to reclaim it."
+
+I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded
+up the letter and covered it from sight.
+
+"You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don't
+know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I
+liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of
+tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me--did you, Lucy?"
+
+"Indeed--indeed--when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more
+then than now--for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with
+subtlety. But still,--Dr. John, you have what they call in this country
+'un air fin,' that nobody can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and--"
+
+"And liked it," said he, laughing, "because she has it herself. But,
+Lucy, give me that letter--you don't really care for it."
+
+To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood
+must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile
+playing about his lips--very sweet, but it grieved me somehow--a new
+sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring. I
+rose to go--I bid him good-night a little sadly.
+
+His sensitiveness--that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of
+his--felt in a moment the unspoken complaint--the scarce-thought
+reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as
+implying a negative.
+
+"Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You
+are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in
+your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone this
+evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret--that dungeon under
+the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and catarrh:
+a place you never ought to enter--that you saw, or _thought_ you saw,
+some appearance peculiarly calculated to impress the imagination. I
+know that you _are_ not, nor ever were, subject to material terrors,
+fears of robbers, &c.--I am not so sure that a visitation, bearing a
+spectral character, would not shake your very mind. Be calm now. This
+is all a matter of the nerves, I see: but just specify the vision."
+
+"You will tell nobody?"
+
+"Nobody--most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did Père
+Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the two,
+though he has not grey hair."
+
+"You will not laugh?"
+
+"Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a
+friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust."
+
+He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were
+gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were
+depressed; repose marked his attitude--attention sobered his aspect.
+Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had
+narrated to him the legend of the house--whiling away with that
+narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when he and I
+rode through Bois l'Etang.
+
+He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming
+down-stairs.
+
+"Are they going to interrupt?" said he, glancing at the door with an
+annoyed expression.
+
+"They will not come here," I answered; for we were in the little salon
+where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance
+that heat was still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and
+went on to the salle-à-manger.
+
+"Now," he pursued, "they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on:
+let them do so--mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of
+describing your nun to nobody. She may appear to you again: don't
+start."
+
+"You think then," I said, with secret horror, "she came out of my
+brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour and
+a day when I look not for her?"
+
+"I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and
+resulting from long-continued mental conflict."
+
+"Oh, Doctor John--I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an
+illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?--no preventive?"
+
+"Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both."
+
+No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being
+told to _cultivate_ happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is
+not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness
+is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew
+which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon
+it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
+
+"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do _you_
+cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
+
+"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged
+me. Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but we
+defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
+
+"There is no cultivation in all this."
+
+"I do not give way to melancholy."
+
+"Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling."
+
+"About Ginevra Fanshawe--eh?"
+
+"Did she not sometimes make you miserable?"
+
+"Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now."
+
+If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming
+and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he
+certainly was.
+
+"You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition," I allowed.
+
+"And why, Lucy, can't you look and feel as I do--buoyant, courageous,
+and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give
+gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manoeuvre."
+
+"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"
+
+"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one
+thing--true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no
+less a price."
+
+"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
+since."
+
+"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
+but I am a free man now!"
+
+He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
+his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
+more than ease--a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling
+which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
+disposed to exact love for love--passion for passion--and good measure
+of it, too."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
+difficulties--to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".
+
+He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
+sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his gloves),
+"will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"
+
+"I don't think she will."
+
+"Give her my compliments, if she does--Dr. John's compliments--and
+entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
+she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that yet;
+and _that_ is the really important point."
+
+"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes glittered."
+
+"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at
+least she had handsome eyes--bright and soft."
+
+"Cold and fixed," was the reply.
+
+"No, no, we'll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
+that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand _that_, do
+you think?"
+
+I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
+smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
+believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very
+little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
+Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and
+as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was
+rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a
+heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very
+closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
+clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word "nun," certain
+that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and
+unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any servant,
+pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in coming to her
+private salle-à-manger, instead of carrying the tale of horror to the
+school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left secretly and
+sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange thing was of this
+world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether indeed it was only
+the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+VASHTI.
+
+
+To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
+life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
+dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its
+turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a
+wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
+down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
+pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
+which till now the starved hollow never saw.
+
+A new creed became mine--a belief in happiness.
+
+It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
+in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
+four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
+the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
+seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
+enough--pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
+two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
+"by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued." Time, dear reader, mellowed
+them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first tasted their
+elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a divine
+vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve.
+
+Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask
+how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of
+Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
+
+To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
+down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I
+wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
+for Graham's perusal.
+
+To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
+her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink
+an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.
+When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the language of a
+strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude--(once, for
+all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every
+sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer feelings:" women do not
+entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from the commencement, through
+the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been
+cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal
+absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed
+the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled waters)--when, then, I
+had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring
+attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to
+its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that
+would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and
+lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude--then,
+just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar
+would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the
+full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct,
+and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.
+
+I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once
+a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr.
+Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep away the
+nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had
+taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of
+that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of
+those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate disgust had incited
+him to oppose her; he was determined to try whether he or she was the
+cleverest, and he only wished she would once more look in upon me when
+he was present:" but _that_ she never did. In short, he regarded me
+scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised his
+professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course
+of cordial and attentive treatment.
+
+One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
+carré; it was six o'clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
+the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
+counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carré was quite dark, except a
+red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
+the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
+here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
+scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
+night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
+darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
+thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
+behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
+landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
+leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
+in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still--a shape that
+moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
+glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant
+door-bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was
+too round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.
+
+"Mademoiselle Lucy!" cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
+corridor, "on est là pour vous au salon."
+
+Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
+recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
+anticipated I should find--Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.
+
+"The carriage is at the door," said he; "my mother has sent it to take
+you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has prevented
+her: she immediately said, 'Take Lucy in my place.' Will you go?"
+
+"Just now? I am not dressed," cried I, glancing despairingly at my dark
+merino.
+
+"You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
+only determined on going since five o'clock, when I heard there was to
+be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress."
+
+And he mentioned a name that thrilled me--a name that, in those days,
+could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are all
+still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and oblivion
+long since closed above her; but _then_ her day--a day of Sirius--stood
+at its full height, light and fervour.
+
+"I'll go; I will be ready in ten minutes," I vowed. And away I flew,
+never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this moment
+checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without Mrs.
+Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much less
+have expressed to Graham, such thought--such scruple--without risk of
+exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire of shame
+so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon have licked
+up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother, knowing her son,
+and knowing me, would as soon have thought of chaperoning a sister with
+a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over our incomings and outgoings.
+
+The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
+suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
+dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
+changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
+crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier--my crape
+amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
+fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
+reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
+garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point there
+shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it shone,
+that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the tarnished
+scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it
+vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of the garret
+became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not time nor will;
+snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily near the door, I
+rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, and darted
+downwards to the dormitory.
+
+But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
+fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed
+her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed and
+plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the lace
+collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately--in
+short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when she
+chose. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the candle
+and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my shawl; she
+ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the vestibule,
+waiting.
+
+"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is
+the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"
+
+But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a
+second illusion. He was sceptical.
+
+"She has been, as sure as I live," said he; "her figure crossing your
+eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be mistaken."
+
+"She has _not_ been," I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her
+apparition with truth.
+
+"The old symptoms are there," he affirmed: "a particular pale, and what
+the Scotch call a 'raised' look."
+
+He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really
+_had_ seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect of the
+same cause: it was all optical illusion--nervous malady, and so on. Not
+one bit did I believe him; but I dared not contradict: doctors are so
+self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.
+
+Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The theatre was full--crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there:
+palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged
+and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place
+before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard
+reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if
+she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings
+severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study
+of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new
+planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.
+
+She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come.
+She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star
+verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos--hollow,
+half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing--half lava, half glow.
+
+I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness
+and grimness--something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the
+shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale
+now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.
+
+For awhile--a long while--I thought it was only a woman, though an
+unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude.
+By-and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something
+neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These
+evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble
+strength--for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and
+the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the
+pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her
+voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac
+mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.
+
+It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.
+
+It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.
+
+Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand;
+bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the
+public--a milder condiment for a people's palate--than Vashti torn by
+seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they
+haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.
+
+Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her
+audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure,
+resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She
+stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular
+like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest
+crimson threw her out, white like alabaster--like silver: rather, be it
+said, like Death.
+
+Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and
+study this different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the
+muscle, the abounding blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all
+materialists draw nigh and look on.
+
+I have said that she does not _resent_ her grief. No; the weakness of
+that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately
+embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried
+down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to
+conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends
+her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no
+result in good: tears water no harvest of wisdom: on sickness, on death
+itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but
+also she is strong; and her strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome
+Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile
+as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement
+royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in
+revel or war, is still an angel's hair, and glorious under a halo.
+Fallen, insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she
+rebelled. Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines,
+and discloses their forlorn remoteness.
+
+Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
+and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove
+the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him
+rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of
+his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight
+rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
+spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
+sea-ramparts.
+
+Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look good:
+though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so much of
+unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred
+essence descend one day from above?
+
+What thought Dr. Graham of this being?
+
+For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
+question what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart
+out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a
+fierce light, not solar--a rushing, red, cometary light--hot on vision
+and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like
+this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which
+outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely
+irritating imagination with the thought of what _might_ be done, at the
+same time fevering the nerves because it was _not_ done, disclosed
+power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in cataract, and
+bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly sweep of its
+descent.
+
+Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
+Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
+in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
+charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
+mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water, but,
+almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved him--metal
+could not grave, nor fire brand.
+
+Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
+action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his way,
+but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
+influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
+beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing
+summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, what was wild and intense,
+dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, and held with it no
+communion. When I took time and regained inclination to glance at him,
+it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching that
+sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor yet
+dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain him,
+her wild moan--worse than a shriek--did not much move him; her fury
+revolted him somewhat, but not to the point of horror. Cool young
+Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the
+tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian
+inspiration of that night.
+
+Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last I
+put a question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he
+awoke as if out of a dream; for he had been thinking, and very intently
+thinking, his own thoughts, after his own manner. "How did he like
+Vashti?" I wished to know.
+
+"Hm-m-m," was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and
+then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so
+critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order
+his sympathies _were_ callous. In a few terse phrases he told me his
+opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a woman,
+not an artist: it was a branding judgment.
+
+That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but
+with a deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other
+memoranda were destined to be set down in characters of tint indelible.
+
+Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the
+death-scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his
+under-lip, and knit his brow, and sat still and struck--when the whole
+theatre was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point,
+when all ears listened towards one quarter--nothing being seen but the
+white form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her
+worst-hated, her visibly-conquering foe--nothing heard but her throes,
+her gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as
+it seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame,
+bent it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground,
+sold every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every
+faculty, _would_ see, _would_ hear, _would_ breathe, _would_ live, up
+to, within, well-nigh _beyond_ the moment when death says to all sense
+and all being--"Thus far and no farther!"--
+
+Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes--feet
+ran, voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a
+smell of smoke replied.
+
+"Fire!" rang through the gallery. "Fire!" was repeated, re-echoed,
+yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came
+panic, rushing, crushing--a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.
+
+And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage
+and cordial calm.
+
+"Lucy will sit still, I know," said he, glancing down at me with the
+same serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in
+him when sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother's
+hearth. Yes, thus adjured, I think I would have sat still under a
+rocking crag: but, indeed, to sit still in actual circumstances was my
+instinct; and at the price of my very life, I would not have moved to
+give him trouble, thwart his will, or make demands on his attention. We
+were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there was a most terrible,
+ruthless pressure about us.
+
+"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not almost
+equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I see
+fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near, I
+could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some
+men. There is one yonder--Good God!"
+
+While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and
+steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from
+her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the
+feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham
+rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though
+grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head
+and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
+
+"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.
+
+"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her,
+and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."
+
+"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor
+incumbrance."
+
+He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to
+rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I
+could not get between or over.
+
+"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.
+
+Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a
+wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the
+flesh-and-blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to
+the fresh, freezing night.
+
+"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when
+we got into the street.
+
+"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.
+
+"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my
+carriage."
+
+"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"
+
+"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."
+
+"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder!
+They trod just here."
+
+"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no
+worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."
+
+And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position
+for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay in
+his arms quietly and patiently.
+
+"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my
+ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"
+
+"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient,
+demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I
+get anxious."
+
+The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange
+from one bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again.
+
+"My darling!" said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, "You
+said, sir, you are a medical man?"
+
+"I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse."
+
+"Good. Will you step into my carriage?"
+
+"My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you."
+
+"Be pleased, then, to follow us." And he named his address: "The Hôtel
+Crécy, in the Rue Crécy."
+
+We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent.
+This seemed like an adventure.
+
+Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached the
+hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an hotel
+in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an inn--a
+vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading through
+a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.
+
+We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped
+at Numéro 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the abode
+of I know not what "prince Russe," as Graham informed me. On ringing
+the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite of very
+handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we entered a
+drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and whose walls
+gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a little group:
+a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women busy about it,
+the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.
+
+"Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me," said the girlish
+voice, faintly.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Hurst?" demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat
+sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.
+
+"I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave her
+leave till to-morrow."
+
+"Yes--I did--I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might go:
+I remember now," interposed the young lady; "but I am so sorry, for
+Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me
+without meaning to do so."
+
+Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they
+passed a few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and
+seeing what the faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it
+for her.
+
+I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was
+no less skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found
+that no further advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of
+the present case. He ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and
+whispered to me:--"Go with the women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you can
+at least direct their movements, and thus spare her some pain. She must
+be touched very tenderly."
+
+The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with
+curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like
+snow-drift and mist--spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand
+apart, I undressed their mistress, without their well-meaning but
+clumsy aid. I was not in a sufficiently collected mood to note with
+separate distinctness every detail of the attire I removed, but I
+received a general impression of refinement, delicacy, and perfect
+personal cultivation; which, in a period of after-thought, offered in
+my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained of Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe's appointments.
+
+The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a model.
+As I folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and soft, and
+so exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young, pale, weary,
+but high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the eyebrows were
+distinct, but soft, and melting to a mere trace at the temples; the
+eyes were a rich gift of nature--fine and full, large, deep, seeming to
+hold dominion over the slighter subordinate features--capable,
+probably, of much significance at another hour and under other
+circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering. Her skin
+was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the petals of
+a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this delicate
+exterior, and her lip wore a curl--I doubt not inherent and
+unconscious, but which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments
+of health and state, would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving
+in the little lady a quite mistaken view of life and her own
+consequence.
+
+Her demeanour under the Doctor's hands at first excited a smile; it was
+not puerile--rather, on the whole, patient and firm--but yet, once or
+twice she addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that he
+hurt her, and must contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large
+eyes, too, settle on his face like the solemn eyes of some pretty,
+wondering child. I know not whether Graham felt this examination: if he
+did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it by any retaliatory
+look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and gentleness,
+sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as much, when he
+had done, by the words:--"Thank you, Doctor, and good-night," very
+gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it was with a
+repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar in its
+gravity and intentness.
+
+The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her
+father received with a smile that almost made one his friend--it was so
+glad and gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with as
+much earnestness as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who has
+served him, but is yet a stranger; he also begged him to call the next
+day.
+
+"Papa," said a voice from the veiled couch, "thank the lady, too; is
+she there?"
+
+I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now at
+comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was
+delicately designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I believe
+custom might prove it to be soft.
+
+"I thank the lady very sincerely," said her father: "I fancy she has
+been very good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst
+who has been her substitute and done her work; she will feel at once
+ashamed and jealous."
+
+And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were
+interchanged; and refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by
+us, as it was late, refused, we withdrew from the Hôtel Crécy.
+
+On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness:
+the roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone--the damps, as well as
+the incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning's papers
+explained that it was but some loose drapery on which a spark had
+fallen, and which had blazed up and been quenched in a moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.
+
+
+Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the
+seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are
+liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory of
+their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps,
+and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse--some
+congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel
+would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of
+communication--there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long
+blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and
+unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the
+visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other
+token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.
+
+Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but
+knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without
+are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which
+passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the
+wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at
+milestones--that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants
+with hurry for his friends.
+
+The hermit--if he be a sensible hermit--will swallow his own thoughts,
+and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He
+will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the
+dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself,
+creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift
+which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the
+season.
+
+Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is."
+And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness
+will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of
+hedges, and carolling of birds, and singing of liberated streams, will
+call him to kindly resurrection. _Perhaps_ this may be the case,
+perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more; when
+spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his
+dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to be
+supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go the
+way of all flesh, "As well soon as syne."
+
+Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven weeks
+as bare as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on one of
+them; not a visit, not a token.
+
+About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had
+happened to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a
+beclouded point for the solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of
+long expectancy; the doubts hitherto repelled gather now to a mass
+and--strong in accumulation--roll back upon him with a force which
+savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an unkindly time, and
+sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and struggles harass
+his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of calamity,
+and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league
+against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a
+poor, pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best.
+
+Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through the
+other six I had jealously excluded--the conviction that these blanks
+were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part
+of my life's lot and--above all--a matter about whose origin no
+question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever
+uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I
+had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile
+extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence,
+in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged
+them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for
+better days.
+
+I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I commenced
+an elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty hard, I
+undertook a course of regular reading of the driest and thickest books
+in the library; in all my efforts I was as orthodox as I knew how to
+be. Was there error somewhere? Very likely. I only know the result was
+as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank brine to quench
+thirst.
+
+My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
+well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
+knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
+disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that
+well-recognised ring.
+
+I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
+upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter.
+Oh!--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
+sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
+bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
+hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
+sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it like
+a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at my
+heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--the
+well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness in
+life I had to look for.
+
+In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
+the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
+month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
+was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every evening
+for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches to light
+it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and feasted on my
+crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me: I pined on it,
+and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.
+
+Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
+read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were losing
+all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves before my
+eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a quick
+tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step: she
+had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would come
+here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.
+
+Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
+her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
+drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
+recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
+humour seemed none of the best.
+
+"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people," she began.
+
+"Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house charming?"
+
+"I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley's."
+
+"Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?"
+
+"My uncle de Bassompierre is come."
+
+"Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?--I thought he was a
+favourite."
+
+"You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him."
+
+"Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?"
+
+"He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and
+had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a
+foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have
+left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man now."
+
+"Do you hate him for that reason?"
+
+"Don't I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but
+married mamma's sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt
+Ginevra with unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!"
+she went on. "I'll go no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into a
+room alone, and a great man fifty years old coming forwards, and after
+a few minutes' conversation actually turning his back upon me, and then
+abruptly going out of the room. Such odd ways! I daresay his conscience
+smote him, for they all say at home I am the picture of aunt Ginevra.
+Mamma often declares the likeness is quite ridiculous."
+
+"Were you the only visitor?"
+
+"The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little
+spoiled, pampered thing."
+
+"M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?"
+
+"Yes, yes: don't tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired."
+
+She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, "It
+seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the
+theatre some weeks ago."
+
+"Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crécy?"
+
+"Justement. How do _you_ know?"
+
+"I have been there."
+
+"Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose
+Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the _entrée_ of the de
+Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy on the
+occasion of her accident--Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don't think
+she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now
+there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something about 'auld
+lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!"
+
+"_All!_ You said you were the only visitor."
+
+"Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy."
+
+"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"
+
+"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
+conceited doll it is!"
+
+Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes
+of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a
+diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had
+failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in
+the vapours.
+
+"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.
+
+"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
+and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the
+old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
+prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite sickening."
+
+"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed:
+if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."
+
+"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"
+
+"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
+mother never calls him so."
+
+"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."
+
+"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is
+now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that
+bed, and vacate this room."
+
+"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
+what always makes you so mighty testy à l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
+Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"
+
+Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly to
+have given vent--for there was no contending with that unsubstantial
+feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my taper, locked my
+bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me. Small-beer as she
+was, she had turned insufferably acid.
+
+The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
+withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
+nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
+spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
+would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
+lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
+me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
+entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
+so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and east
+owned a terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all sorrow
+sadder. The south could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless, indeed,
+they brought on their wings the burden of thunder-clouds, under the
+weight and warmth of which all energy died.
+
+Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the classe,
+and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long garden, and
+then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn hope that
+the postman's ring might occur while I was out of hearing, and I might
+thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or nerves, almost
+gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed idea, were
+becoming wholly unfit to support. I lingered as long as I dared without
+fear of attracting attention by my absence. I muffled my head in my
+apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing clang, sure to be
+followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum for me. At last I
+ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it was not yet nine
+o'clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing seen was a white
+object on my black desk, a white, flat object. The post had, indeed,
+arrived; by me unheard. Rosine had visited my cell, and, like some
+angel, had left behind her a bright token of her presence. That shining
+thing on the desk was indeed a letter, a real letter; I saw so much at
+the distance of three yards, and as I had but one correspondent on
+earth, from that one it must come. He remembered me yet. How deep a
+pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart.
+
+Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but
+almost certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on
+the contrary, an autograph for the moment deemed unknown--a pale female
+scrawl, instead of a firm, masculine character. I then thought fate was
+_too_ hard for me, and I said, audibly, "This is cruel."
+
+But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs:
+our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of
+what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be
+quite silenced.
+
+I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as
+perfectly familiar. It was dated "La Terrasse," and it ran thus:--
+
+"DEAR LUCY,--It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with
+yourself for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have
+the least difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I
+daresay you have been just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La
+Terrasse. As to Graham, his professional connection extends daily: he
+is so much sought after, so much engaged, that I tell him he will grow
+quite conceited. Like a right good mother, as I am, I do my best to
+keep him down: no flattery does he get from me, as you know. And yet,
+Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother's heart dances at the sight of
+him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and passing the
+ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices, and
+sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings--perhaps, occasionally, as I tell
+him, inflicting them--at night he still comes home to me in such
+kindly, pleasant mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral
+antipodes, and on these January evenings my day rises when other
+people's night sets in.
+
+"Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and I
+do him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such
+thing as vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him
+to the sullens, he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you know
+him and all his iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to make
+him the subject of this epistle.
+
+"As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have
+been plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to
+regain for Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He
+laughs to scorn my anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how
+he can provide for himself and me too, and asking what the old lady can
+possibly want that she has not; hinting about sky-blue turbans;
+accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, keep livery servants, have
+an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English clan in Villette.
+
+"Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other
+evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his
+tea, he threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To
+my great delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about
+being drowsy; I, who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.)
+While he slept, I thought he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to
+be so proud of him; but who can help it? Show me his peer. Look where I
+will, I see nothing like him in Villette. Well, I took it into my head
+to play him a trick: so I brought out the sky-blue turban, and handling
+it with gingerly precaution, I managed to invest his brows with this
+grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all misbecome him; he
+looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody, however, can
+accuse him of having red hair _now_--it is genuine chestnut--a dark,
+glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere about him, there was
+as fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as you would wish to see.
+
+"It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone:
+you should have been there.
+
+"In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon
+intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under
+threat and dread of vengeance.
+
+"But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a
+half-holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the
+afternoon, at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La
+Terrasse. Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by,
+my wise, dear, grave little god-daughter.--Very truly yours,
+
+"LOUISA BRETTON."
+
+Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after
+reading that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered,
+perhaps, but relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no
+accident had occurred to Graham; no illness had seized his
+mother--calamities that had so long been my dream and thought. Their
+feelings for me too were--as they had been. Yet, how strange it was to
+look on Mrs. Bretton's seven weeks and contrast them with my seven
+weeks! Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional
+position to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position
+galls them! The world can understand well enough the process of
+perishing for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or
+follow out that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the
+long-buried prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!--how his senses
+left him--how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and
+then sunk to palsy--is a subject too intricate for examination, too
+abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might almost as
+well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings in
+that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial
+hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may
+the minds to whom such themes are no mystery--by whom their bearings
+are sympathetically seized--be few in number, and rare of rencounter.
+Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit
+compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When the world was younger
+and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper mystery still: perhaps
+in all the land of Israel there was but one Saul--certainly but one
+David to soothe or comprehend him.
+
+The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day, by
+a sharp breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over the
+temperate zone, and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and thick
+with snow, sailed up from the north, and settled over expectant Europe.
+Towards afternoon began the descent. I feared no carriage would come,
+the white tempest raged so dense and wild. But trust my godmother! Once
+having asked, she would have her guest. About six o'clock I was lifted
+from the carriage over the already blocked-up front steps of the
+château, and put in at the door of La Terrasse.
+
+Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room, there
+I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been twice
+as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have warmed me.
+Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards, black benches,
+desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its
+Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and crimson splendour which
+quite dazzled me.
+
+When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted with
+me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last saw me,
+she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my hair,
+and sent me up-stairs to make it neat and remove my shawl.
+
+Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright
+fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the
+great looking glass; but between the candles, and before the glass,
+appeared something dressing itself--an airy, fairy thing--small,
+slight, white--a winter spirit.
+
+I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral
+illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new vision.
+It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its girdle was
+red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining--a little wreath
+with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was nothing
+frightful, and I advanced.
+
+Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me,
+the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with
+their pencilling the orb they guarded.
+
+"Ah! you are come!" she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she
+smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
+
+I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast
+of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
+
+"Miss de Bassompierre," I pronounced.
+
+"No," was the reply, "not Miss de Bassompierre for _you!_" I did not
+inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
+
+"You are changed, but still you are yourself," she said, approaching
+nearer. "I remember you well--your countenance, the colour of your
+hair, the outline of your face...."
+
+I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and
+as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of
+thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.
+
+"It makes me almost cry to look so far back," said she: "but as to
+being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am
+quite pleased and glad."
+
+Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I
+stammered, "I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago,
+when you were hurt...?"
+
+She smiled. "You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been
+lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember
+the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to
+your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the comfort
+and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to
+Bretton. Remember Mr. Home."
+
+At last I saw it all. "And you are little Polly?"
+
+"I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre."
+
+How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her
+fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest
+and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful--not with the beauty
+that strikes the eye like a rose--orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with
+the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra;
+but her seventeen years had brought her a refined and tender charm
+which did not lie in complexion, though hers was fair and clear; nor in
+outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs perfectly
+turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward.
+This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp
+chastely lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship,
+a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not
+exaggerate language; but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and
+engaging. What though all was on a small scale, it was the perfume
+which gave this white violet distinction, and made it superior to the
+broadest camelia--the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed.
+
+"Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?"
+
+"Better," said she, "better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with
+minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and
+the hours of the days."
+
+"You must have forgotten some things?"
+
+"Very little, I imagine."
+
+"You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere
+this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief, affection
+and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago."
+
+"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked
+them when a child?"
+
+"The sharpness must be gone--the point, the poignancy--the deep imprint
+must be softened away and effaced?"
+
+"I have a good memory for those days."
+
+She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can
+remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose
+youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and
+incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on
+another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement,
+and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I
+could not quite admit the conviction that _all_ the pictures which now
+crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond attachments,
+her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, true
+devotion of her child's heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her
+little trials, the last piercing pain of separation.... I retraced
+these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. "The child
+of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen," said she.
+
+"You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton," I remarked,
+intending to test her. She set me right at once.
+
+"Not _excessively_ fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her as I
+should do now: she seems to me very little altered."
+
+"She is not much changed," I assented.
+
+We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, "There
+are several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that
+pincushion and that looking-glass."
+
+Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not,
+at least, so far.
+
+"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.
+
+"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive
+complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."
+
+"Dr. Bretton, of course," I pursued, "would be out of the question:
+and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that he
+appeared to you as a stranger."
+
+"That first night I was puzzled," she answered.
+
+"How did the recognition between him and your father come about?"
+
+"They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de
+Bassompierre gave rise to questions and explanations. That was on the
+second day; but before then I was beginning to know something."
+
+"How--know something?"
+
+"Why," she said, "how strange it is that most people seem so slow to
+feel the truth--not to see, but _feel_! When Dr. Bretton had visited me
+a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had observed the
+look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the form of his chin,
+the carriage of his head, and all that we _do_ observe in persons who
+approach us--how could I avoid being led by association to think of
+Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he, and not grown so tall, and
+had a smoother face, and longer and lighter hair, and spoke--not so
+deeply--more like a girl; but yet _he_ is Graham, just as _I_ am little
+Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe."
+
+I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are
+certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems
+a miracle when that chance befalls.
+
+"You and Graham were once playmates."
+
+"And do you remember that?" she questioned in her turn.
+
+"No doubt he will remember it also," said I.
+
+"I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find
+that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?"
+
+"Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?"
+
+"I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was studious;
+sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or disposed for
+play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not much heeding
+those with whom he read or amused himself."
+
+"Yet to you he was partial."
+
+"Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates--his school-fellows; I
+was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind
+on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary's, and
+his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still he was
+on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient
+with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be depended on,
+for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a constant fear that
+he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but he never did, nor
+seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it can be no more. I
+suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton's dining-out day....?"
+
+"Children, come down!" here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina
+would still have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
+
+
+Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our
+sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that
+evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the
+winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while
+women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and
+imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their
+persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare
+stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely
+gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and
+hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.
+
+Father and son came at last to the château: for the Count de
+Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of
+our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the
+weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the
+two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance:
+both were white--two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing
+their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting
+them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till
+they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now
+affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them:
+it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little
+white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire,
+clapping her hands and crying, "Papa, papa, you look like an enormous
+Polar bear."
+
+The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen
+shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing
+the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought,
+threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
+
+"Come, then," said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was
+playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some
+little chamois.
+
+Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten;
+her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took
+her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his
+lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving
+delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men _do_
+look on what is the apple of their eye.
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said he: "what am I to do with this daughter or
+daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don't
+you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?"
+
+"She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine," said Mrs.
+Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress
+she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against
+the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm's length.
+
+"Come, mamma," said he, "by way of compromise, and to secure for us
+inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup,
+and toast Old England here, on the hearth."
+
+So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to
+and fro--happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen--Mrs.
+Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl,
+and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round,
+reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as
+Graham's christening-cup.
+
+"Here's to Auld Lang Syne!" said the Count; holding the glancing cup on
+high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.--
+
+  "We twa ha' paidlet i' the burn
+      Fra morning sun till dine,
+  But seas between us braid ha' roared
+      Sin' auld lane syne.
+
+  "And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
+      And surely I'll be mine;
+  And we'll taste a cup o' kindness yet
+      For auld lang syne."
+
+"Scotch! Scotch!" cried Paulina; "papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he
+is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic."
+
+"And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked
+her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the
+middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite
+cannie: she is a strange little mortal."
+
+"Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe."
+
+Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as
+of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly,
+"he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less
+trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter's lips, and he had
+listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old
+acquaintance."
+
+Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de
+fée, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so
+profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of
+her mortal privileges.
+
+"Let me taste," said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the
+shelf of the dresser out of her reach.
+
+Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John
+had not been unobservant of the fairy's dance; he had watched it, and
+he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the
+movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his
+mother's house charmed him, for it set _him_ at ease: again she seemed
+a child for him--again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would
+speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words
+proved that the old days of "little Polly" had been recalled to his
+mind by this evening's child-like light-heartedness.
+
+"Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?"
+
+"I think I said so. I think I intimated as much."
+
+"Couldn't consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it,
+but couldn't do it."
+
+"Why? I am quite well now: it can't break my collar-bone again, or
+dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?"
+
+"No; nor dew."
+
+"I don't want dew; I don't like dew: but what is it?"
+
+"Ale--strong ale--old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born."
+
+"It must be curious: is it good?"
+
+"Excessively good."
+
+And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this
+mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment
+with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.
+
+"I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any
+'old October:' is it sweet?"
+
+"Perilously sweet," said Graham.
+
+She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that
+longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it
+down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste
+from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of
+pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it _was_ a
+gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the
+cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by
+which its brim was courted.
+
+"A little more--a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand
+with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and
+yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your
+wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy."
+
+He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: "Don't tell my
+mother or Lucy; they wouldn't approve."
+
+"Nor do I," said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as
+she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her
+like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find
+it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath.
+Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no
+more."
+
+And, with a slight bend--careless, but as graceful as her dance--she
+glided from him and rejoined her father.
+
+I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of
+seventeen.
+
+Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye was
+on her a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not seem
+to notice him.
+
+As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father's arm:
+her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were
+dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our
+little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely to
+all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait or
+adventure.
+
+"And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then?
+And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion." Thus she drew
+him out.
+
+She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine
+sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and
+docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham
+was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke
+the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend responsive.
+I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas the dancing
+fairy and delicate dame.
+
+Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table,
+shivering and fresh from the morning's chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton
+pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity,
+should quit her house that day.
+
+Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower
+panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air
+vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall
+now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth, whirled
+round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred fantastic forms.
+
+The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Papa shall not go out," said she, placing a seat for herself beside
+her father's arm-chair. "I will look after him. You won't go into town,
+will you, papa?"
+
+"Ay, and No," was the answer. "If you and Mrs. Bretton are _very_ good
+to me, Polly--kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a very
+nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to wait an
+hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind settles.
+But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing: you let
+me starve."
+
+"Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee," entreated
+Paulina, "whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other
+respects: since he grew into a Count, he has needed _so_ much
+attention."
+
+She separated and prepared a roll.
+
+"There, papa, are your 'pistolets' charged," said she. "And there is
+some marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at
+Bretton, and which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in
+Scotland--"
+
+"And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy--do you remember
+that?" interposed Mrs. Bretton. "Have you forgotten how you would come
+to my elbow and touch my sleeve with the whisper, 'Please, ma'am,
+something good for Graham--a little marmalade, or honey, or jam?"'
+
+"No, mamma," broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; "it surely was
+not so: I could not have cared for these things."
+
+"Did he or did he not, Paulina?"
+
+"He liked them," asserted Paulina.
+
+"Never blush for it, John," said Mr. Home, encouragingly. "I like them
+myself yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for
+a friend's material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of such
+good manners--nor do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a small
+slice of that tongue."
+
+"There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this
+assiduity; on condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself
+to La Terrasse for the day."
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said the Count, "I want to get rid of my daughter--to
+send her to school. Do you know of any good school?"
+
+"There is Lucy's place--Madame Beck's."
+
+"Miss Snowe is in a school?"
+
+"I am a teacher," I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of
+saying this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a
+false position. Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the
+Count and his daughter did not. They might choose to vary by some
+shades their hitherto cordial manner towards me, when aware of my grade
+in society. I spoke then readily: but a swarm of thoughts I had not
+anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, making me sigh
+involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his breakfast-plate
+for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not caught the
+words--perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature,
+politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud;
+and homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I have
+all along intimated that he was not without his share of the national
+quality. Was his a pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave the
+question undecided in its wide sense. Where it concerned me
+individually I can only answer: then, and always, he showed himself a
+true-hearted gentleman.
+
+By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his
+reflections spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing: in
+trouble and bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much about
+Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend: indeed
+his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he saw my
+walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave me
+credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight; he
+would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping, he
+still wished me well. When he did look at me, his eye was kind; when he
+did speak, his voice was benevolent.
+
+"Yours," said he, "is an arduous calling. I wish you health and
+strength to win in it--success."
+
+His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so
+composedly: she fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder--almost
+with dismay.
+
+"Are you a teacher?" cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable
+idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking:
+for me, you were always Lucy Snowe."
+
+"And what am I now?" I could not forbear inquiring.
+
+"Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?"
+
+"I really do."
+
+"And do you like it?"
+
+"Not always."
+
+"And why do you go on with it?"
+
+Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he
+only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism--prove yourself
+the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and look
+confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and I
+would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only smiles,
+so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. Well, Miss Snowe, why
+do you go on with it?"
+
+"Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get."
+
+"Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging
+to that hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your
+eccentricity."
+
+"No--no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep
+over my head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that
+while I can work for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to
+anybody."
+
+"Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy."
+
+"Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as
+you might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without
+leave; put it back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and
+receive in your ear this whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by
+experience the uncertain nature of this world's goods, I should like
+her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, that she might burden
+neither kith nor kin."
+
+"Yes, papa," said she, pensively and tractably. "But poor Lucy! I
+thought she was a rich lady, and had rich friends."
+
+"You thought like a little simpleton. _I_ never thought so. When I had
+time to consider Lucy's manner and aspect, which was not often, I saw
+she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not be
+served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience for
+which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she may yet
+bless Providence. But this school," he pursued, changing his tone from
+grave to gay: "would Madame Beck admit my Polly, do you think, Miss
+Lucy?"
+
+I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was
+fond of English pupils. "If you, sir," I added, "will but take Miss de
+Bassompierre in your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can answer
+for it that Rosine, the portress, will not be very slow in answering
+your ring; and Madame, I am sure, will put on her best pair of gloves
+to come into the salon to receive you."
+
+"In that case," responded Mr. Home, "I see no sort of necessity there
+is for delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady's
+'things' after her; Polly can settle down to her horn-book before
+night; and you, Miss Lucy, I trust, will not disdain to cast an
+occasional eye upon her, and let me know, from time to time, how she
+gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, Countess de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+The Countess hemmed and hesitated. "I thought," said she, "I thought I
+had finished my education--"
+
+"That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts. I hold a
+far different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of
+your profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou
+hast much to learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he has
+done! Come, there is nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and the
+weather seems settling, and I have finished my breakfast--"
+
+"But, papa!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see an obstacle."
+
+"I don't at all."
+
+"It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you
+in your greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top."
+
+"And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?"
+
+"No! it is of too--too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss
+Lucy, warn Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me,
+because, in the end, it would turn out that she would have to take papa
+too: as he is so teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs.
+Bretton and all of you listen: About five years ago, when I was twelve
+years old, he took it into his head that he was spoiling me; that I was
+growing unfitted for the world, and I don't know what, and nothing
+would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I cried, and so
+on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and flinty,
+and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable
+manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see
+me. Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last,
+papa and I were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame
+Beck this little trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has to
+expect."
+
+Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this
+statement. As he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and
+Paulina triumphed.
+
+But she had other moods besides the arch and naïve. After breakfast;
+when the two elders withdrew--I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs.
+Bretton's business matters--and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were
+for a short time alone together--all the child left her; with us, more
+nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her
+very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look,
+which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round,
+yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and less
+_mobile_.
+
+No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some
+minutes near the window, looking out at the snow; presently he,
+approached the hearth, and entered into conversation, but not quite
+with his usual ease: fit topics did not seem to rise to his lips; he
+chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and consequently infelicitously:
+he spoke vaguely of Villette--its inhabitants, its notable sights and
+buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre in quite womanly
+sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed wholly
+disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there, rather
+animated and quick than measured and stately, still recalled little
+Polly; but yet there was so fine and even a polish, so calm and
+courteous a grace, gilding and sustaining these peculiarities, that a
+less sensitive man than Graham would not have ventured to seize upon
+them as vantage points, leading to franker intimacy.
+
+Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was
+still observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks
+escaped him. He did not miss one characteristic movement, one
+hesitation in language, or one lisp in utterance. At times, in speaking
+fast, she still lisped; but coloured whenever such lapse occurred, and
+in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite as amusing as the slight
+error, repeated the word more distinctly.
+
+Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they
+conversed, the restraint on each side slackened: might the conference
+have but been prolonged, I believe it would soon have become genial:
+already to Paulina's lip and cheek returned the wreathing, dimpling
+smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct herself. And Dr. John, I
+know not how _he_ changed, but change he did. He did not grow gayer--no
+raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect--but his position seemed
+to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he spoke his augmented
+comfort in readier language, in tones more suave. Ten years ago this
+pair had always found abundance to say to each other; the intervening
+decade had not narrowed the experience or impoverished the intelligence
+of either: besides, there are certain natures of which the mutual
+influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say.
+For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion,
+amalgamation.
+
+Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are neither
+to be ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he could leave
+the house there was a return. I am sure he came back--not for the
+paper, or card in his desk, which formed his ostensible errand--but to
+assure himself, by one more glance, that Paulina's aspect was really
+such as memory was bearing away: that he had not been viewing her
+somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a fond mistake. No!
+he found the impression true--rather, indeed, he gained than lost by
+this return: he took away with him a parting look--shy, but very
+soft--as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn could lift out of
+its cover of fern, or any lamb from its meadow-bed.
+
+Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both
+took out some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood
+workbox of old days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious
+mosaic, and furnished with implements of gold; the tiny and trembling
+fingers that could scarce guide the needle, though tiny still, were now
+swift and skilful: but there was the same busy knitting of the brow,
+the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick turns and
+movements--now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the
+silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust--some clinging fibre of thread.
+
+That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the
+winter-day had on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of
+January, so white and so bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had
+raved itself hoarse, but seemed no nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra
+Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, she would not have
+suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence just gone from
+us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the changes
+on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with questions
+and surmises--worried and oppressed me with comments and confidences I
+did not want, and longed to avoid.
+
+Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating
+glance of her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the
+impulse of coming utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my
+inclination for silence.
+
+"This will not hold long," I thought to myself; for I was not
+accustomed to find in women or girls any power of self-control, or
+strength of self-denial. As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip
+about their usually trivial secrets, their often very washy and paltry
+feelings, was a treat not to be readily foregone.
+
+The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was tired
+of sewing, and then she took a book.
+
+As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton's own
+compartment of the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton
+book--some illustrated work of natural history. Often had I seen her
+standing at Graham's side, resting that volume on his knee, and reading
+to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, begging, as a treat,
+that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched her keenly:
+here was a true test of that memory she had boasted; would her
+recollections now be faithful?
+
+Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her
+face passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of
+which was a full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the
+title-page, and looked at the name written in the schoolboy hand. She
+looked at it long; nor was she satisfied with merely looking: she
+gently passed over the characters the tips of her fingers, accompanying
+the action with an unconscious but tender smile, which converted the
+touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the peculiarity of
+this little scene was, that she _said_ nothing: she could feel without
+pouring out her feelings in a flux of words.
+
+She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking
+down volume after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each. This
+done, she seated herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her hand,
+and thought, and still was mute.
+
+The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her
+father's voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at
+last. She sprang up: she was down-stairs in one second.
+
+"Papa! papa! you are not going out?"
+
+"My pet, I must go into town."
+
+"But it is too--_too_ cold, papa."
+
+And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well
+provided against the weather; and how he was going to have the
+carriage, and to be quite snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving that
+she need not fear for his comfort.
+
+"But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is
+quite dark;--you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit
+to ride."
+
+"Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her
+commands to take care of his precious health and come home early under
+my escort."
+
+"Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be
+obedient. And, papa, mind to come soon, for I _shall_ watch and listen."
+
+The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and
+back returned the Countess, pensive and anxious.
+
+She _did_ listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in
+stillest sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She
+checked at intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted
+the night sounds: I should rather say, the night silence; for now, at
+last, the wind was fallen. The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay
+naked and pale: through the barren boughs of the avenue we could see it
+well, and note also the polar splendour of the new-year moon--an orb
+white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw also the return of
+the carriage.
+
+Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort of
+gravity that she took immediate possession of her father, as he entered
+the room; but she at once made him her entire property, led him to the
+seat of her choice, and, while softly showering round him honeyed words
+of commendation for being so good and coming home so soon, you would
+have thought it was entirely by the power of her little hands he was
+put into his chair, and settled and arranged; for the strong man seemed
+to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to this dominion-potent
+only by love.
+
+Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half
+turned when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two;
+their fingers met a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina
+remained beside her father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the
+other side of the room.
+
+It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to
+each other--almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old
+recollections; otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a
+still one that evening.
+
+After tea, Paulina's quick needle and pretty golden thimble were busily
+plied by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes seemed
+reluctant to raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-fringed.
+Graham, too, must have been tired with his day's work: he listened
+dutifully to his elders and betters, said very little himself, and
+followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina's thimble; as if it
+had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden head of some
+darting little yellow serpent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A BURIAL.
+
+
+From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
+with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
+grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
+first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that I
+was liable to frequent invitations from a château and a great hotel,
+respect improved into distinction.
+
+Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
+in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
+self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
+without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
+a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
+with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
+cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
+depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
+was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
+the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
+asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
+gracious sort:--
+
+"Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de coeur et de
+gré. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours été admirable, rempli de
+zèle et de discrétion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
+donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant à votre choix de connaissances, j'en
+suis contente; c'est sage, digne, laudable."
+
+She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.
+
+The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
+about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
+disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
+sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
+grace.
+
+"Patience!" whispered I to myself. "Let me say nothing, but wait
+peaceably; they will come back again."
+
+And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to Madame's
+chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly and
+truly: I found them all right the next day.
+
+I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
+form of Dr. John Bretton's epistolary powers? In what light did the
+often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
+opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
+style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous vein,
+which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few kind words
+scattered here and there--not thickly, as the diamonds were scattered in
+the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in unfabled beds?
+Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?
+
+I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
+One day after she had _borrowed_ them of me (in speaking of so suave a
+little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her examining me
+with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all
+malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons, when the
+pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's recreation;
+she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met her eye, her
+thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.
+
+"Il y a," said she, "quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le caractère
+Anglais."
+
+"How, Madame?"
+
+She gave a little laugh, repeating the word "how" in English.
+
+"Je ne saurais vous dire 'how;' mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idées
+à eux, en amitié, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n'est pas besoin
+de les surveiller," she added, getting up and trotting away like the
+compact little pony she was.
+
+"Then I hope," murmured I to myself, "you will graciously let alone my
+letters for the future."
+
+Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
+vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
+winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
+had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river on
+whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops had
+trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving my
+little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of waters
+far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could be
+said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my Ganges,
+and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish
+like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a stoic; drops
+streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry shower, heavy
+and brief.
+
+But soon I said to myself, "The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
+me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
+agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."
+
+Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a
+habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and
+composed its limbs with great calm.
+
+The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
+undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
+mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
+by sharp revival of regret.
+
+One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
+intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
+a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
+the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
+untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been
+visited.
+
+This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
+discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
+ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
+casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
+inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
+understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
+ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
+had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my
+eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now
+saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul
+Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she was much in the
+habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him matters she
+broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that gentleman
+had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from
+Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that blue,
+yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now.
+_He_, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair
+point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always
+found him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere
+friendly letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again,
+into his hands, jarred my very soul.
+
+What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
+was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
+safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?
+
+In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
+boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
+gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
+the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
+Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
+certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
+grenier would not do--but where then?
+
+While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
+was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
+pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allée défendue." One
+great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
+skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
+queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
+put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.
+
+Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
+and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
+moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half
+deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's
+shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted was a
+metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which
+might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps,
+I found and purchased the latter article.
+
+I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
+bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
+Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
+directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
+frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed on
+hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a sad,
+lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
+controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
+induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the
+pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.
+
+At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and
+teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
+children in the salle-à-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
+home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
+myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
+door, into the berceau and thence into the "allée défendue."
+
+Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
+my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
+Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
+there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
+was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
+round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
+going to hide a treasure--I meant also to bury a grief. That grief over
+which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-sheet,
+must be interred.
+
+Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
+to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
+bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
+masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
+thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured it
+with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally, replaced
+the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree; lingering, like
+any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.
+
+The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
+which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
+mist, there was some quality--electrical, perhaps--which acted in
+strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in
+England--on a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping
+round heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch
+that mustering of an army with banners--that quivering of serried
+lances--that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to
+the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far
+otherwise, but strong with reinforced strength.
+
+If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
+pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters--to leave an encampment
+where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another
+pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the
+encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain. But what
+road was open?--what plan available?
+
+On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
+seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
+me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly, to
+make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
+suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it
+took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three yards
+from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.
+
+Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
+I spoke.
+
+"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"
+
+She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
+masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.
+
+I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
+often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
+one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed
+to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A
+mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
+intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle,
+I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have any errand to
+men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or re-appeared.
+
+This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
+one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crécy. In the old
+Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
+society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
+to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
+trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
+little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself?
+You must come into the parlour."
+
+In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
+said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
+Madame Beck gives you."
+
+Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present
+salary--if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I
+declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was,
+and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future
+prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons;
+but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to
+me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
+deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
+gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in
+peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made
+shirts and starved.
+
+I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
+enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
+dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
+at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
+Beck's first classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
+in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
+qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
+made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
+any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
+understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
+children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
+herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
+been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
+all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something in
+her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded
+much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring neglect--she
+made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness.
+To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and told me she had
+no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous to the St.
+Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to you, there
+will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation. One thing,
+however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone with your liberty:
+c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had
+ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I
+had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules: gratification in
+devoting double time, in taking double pains with the pupils she
+committed to my charge.
+
+As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
+not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
+my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
+M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
+blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
+likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
+might not approve.
+
+Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
+Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen,
+intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
+pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
+life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling"
+as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that
+others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what
+should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown up;
+and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take
+his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey
+locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she
+never said, "Papa, I _am_ grown up."
+
+She had different moods for different people. With her father she
+really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
+playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling
+could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not
+expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she
+tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step
+made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers
+failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
+disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
+
+"My little Polly," he said once, "you live too retired a life; if you
+grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
+for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
+this? Don't you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
+partial to him?"
+
+"_Rather_, papa," echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and
+simple tone.
+
+"And you don't like him now? What has he done?"
+
+"Nothing. Y--e--s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to
+each other."
+
+"Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
+away when he is here, and have no fear of him?"
+
+"_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?"
+
+"Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
+lady?"
+
+"Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
+way, and that I have no unfriendly intention."
+
+"Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
+only your whim!"
+
+"Well, I'll improve, papa."
+
+And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
+keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
+John on general topics. The attention called into her guest's face a
+pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
+softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
+the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
+Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not
+be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.
+
+When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father's chair.
+
+"Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?"
+
+"My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
+this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
+guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
+look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
+should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
+flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
+as you lisped when you were six years old."
+
+"No, papa," interrupted she indignantly, "that can't be true."
+
+"I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton's
+question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
+Bois l'Etang, say, 'yeth,' she had been there 'theveral' times?"
+
+"Papa, you are satirical, you are méchant! I can pronounce all the
+letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are
+very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him
+yourself?"
+
+"To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
+good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
+in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough."
+
+"_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen
+accent you have?"
+
+"Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
+is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
+always succeeds well at the French."
+
+"_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
+schooling."
+
+"Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
+me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical."
+
+The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded "Miss Snowe,"
+used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
+attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
+the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
+blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
+teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat conventional,
+perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still the pink and
+pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, Professor Paul
+Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion
+that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature--adventurous, indocile,
+and audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little
+Paulina Mary.
+
+As I would not be Paulina's nominal and paid companion, genial and
+harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join
+her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
+communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
+she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
+Rue Crécy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
+some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
+perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
+associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear child.
+
+That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
+Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no
+longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
+hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
+surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
+Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
+manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
+more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze
+his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge
+in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more
+amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering
+solemnly that he "had his eye on me: _he_ at least would discharge the
+duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My
+proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to
+make of them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in
+suffering this sort of fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached
+to her house. What had a person devoted to a serious calling, that of
+education, to do with Counts and Countesses, hotels and châteaux? To
+him, I seemed altogether 'en l'air.' On his faith, he believed I went
+out six days in the seven."
+
+I said, "Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of
+a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the
+privilege was by no means exercised in excess."
+
+"Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
+Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
+'religieuses,' and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change."
+
+I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
+but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
+worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
+for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no "dévouement," no
+"récueillement" in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
+or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
+mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.
+
+"He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
+revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism."
+
+I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
+silence.
+
+A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
+"juron:" he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
+word _sacré_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the
+unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed him about two
+hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German
+lesson in the Rue Crécy. Never was a better little man, in some points,
+than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our German mistress, Fräulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
+of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
+Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
+breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
+nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
+called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with
+her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to
+kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack.
+These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the
+whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who
+hardly ever will think and study for themselves--who have no idea of
+grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or
+application--our progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to
+astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold,
+proud, and preternatural.
+
+The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
+perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
+feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
+never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
+could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
+in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
+and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steelly
+glisten.
+
+Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she
+half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--an
+Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier
+mood.
+
+A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
+Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fräulein would
+listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded
+like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of language,
+and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush,
+her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she
+went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when
+we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des Mädchens Klage:"
+that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody
+in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat
+over the fire one evening:--
+
+  Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurück,
+  Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
+    Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!
+
+"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
+the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of
+mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of
+feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have come nearer
+the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"
+
+"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
+you? What do you know about it?"
+
+She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
+
+"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
+papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
+me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on
+my nineteenth year."
+
+"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings
+by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said she--all in hurry and heat--"you may think to
+check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I _have_ talked about
+it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
+disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve."
+
+And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
+discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
+Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance--combined with
+some transient perverseness and petulance--I said at last,--
+
+"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
+that has near access to you would dare to do it?"
+
+"Lucy," replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me miserable
+sometimes; and I wish she would keep away--I don't want her."
+
+"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much."
+
+"It is--it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs.
+Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins
+to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has
+to say about love."
+
+"Oh, I have heard it," said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole, perhaps
+it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted,
+it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra's mind cannot influence yours.
+You can look over both her head and her heart."
+
+"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
+happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings
+and people dearest to me."
+
+"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
+counteraction of the damage done."
+
+"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She
+does not spare Mrs. Bretton--she does not spare.... Graham."
+
+"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and
+her...._love_? She does mix them, I suppose?"
+
+"Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We
+both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean
+or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet,
+pursuing her like her shadow. She--repulsing him with insult, and he
+imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?"
+
+"It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him
+out as still her suitor?"
+
+"She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent."
+
+"It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner
+towards Graham which your father noticed."
+
+"They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As
+Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth:
+I believe she exaggerates--perhaps invents--but I want to know how far."
+
+"Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity
+of displaying the power she boasts."
+
+"I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner,
+all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant,
+too--skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science--is among
+the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported,
+amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A---- and Z----, the
+Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in
+peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word,
+will join you."
+
+"Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the
+chance of justifying her character for veracity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE HÔTEL CRÉCY.
+
+
+The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I, at
+least--had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young
+princes of Labassecour--the eldest, I think, the Duc de Dindonneau, and
+a general holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and
+especially at the principal "Athénée," or college. The youth of that
+institution had also concocted, and were to present a loyal address;
+for which purpose they were to be assembled in the public building
+where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the prizes
+distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
+"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.
+
+Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends--the savants--being more or less
+connected with the Athénée, they were expected to attend on this
+occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
+Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
+Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
+accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
+and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
+early that we might join her.
+
+As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
+Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.
+
+"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
+her attire, and was gazing at me.
+
+"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest
+half-insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a
+level, visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."
+
+"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
+chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
+have suited me at all."
+
+"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
+undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn.
+
+"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
+here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have seen
+you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few governesses
+would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats you with
+more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and that
+proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"
+
+"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
+indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
+character."
+
+"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
+take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
+thought you, you must be a cool hand."
+
+"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a little
+hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-girl's
+crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
+therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and asked
+"what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
+confusion?"
+
+"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
+
+"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
+
+"Yes; let me take your arm."
+
+"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
+
+When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
+as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
+
+"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
+intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
+as a compliment."
+
+"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
+be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
+fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
+teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
+quite blush for your companion?"
+
+"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
+gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
+was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
+character otherwise not formed to keep.
+
+I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
+or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
+reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
+gave her.
+
+"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
+square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
+Rue Crécy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you are!"
+
+"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
+will let you alone."
+
+"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
+mysterious!"
+
+"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
+brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
+of my sight."
+
+"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in spite of
+me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with inhospitable
+closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the intruder.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
+then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."
+
+"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged, adhering
+with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito she had got
+hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now obtained full
+possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged to pause in the
+park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most fanciful changes
+on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity, or incredulity, her
+incapacity to conceive how any person not bolstered up by birth or
+wealth, not supported by some consciousness of name or connection,
+could maintain an attitude of reasonable integrity. As for me, it quite
+sufficed to my mental tranquillity that I was known where it imported
+that known I should be; the rest sat on me easily: pedigree, social
+position, and recondite intellectual acquisition, occupied about the
+same space and place in my interests and thoughts; they were my
+third-class lodgers--to whom could be assigned only the small
+sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even if the dining and
+drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to them, as thinking
+minor accommodations better suited to their circumstances. The world, I
+soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world
+is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong
+in mine.
+
+There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss
+of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in
+placing the highest value on that station and association which is
+their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
+contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
+were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
+capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
+fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
+chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
+experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
+conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
+small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
+man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.
+
+We reached the Hôtel Crécy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
+her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were soon
+conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at a
+convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athénée were
+marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
+places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
+conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with the
+aristocracy and first burghers of the town.
+
+Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
+be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
+vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
+formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
+princes.
+
+The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
+was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms grew
+above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape, port,
+expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the blackness
+and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of brow, the
+blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in the
+memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost by
+this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
+confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
+head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
+of my mirth.
+
+I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
+otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
+candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
+His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
+him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
+college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither formalism
+nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed us, for
+what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads--I own I
+was not prepared.
+
+He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the burghers,
+with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed, choleric
+earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three divisions of
+the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as schoolboys, but
+as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times which have since come
+on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M. Emanuel's spirit seemed new
+to me. Who would have thought the flat and fat soil of Labassecour
+could yield political convictions and national feelings, such as were
+now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his opinions I need here give
+no special indication; yet it may be permitted me to say that I
+believed the little man not more earnest than right in what he said:
+with all his fire he was severe and sensible; he trampled Utopian
+theories under his heel; he rejected wild dreams with scorn;--but when
+he looked in the face of tyranny--oh, then there opened a light in his
+eye worth seeing; and when he spoke of injustice, his voice gave no
+uncertain sound, but reminded me rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at
+twilight from the park.
+
+I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing his
+flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as he
+eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in their
+country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud, ringing
+cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their favourite
+professor.
+
+As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
+me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the
+words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
+reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
+restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control,
+which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just then to
+ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_ care, and he
+was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well! if
+I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his _naiveté_. I would have
+praised him: I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on
+my lips. Who _has_ words at the right moment? I stammered some lame
+expressions; but was truly glad when other people, coming up with
+profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.
+
+A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
+had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
+the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
+Hôtel Crécy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
+at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
+independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
+pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
+character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
+a French Academician, in the course of the evening.
+
+At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
+very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
+charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
+and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
+winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson relieved
+well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like bloom.
+Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat, but in
+texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate life of
+her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for the
+tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow of
+her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
+eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
+Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
+hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
+them to a high and delicate finish.
+
+Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she conversed
+modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true a
+sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more than
+once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an eye of
+proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very learned, but
+quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I was charmed
+with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct, the idioms
+true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life on the
+Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed Miss
+Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor in
+any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre was
+gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.
+
+Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
+exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
+were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
+at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
+arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
+now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
+rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
+mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
+disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
+pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
+thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
+keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
+regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the demand
+on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required: his
+manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his neighbour,
+and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined his notice.
+She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in very good
+spirits.
+
+Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
+became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
+both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
+her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
+her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
+move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
+dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
+up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
+post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
+him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while _he_
+looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina charmed these
+thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the soft courtesy of
+her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact, pleased their
+national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to talk science;
+which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many subjects in
+letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon appeared that she
+had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure that though Graham
+stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well as his vision was
+very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered the conversation;
+I felt that the mode in which it was sustained suited him
+exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.
+
+In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
+most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
+show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there
+is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement,
+without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well
+might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless
+tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature.
+For a little while, the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round
+weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it soon fades, even in serenest
+sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered
+of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I who
+had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong
+root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.
+
+While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
+his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance
+on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de
+Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a
+two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a
+tête-à-tête. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how
+I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
+thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
+me--a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
+silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
+were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
+forms--studied both faces.
+
+Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
+since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the
+gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
+glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
+inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen
+present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting
+myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and
+naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton
+also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there
+would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding
+back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so
+ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph
+Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very
+moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch
+succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the
+instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
+
+"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
+glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe is
+certainly a fine girl."
+
+Of course I assented.
+
+"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"
+
+"I think there is not another as handsome."
+
+"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste,
+I think; or at least in judgment."
+
+"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
+god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
+our opinions would have melted into each other."
+
+He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
+shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
+solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
+Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same
+but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would
+your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they
+actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer
+blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was
+a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if a cloud
+crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand
+more at fault than you.
+
+Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
+heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
+others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
+more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
+calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"
+
+"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
+for the possession; yet I have it."
+
+"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
+estimate them differently?"
+
+"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
+to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the
+room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A----
+and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?"
+
+"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
+A---- and Z----."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
+now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."
+
+"You don't remember her as a child?"
+
+"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."
+
+"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
+persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under
+certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind,
+revive."
+
+"That is possible enough."
+
+"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
+partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of
+a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
+corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
+Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
+stay with mamma?"
+
+"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."
+
+"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
+I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly
+about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't recollect
+me, of course?"
+
+"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
+personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."
+
+"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What
+am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"
+
+"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."
+
+"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
+instance."
+
+"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality."
+
+"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of
+my grace."
+
+"As little of your cruelty."
+
+"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
+inoffensive as a shadow."
+
+I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let me
+alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
+from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
+back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
+coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
+weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.
+
+"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
+deceive me, we were not foes--"
+
+"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
+definite?"
+
+"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
+Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
+nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
+in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
+horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."
+
+"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"
+
+"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
+restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
+preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
+me!"
+
+"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.
+
+"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember _now_. She
+liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."
+
+"You thought so."
+
+"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
+rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
+it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
+watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
+you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"
+
+"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
+not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt, too,
+an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
+disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
+realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
+wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
+did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
+gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me coaxingly,
+he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."
+
+And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
+enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
+part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his, soft,
+eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_ content me,
+Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
+
+"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden
+boa-constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, rêveur, mais
+vous ne l'êtes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme à
+l'âme, l'éclair aux yeux!"
+
+"Oui; j'ai la flamme à l'âme, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
+in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was gone.
+
+The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
+said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he put
+his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
+
+"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
+Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe it
+is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really, by my
+word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so savage
+with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is frantic
+at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease him."
+
+And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
+whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
+
+Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
+Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This
+movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant, even
+while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed the
+room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole
+life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he had the
+eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action,
+the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged
+him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he
+looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached her
+side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated,
+yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a
+glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and
+unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I
+gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my observation--time
+failed me, had inclination served: the night wore late; Ginevra and I
+ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I rose, and bade
+good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
+
+I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
+acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
+was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
+of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
+Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
+whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
+_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked apologetic
+and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a word, nor
+meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never hitherto had
+I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or freeze before
+his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I considered
+unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding must be
+marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
+attendance."
+
+Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
+and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
+be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.
+
+Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
+there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.
+
+"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
+frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
+act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
+grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
+effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
+had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from the
+pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
+misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
+experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
+sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
+took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
+lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
+aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
+folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
+painting darkening the wall.
+
+Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
+still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
+nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
+uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
+thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
+is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
+an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
+M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
+Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
+denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your cheeks
+so hot as they are even now?"
+
+"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
+such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I again
+surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.
+
+"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
+forgotten my words; what were they?"
+
+"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
+
+"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit
+my retractation; accord my pardon."
+
+"I am not angry, Monsieur."
+
+"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
+
+"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."
+
+"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
+alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
+
+He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
+simplicity, his earnestness?
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "Voilà que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."
+
+"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
+
+"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
+you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my friend!"
+
+Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy than "_mon
+ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate
+affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M. Paul; "my friend," I
+could, and did say without difficulty. This distinction existed not for
+him, however, and he was quite satisfied with the English phrase. He
+smiled. You should have seen him smile, reader; and you should have
+marked the difference between his countenance now, and that he wore
+half an hour ago. I cannot affirm that I had ever witnessed the smile
+of pleasure, or content, or kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his
+eyes before. The ironic, the sarcastic, the disdainful, the
+passionately exultant, I had hundreds of times seen him express by what
+he called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer
+feelings struck me as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a
+mask to a face: the deep lines left his features; the very complexion
+seemed clearer and fresher; that swart, sallow, southern darkness which
+spoke his Spanish blood, became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not
+that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis
+from a similar cause. He now took me to the carriage: at the same
+moment M. de Bassompierre came out with his niece.
+
+In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
+grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
+uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the
+carriage-door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something
+venomous in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or
+sting him, hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed
+in terms so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after
+listening for a while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of
+justice at last and suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I
+could be passionate, too; especially with my present fair but faulty
+associate, who never failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well
+that the carriage-wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty
+Choseville pavement, for I can assure the reader there was neither dead
+silence nor calm discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half
+in seeming, I made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set
+out rampant from the Rue Crécy; it was necessary to tame her before we
+reached the Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up
+her sterling value and high deserts; and this must be done in language
+of which the fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with
+the compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
+discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
+that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
+all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE WATCHGUARD.
+
+
+M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of
+interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to
+pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the
+teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to be
+as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.
+
+Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry"
+through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable
+estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress--on
+whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out
+of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their
+music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the
+salle-à-manger, or some other piano-station--she would, upon her second
+or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of
+consternation--a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled
+at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.
+
+One morning I was sitting in the carré, at work upon a piece of
+embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to finish,
+and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled themselves
+with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice haranguing in
+the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily more unquiet,
+more ominously varied. There was a good strong partition-wall between
+me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile means of flight through
+the glass-door to the court, in case it swept this way; so I am afraid
+I derived more amusement than alarm from these thickening symptoms.
+Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning had she made
+the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her
+dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning--a pupil
+from under M. Paul's nose.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried she. "Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me
+tuer, je suis sûre; car il est d'une colère!"
+
+Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!" was her cry.
+
+Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this
+voice uttered itself:--
+
+"Dès ce moment!--la classe est défendue. La première qui ouvrira cette
+porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue--fut-ce Madame Beck
+elle-même!"
+
+Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when
+Rosine's French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the
+corridor.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into
+that classe again just now: Monsieur's lunettes are really terrible;
+and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athénée. I
+have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to
+charge you with it."
+
+"Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come,
+come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave--charge once more!"
+
+"I, Mademoiselle?--impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day.
+Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n'en puis
+plus!"
+
+"Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?"
+
+"Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered:
+an urgent summons to go directly to the Athénée, as there is an
+official visitor--inspector--I know not what--arrived, and Monsieur
+_must_ meet him: you know how he hates a _must_."
+
+Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb:
+against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt.
+However, I accepted the responsibility--not, certainly, without fear,
+but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened
+the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and quietly as a
+rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or bustling, to
+rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were aggravations of crime
+often more disastrous in result than the main crime itself. There I
+stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad--almost at its
+worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic--for he gave lessons
+on any and every subject that struck his fancy--and arithmetic being a
+dry subject, invariably disagreed with him: not a pupil but trembled
+when he spoke of figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at
+the sound of an entrance, at the occurrence of a direct breach of his
+will and law, was an effort he could not for the moment bring himself
+to make. It was quite as well: I thus gained time to walk up the long
+classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near
+burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace at a distance.
+
+At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of
+immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not
+do: he must hear and he must answer my message.
+
+Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated
+upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I
+ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a
+better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing
+a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow
+tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and
+receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the
+obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its
+very pupil--transfixed by the "lunettes." Rosine was right; these
+utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile
+wrath of the wearer's own unglazed eyes.
+
+I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted "lunettes"
+were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur's nose;
+accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.
+
+I am glad I was not really much afraid of him--that, indeed, close in
+his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and
+gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to
+furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such
+accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of
+his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy before
+public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the desk,
+and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the Professor's
+chair.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said he in a growl of which the music was wholly
+confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and
+seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should
+wring from him a smile.
+
+My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux
+l'impossible, des choses inouïes;" and thinking it best not to mince
+matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but
+quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating
+its urgency.
+
+Of course, he would not hear a word of it. "He would not go; he would
+not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for
+him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of
+king, cabinet, and chambers together."
+
+I knew, however, that he _must_ go; that, talk as he would, both his
+duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with
+the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had not
+yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.
+
+"Only Monsieur's answer to deliver to the commissionaire."
+
+He waved an impatient negative.
+
+I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim
+repose on the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his
+eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.
+
+"Ah!" he muttered, "if it came to that--if Miss Lucy meddled with his
+bonnet-grec--she might just put it on herself, turn garçon for the
+occasion, and benevolently go to the Athénée in his stead."
+
+With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel
+seemed to give me an awful nod.
+
+"I'll write a note of apology--that will do!" said he, still bent on
+evasion.
+
+Knowing well it would _not_ do, I gently pushed the bonnet towards his
+hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of the varnished
+and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-framed "lunettes,"
+and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A score of times ere
+now had I seen them fall and receive no damage--_this_ time, as Lucy
+Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so fell that each clear pebble
+became a shivered and shapeless star.
+
+Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
+these "lunettes": M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
+these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I
+picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
+through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I think
+I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not look
+the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.
+
+"Là!" said he: "me voilà veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle
+Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she
+trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are
+resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!"
+
+I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and
+furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had
+seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crécy. He was not
+angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
+clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event,
+which seemed so untoward--which I thought had ruined at once my chance
+of successful persuasion--proved my best help. Difficult of management
+so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon
+as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.
+
+Still gently railing at me as "une forte femme--une Anglaise
+terrible--une petite casse-tout"--he declared that he dared not but
+obey one who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it
+was absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire
+dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and taking
+his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon and
+encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athénée in
+first-rate humour and spirits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear
+that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was,
+and I could not help it.
+
+It was his occasional custom--and a very laudable, acceptable custom,
+too--to arrive of an evening, always à l'improviste, unannounced, burst
+in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism over us
+and our occupations, cause books to be put away, work-bags to be
+brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful of
+pamphlets, substitute for the besotted "lecture pieuse," drawled by a
+sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by fiery
+action--some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the
+intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring, and
+filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a vital
+brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness a
+reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current literature
+of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or the last
+witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons of Paris;
+taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand, whether from
+tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage, phrase, or word,
+could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes filles." I noticed
+more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute would have
+left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did,
+improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the
+dialogue--the description--he engrafted was often far better than that
+he pruned away.
+
+Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a
+"retreat," the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my
+work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it
+had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when
+finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste
+was requisite, and my fingers were busy.
+
+We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step
+familiar to each ear: the words "Voilà Monsieur!" had scarcely broken
+simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split
+it always did for his admission--such a slow word as "open" is
+inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of us.
+
+There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over
+the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the
+table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and the
+left; the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics; the
+idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles. Monsieur's
+habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher, generally Zélie St.
+Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her vacated seat; and thus
+avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or Capricorn, which, owing to
+his near sight, he needed.
+
+As usual, Zélie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her
+mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth--that
+strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a
+sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and
+neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose Monsieur did
+not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for
+he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his "lunettes" (he
+had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little
+oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed by
+Zélie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could start up
+to clear the way, whispered, "Ne bougez pas," and established himself
+between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my neighbour, and
+have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to her, "Ginevra, I
+wish you were at Jericho."
+
+It was easy to say, "Ne bougez pas;" but how could I help it? I must
+make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that _I_ might
+recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me, "keeping
+herself warm," as she said, on the winter evenings, and harassing my
+very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me, indeed,
+sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle by way of protection
+against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be subjected to
+the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working materials, to
+clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make room for his
+person; not, however, leaving more than a yard of interval, just what
+any reasonable man would have regarded as a convenient, respectful
+allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never _was_ reasonable; flint and
+tinder that he was! he struck and took fire directly.
+
+"Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin," he growled: "vous vous donnez
+des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria;" he scowled. "Soit! je
+vais arranger la chose!" And he set to work.
+
+"Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!" cried he.
+
+The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then
+placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and
+carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my implements,
+he fixed himself quite at the other end.
+
+At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room
+dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle. As
+for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and cut
+off from human intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was quiet,
+and not at all unhappy.
+
+"Est ce assez de distance?" he demanded.
+
+"Monsieur en est l'arbitre," said I.
+
+"Vous savez bien que non. C'est vous qui avez crée ce vide immense: moi
+je n'y ai pas mis la main."
+
+And with this assertion he commenced the reading.
+
+For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he called
+"un drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu," he further announced,
+"de ces sots païens, les Anglais." How far otherwise he would have
+characterized him had his temper not been upset, I scarcely need
+intimate.
+
+Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did
+I make any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its
+forlorn lapses were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or
+beseemed me to say anything: but one can occasionally _look_ the
+opinion it is forbidden to embody in words. Monsieur's lunettes being
+on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; I don't think he lost
+one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a screen, that their
+blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north pole to
+which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general
+temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under
+the vertical ray of Cancer itself.
+
+The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with
+his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
+was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
+definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered a
+sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or penalty
+for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the muscles
+about my eyes and mouth.
+
+The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water, was
+brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor's presence,
+the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
+immediately handed round.
+
+"Take your supper, ladies," said he, seeming to be occupied in making
+marginal notes to his "Williams Shackspire." They took it. I also
+accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
+my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
+bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_; with a
+certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits, and
+pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
+nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
+feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
+such as were placid and harmonious.
+
+He rose. "Will he go away without saying another word?" Yes; he turned
+to the door.
+
+No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
+pencil-case, which had been left on the table.
+
+He took it--shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
+wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.
+
+The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
+pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
+habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their
+voices much.
+
+M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I
+said I was making a watchguard.
+
+He asked, "For whom?" And I answered, "For a gentleman--one of my
+friends."
+
+M. Paul stooped down and proceeded--as novel-writers say, and, as was
+literally true in his case--to "hiss" into my ear some poignant words.
+
+He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
+herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
+least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a "caractère
+intraitable," and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
+possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever pacific
+and amicable intentions a person accosted me--crac! I turned concord to
+discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he--M. Paul--wished me well
+enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he might, at
+least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral
+acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to
+him! With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of mutiny--what a
+"fougue" of injustice!
+
+Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping
+in a slight interjectional observation: "Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I
+didn't know...."
+
+"Chut! à l'instant! There! there I went--vive comme la poudre!" He was
+sorry--he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
+peculiarity. This "emportement," this "chaleur"--generous, perhaps, but
+excessive--would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was
+not--he believed, in his soul--wholly without good qualities: and would
+I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less "en l'air,"
+less "coquette," less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value
+on outside excellence--to make much of the attentions of people
+remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, "des couleurs de
+poupée," "un nez plus ou moins bien fait," and an enormous amount of
+fatuity--I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character.
+But, as it was--And here, the little man's voice was for a minute
+choked.
+
+I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
+word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
+odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.
+
+I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
+at his ease.
+
+"While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger
+for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had
+noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew
+me--or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of me
+from time to time--I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
+austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to inspire
+the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence had
+impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my bonnet, to
+wear 'des cols brodés,' and even to appear on one occasion in a
+_scarlet gown_--he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would
+not openly declare."
+
+Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
+indignant and horror-struck.
+
+"Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink
+too, and further subdued by black lace."
+
+"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
+one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
+talked of, _that_ was but a 'colifichet de plus.'" And he sighed over
+my degeneracy. "He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on
+this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact names of these
+'babioles,' he might run into small verbal errors which would not fail
+to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily sudden and
+passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general terms--and in
+these general terms he knew he was correct--that my costume had of late
+assumed 'des façons mondaines,' which it wounded him to see."
+
+What "façons mondaines" he discovered in my present winter merino and
+plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him,
+he said it was all made with too much attention to effect--and besides,
+"had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?"
+
+"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
+necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"--holding
+up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
+groan--I suppose over my levity.
+
+After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the
+chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired:
+"Whether what he had just said would have the effect of making me
+entirely detest him?"
+
+I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don't
+think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
+friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned
+back just to explain, "that he would not be understood to speak in
+entire condemnation of the scarlet dress" ("Pink! pink!" I threw in);
+"that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_ rather
+well" (the fact was, M. Emanuel's taste in colours decidedly leaned to
+the brilliant); "only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I wore it, to
+do so in the same spirit as if its material were 'bure,' and its hue
+'gris de poussière.'"
+
+"And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?" I asked. "They are very
+little ones--?"
+
+"Keep them little, then," said he. "Permit them not to become
+full-blown."
+
+"And the bow, Monsieur--the bit of ribbon?"
+
+"Va pour le ruban!" was the propitious answer.
+
+And so we settled it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
+pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
+your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
+You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
+there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
+day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
+the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
+uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
+creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
+say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
+manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own and
+your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man,
+differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being
+too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
+coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
+your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of
+rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
+your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
+each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
+Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand
+to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+MONSIEUR'S FÊTE.
+
+
+I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
+guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the
+benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last
+watch.
+
+All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up before
+the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it
+double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the
+particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
+appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
+little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
+fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it, then
+coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small box I
+had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour
+called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling blue
+stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my scissors'
+point certain initials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
+fête; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
+present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of
+this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
+modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the latter
+case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived
+beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many others, of
+the estimation in which--despite his partialities, prejudices, and
+irritabilities--the professor of literature was held by his pupils. No
+article of value was offered to him: he distinctly gave it to be
+understood, that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery. Yet he
+liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value, did not touch him: a
+diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with pomp, would have
+pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered simply and with
+sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man, not wise in his
+generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with "the dayspring on
+high."
+
+M. Paul's fête fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
+fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
+customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
+half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping, or
+paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations induced a
+general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were in vogue;
+the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for something
+lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zélie St. Pierre, on this particular
+Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in economical
+Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury; nay, it was
+remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair that morning;
+there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her
+handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor
+Zélie! It was much her wont to declare about this time, that she was
+tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that she longed to
+have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some one to work for
+her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully encumbered
+with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she said,
+to "goûter un peu les plaisirs." It had long been rumoured, that her
+eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's eye was certainly often
+upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes
+together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while
+the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade,
+unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would
+writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would
+follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some
+cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and
+pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and
+discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit:
+yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all
+that men and women would not have known--the twisted spine, the
+malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse, the stain or
+disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves. No calamity so
+accursed but M. Emanuel could pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged
+candidly; but where his questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where
+his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could
+be cruel, and I thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen
+from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of
+the mount of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor
+living lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
+unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
+has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
+visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
+not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it was
+difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
+righteous and needed.
+
+Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
+rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
+and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing in
+her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers all
+fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no bouquet.
+I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease
+to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their
+likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I
+never wish to receive them from hands dear to me. Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I had been so
+remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me: surely I must
+have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small knot of
+violets, something to win myself praise for taste, commendation for
+ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better than the
+Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of bloom or
+leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zélie smiled, well pleased.
+
+"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
+"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-house
+flowers!"
+
+And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.
+
+But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with a
+promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by other
+feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of intent. We
+thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically) had in it a
+friendly promise this morning; and so it had.
+
+He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
+already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
+plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M. Paul's
+all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't know why I
+should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor Labassecourien),
+he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion. Not by the vague
+folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-dark paletôt were the
+outlines of his person obscured; on the contrary, his figure (such as
+it was, I don't boast of it) was well set off by a civilized coat and a
+silken vest quite pretty to behold. The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec
+had vanished: bare-headed, he came upon us, carrying a Christian hat in
+his gloved hand. The little man looked well, very well; there was a
+clearness of amity in his blue eye, and a glow of good feeling on his
+dark complexion, which passed perfectly in the place of beauty: one
+really did not care to observe that his nose, though far from small,
+was of no particular shape, his cheek thin, his brow marked and square,
+his mouth no rose-bud: one accepted him as he was, and felt his
+presence the reverse of damping or insignificant.
+
+He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
+jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
+amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund,
+good-fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice
+he had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the
+words to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an
+irritable, it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place,
+tender beyond a man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little
+children, that bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would,
+he could not disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he
+was better with them than with his own sex.
+
+"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
+congratulations on the anniversary of his fête," said Mademoiselle
+Zélie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
+with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
+the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
+bowed over it.
+
+The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
+with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
+went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that when
+the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a blooming
+pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with such
+exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This ceremony
+over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence, expectant of a
+speech.
+
+I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
+unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.
+
+Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
+well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he kept
+his station behind the pile of flowers.
+
+At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
+a hollow:--
+
+"Est-ce là tout?"
+
+Mademoiselle Zélie looked round.
+
+"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.
+
+Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
+youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
+signified as much.
+
+"Est-ce là tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
+had now descended some notes lower.
+
+"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
+speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you that,
+with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
+bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
+foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
+their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
+frivolous to be honoured by her observance."
+
+"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zélie,
+when you begin."
+
+The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
+given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
+manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.
+
+A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his eclipse;
+and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing straight
+and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the wall
+opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic tones--
+
+"Est-ce là tout?"
+
+I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping into
+his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight in my
+own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the comic side
+of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now, Mademoiselle
+St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity. The reader not
+having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss Snowe's character the
+most distant pretensions to perfection, will be scarcely surprised to
+learn that she felt too perverse to defend herself from any imputation
+the Parisienne might choose to insinuate and besides, M. Paul was so
+tragic, and took my defection so seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I
+kept, then, both my box and my countenance, and sat insensate as any
+stone.
+
+"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
+uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
+wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
+lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
+his customary "discours."
+
+I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
+it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his mortification
+or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-counteracted the
+ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce là tout?"
+
+Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
+attention was again amusingly arrested.
+
+Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
+on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
+against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
+me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
+became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
+the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
+to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
+give him ease.
+
+I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
+to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
+when I began to listen.
+
+Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which scathed,
+or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with fury upon
+"les Anglaises."
+
+Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
+handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
+nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
+stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their
+pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their insufferable
+pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his teeth
+malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
+singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
+consequence, detestably ugly.
+
+"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
+with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
+you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
+pyramid."
+
+I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
+time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
+bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
+cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at
+last--fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names
+and best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
+jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
+most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
+nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zélie, and the whole class,
+became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
+how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
+struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
+cry:--
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Héros! A bas la France, la
+Fiction et les Faquins!"
+
+The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
+Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
+folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the victory,
+since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-humoured. With
+great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers; talked
+poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume, purity,
+etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes filles" and
+the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St. Pierre a very
+full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet; and ended by
+announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy morning in
+spring, he intended to take the whole class out to breakfast in the
+country. "Such of the class, at least," he added, with emphasis, "as he
+could count amongst the number of his friends."
+
+"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
+
+"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
+flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
+and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't know
+whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess that _I_ did.
+
+Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
+of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
+smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that the
+box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would not
+have it so.
+
+In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
+by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well to
+secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E., for
+Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
+foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
+schoolroom.
+
+It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
+boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of the
+week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions was
+vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe hanging in
+the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its horizontal
+grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath. I rather
+wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being usually
+locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save Madame Beck
+and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered still more, on
+approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a step, a chair
+stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.
+
+"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
+following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
+opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
+inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
+coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
+chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
+amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
+moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
+discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletôt was resumed; the
+perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
+hand, culpably busy.
+
+Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was on
+the most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered the
+lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as my
+own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left
+signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I had
+never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect the
+hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in exercises
+left overnight full of faults, and found next morning carefully
+corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans full welcome
+and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out grammar would
+magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a classic, mellow and
+sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would laughingly peep a
+romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the magazine, whence last
+evening's reading had been extracted. Impossible to doubt the source
+whence these treasures flowed: had there been no other indication, one
+condemning and traitor peculiarity, common to them all, settled the
+question--_they smelt of cigars_. This was very shocking, of course:
+_I_ thought so at first, and used to open the window with some bustle,
+to air my desk, and with fastidious finger and thumb, to hold the
+peccant brochures forth to the purifying breeze. I was cured of that
+formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at it one day, understood the
+inference, instantly relieved my hand of its burden, and, in another
+moment, would have thrust the same into the glowing stove. It chanced
+to be a book, on the perusal of which I was bent; so for once I proved
+as decided and quicker than himself; recaptured the spoil, and--having
+saved this volume--never hazarded a second. With all this, I had never
+yet been able to arrest in his visits the freakish, friendly,
+cigar-loving phantom.
+
+But now at last I had him: there he was--the very brownie himself; and
+there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian
+darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him.
+Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him--pleased,
+that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last
+her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn--I
+softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his
+shoulder.
+
+My heart smote me to see that--after this morning's hostility, after my
+seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings, and
+the ruffling undergone by his temper--he, all willing to forget and
+forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the
+title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat
+bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with
+gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not harming. My heart
+smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me what good
+he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my morning's
+anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.
+
+I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was
+nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour: there was
+something hardy about him.
+
+"I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers," said he,
+taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half-escaped him--"It
+is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not I. I
+often visit your desk."
+
+"Monsieur, I know it."
+
+"You find a brochure or tome now and then; but you don't read them,
+because they have passed under this?"--touching his cigar.
+
+"They have, and are no better for the process; but I read them."
+
+"Without pleasure?"
+
+"Monsieur must not be contradicted."
+
+"Do you like them, or any of them?--are they acceptable?" "Monsieur has
+seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many
+recreations as to undervalue those he provides."
+
+"I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little
+amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?"
+
+"A fatalist would say--because we cannot."
+
+"This morning," he continued, "I awoke in a bright mood, and came into
+classe happy; you spoiled my day."
+
+"No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally."
+
+"Unintentionally! No. It was my fête-day; everybody wished me happiness
+but you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot
+of violets, lisped each her congratulation:--you--nothing. Not a bud,
+leaf, whisper--not a glance. Was this unintentional?"
+
+"I meant no harm."
+
+"Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You
+would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me
+pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is
+forgotten, and the pain soothed."
+
+"I did know that it was expected: I _was_ prepared; yet I laid out no
+centimes on flowers."
+
+"It is well--you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you
+had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once 'Paul Carl
+Emanuel--je te déteste, mon garçon!'--than smile an interest, look an
+affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold I don't think
+you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I believe; I
+think your judgment is warped--that you are indifferent where you ought
+to be grateful--and perhaps devoted and infatuated, where you ought to
+be cool as your name. Don't suppose that I wish you to have a passion
+for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do you start for?
+Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and
+there is such a thing--though not within these walls, thank heaven! You
+are no child that one should not speak of what exists; but I only
+uttered the word--the thing, I assure you, is alien to my whole life
+and views. It died in the past--in the present it lies buried--its
+grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old: in the future
+there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls consolation; but
+all will then be changed--form and feeling: the mortal will have put on
+immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but heaven. All I say to
+_you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought to treat Professor Paul
+Emanuel decently."
+
+I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.
+
+"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fête-day, and I will not
+grudge a few centimes for a small offering."
+
+"You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and
+I did not grudge its price."
+
+And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.
+
+"It lay ready in my lap this morning," I continued; "and if Monsieur
+had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less
+interfering--perhaps I should say, too, if _I_ had been calmer and
+wiser--I should have given it then."
+
+He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure
+circlet, pleased his eyes. I told him to open it.
+
+"My initials!" said he, indicating the letters in the lid. "Who told
+you I was called Carl David?"
+
+"A little bird, Monsieur."
+
+"Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing
+when needful."
+
+He took out the chain--a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with
+silk and sparkling with beads. He liked that too--admired it artlessly,
+like a child.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you."
+
+"This is the thing you were working at last night?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You finished it this morning?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"And offered on my fête-day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This purpose continued as you wove it?"
+
+Again I assented.
+
+"Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion--saying,
+this part is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the
+adornment of another?"
+
+"By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just."
+
+"This object is _all_ mine?"
+
+"That object is yours entirely."
+
+Straightway Monsieur opened his paletôt, arranged the guard splendidly
+across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he
+could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought
+decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonnière--he
+was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
+others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragées" as freely as
+he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie's gifts left in my desk, I
+forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in
+these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple
+lunch consisted frequently of a "brioche," which, as often as not, he
+shared with some child of the third division.
+
+"A présent c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletôt;
+and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two
+volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife
+(he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were
+novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his
+censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose,
+politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good-day.
+
+"We are friends now," thought I, "till the next time we quarrel."
+
+We _might_ have quarrelled again that very same evening, but, wonderful
+to relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our opportunity.
+
+Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having
+seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence at
+night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he appeared.
+I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help greeting his
+arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the same seat about
+which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly arisen, I took good
+care not to make too much room for him; he watched with a jealous,
+side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I did not, though the
+bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early impulse to recoil
+from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletôt and bonnet-grec, the
+neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer uncomfortable or very
+formidable. I did not now sit restrained, "asphyxiée" (as he used to
+say) at his side; I stirred when I wished to stir, coughed when it was
+necessary, even yawned when I was tired--did, in short, what I pleased,
+blindly reliant upon his indulgence. Nor did my temerity, this evening
+at least, meet the punishment it perhaps merited; he was both indulgent
+and good-natured; not a cross glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty
+word left his lips. Till the very close of the evening, he did not
+indeed address me at all, yet I felt, somehow, that he was full of
+friendliness. Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different
+meanings; no words could inspire a pleasanter content than did M.
+Paul's worldless presence. When the tray came in, and the bustle of
+supper commenced, he just said, as he retired, that he wished me a good
+night and sweet dreams; and a good night and sweet dreams I had.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+M. PAUL.
+
+
+Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly
+conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that
+day M. Paul became a changed character--easy to live with, and no
+longer apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.
+
+No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When
+over-wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and,
+besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the
+essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the
+heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment whose seat is in the head.
+
+I used to think, as I sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting his
+brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had not as
+many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a knot of
+blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had points of
+resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.
+
+In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
+Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would
+have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and
+recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling himself
+about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty Madame de
+Staëls, if, they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or opposed him.
+
+I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache--a
+lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history.
+She was clever--that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides, thoroughly
+possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of words and
+confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal appearance was far
+from destitute of advantages; I believe many people would have
+pronounced her "a fine woman;" and yet there were points in her robust
+and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and demonstrative
+presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious tastes of M. Paul
+could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing through the carré,
+would put him into a strange taking; her long free step--almost
+stride--along the corridor, would often make him snatch up his papers
+and decamp on the instant.
+
+With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her
+class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it
+differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less
+courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he expected
+submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid opposition,
+accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly unjustifiable
+interference.
+
+Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he
+threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a
+Penthesilea, picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the
+intermeddler's face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M.
+Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of
+fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his fair
+foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, M. Paul
+detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his earnest
+fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to rest
+peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or even
+serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of the
+establishment. The Professor conquered, but I cannot say that the
+laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I
+ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might
+be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men or
+women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame Panache
+was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an unspeakable
+and active aversion impelled him to a war of extermination.
+
+Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with
+reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of
+employment, he forgot his hatred, and alike active in good and evil, he
+moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming to
+make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness, the
+old voice--a little loud--the old manner--a little forward--so acted
+upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or rather
+himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.
+
+To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an
+eager grasp after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a
+man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist;
+it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him that
+his requirements went beyond reason--that his absolutism verged on
+tyranny.
+
+The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing
+within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even disturbed
+him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held back his
+hand--perhaps said, "Come on if you have strength," but would not aid
+the birth.
+
+When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
+breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
+when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
+yet offer to foster.
+
+"Prove yourself true ere I cherish you," was his ordinance; and how
+difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
+strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
+tearlessly--ordeals that he exacted should be passed
+through--fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached
+the bourne, were sometimes marked in blood--followed them grimly,
+holding the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And
+when at last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids,
+he opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and
+gazed deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the
+heart, to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its
+subtlest forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence.
+If, at last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke
+him suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when
+he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and
+the health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied
+and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and
+failed to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in
+clouded silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
+
+I speak not ignorant of these evils.
+
+Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my
+professor--he had not given me lessons, but about that time,
+accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch
+of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a
+charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand,
+examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, gave
+me some books and appointed me some tasks.
+
+He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation,
+condescending to say that he believed I was "bonne et pas trop faible"
+(i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts), but,
+owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, "as yet in a state of
+wretchedly imperfect mental development."
+
+The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a
+preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common
+acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A
+depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have
+turned in life.
+
+So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
+forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty
+humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly
+do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would
+moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened as he
+was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation to
+give to me.
+
+But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
+yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free, and
+my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
+trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
+kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam to
+a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more I
+did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of which
+the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then flowed out
+the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I was vaguely
+threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits
+proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine
+knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by
+any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the
+abstract--the godlike thirst after discovery--these feelings were known
+to me but by briefest flashes.
+
+Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
+his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes--it imparted a strong
+stimulus--it gave wings to aspiration.
+
+In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
+uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
+warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
+Whatever my powers--feminine or the contrary--God had given them, and I
+felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.
+
+The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's
+affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would
+insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called
+"faible"--that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false
+incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the
+most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that
+I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard
+of--and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down
+in a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus.
+
+Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him--I rose
+against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I filled
+my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his feet.
+
+"Take them away, M. Paul," I said, "and teach me no more. I never asked
+to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly that
+learning is not happiness."
+
+And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
+to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
+affection had been very sweet and dear--a pleasure new and
+incomparable: now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his
+lessons.
+
+The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
+careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He made
+his peace somehow--too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood out
+longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand with
+amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
+moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!
+
+On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
+attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
+before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
+delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
+steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
+presence, stand "carrément" before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
+rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words, "Qu'il
+est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux--quel
+regard! Tenez! J'en ai le coeur tout ému!"
+
+When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered "cette
+fille effrontée, cette créature sans pudeur," to address me in such
+terms.
+
+I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
+Rosine--a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and reserve
+were not largely developed--was in the constant habit of using.
+Besides, what she said about the young doctor was true enough. Graham
+_was_ handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling glance. An
+observation to that effect actually formed itself into sound on my lips.
+
+"Elle ne dit que la vérité," I said.
+
+"Ah! vous trouvez?"
+
+"Mais, sans doute."
+
+The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
+very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released, pupils rushed
+out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A mandate to
+remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air sadly--the
+stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable voice merely
+recommended silence; and this salamander--for whom no room ever seemed
+too hot--sitting down between my desk and the stove--a situation in
+which he ought to have felt broiled, but did not--proceeded to confront
+me with--a Greek quotation!
+
+In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek
+and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they
+would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of
+its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of
+knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal. The
+privileges of a "classical education," it was insinuated, had been
+mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store, hived in
+memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily nurtured my wits.
+
+A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret--to
+wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
+Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's
+jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait
+for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
+and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones
+fell musically from his lips--for he had a good voice--remarkable for
+compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a
+vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he
+sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however;
+not comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed.
+
+Baffled--almost angry--he still clung to his fixed idea; my
+susceptibilities were pronounced marble--my face a mask. It appeared as
+if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me for
+what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort; if not
+made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.
+
+At moments I _did_ wish that his suspicions had been better founded.
+There were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the
+treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his
+testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing home to him his worst
+apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could have exulted to burst on
+his vision, confront and confound his "lunettes," one blaze of
+acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make me clever while I
+was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, sudden, inhuman
+revelation--one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph--have for ever
+crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel!
+
+Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
+fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.
+
+"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
+of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
+accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
+creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
+the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
+passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
+and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
+mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?
+
+This "hein?" was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
+contradiction or objection. However, I only said--"Cela ne me regarde
+pas: je ne m'en soucie pas;" and presently added--"May I go, Monsieur?
+They have rung the bell for the second déjeuner" (_i.e._ luncheon).
+
+"What of that? You are not hungry?"
+
+"Indeed I was," I said; "I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
+and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell."
+
+"Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him."
+
+And he broke in two the "brioche" intended for his own refreshment, and
+gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really
+formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I could not
+forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of which he
+accused me.
+
+"Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?" he asked, in a
+softened tone.
+
+If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
+would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
+the spot, but I answered--
+
+"Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
+me, but I _sometimes_, not _always_, feel a knowledge of my own."
+
+"What did I mean?" he inquired, sharply.
+
+Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
+subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche feeling sure that
+on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
+indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
+apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
+not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
+said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
+run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
+believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
+baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
+a glass or two of vin blanc--might I go?
+
+"Petite gourmande!" said he, smiling, "I have not forgotten how pleased
+you were with the pâté â la crême I once gave you, and you know very
+well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will be the same
+as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back quickly."
+
+And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and return
+with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and then to
+vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future settlement.
+
+That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
+scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed
+me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my
+hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered me
+to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I suppose,
+by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery. All he had
+yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing: not
+so of the present attack.
+
+It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
+afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
+engage--foreigner as I was--to take my place on the first form of
+first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French, on
+any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar or
+lexicon.
+
+I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
+nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
+a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under
+the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the
+recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence
+of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was
+the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of
+masters (him before me always excepted)--a deity which sometimes, under
+circumstances--apparently propitious, would not speak when questioned,
+would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; but
+would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with
+carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a
+tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some
+long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen
+stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited,
+would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a
+perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the
+hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the
+circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously promising
+vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles,
+but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds, and grudging
+to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--yielding it
+sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of
+its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and
+make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and
+a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and to the
+inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!
+
+Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
+battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
+repulse.
+
+On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
+sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable." I
+feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not?
+Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me good
+to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he
+paused to take breath.
+
+"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"
+
+"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
+compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
+write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."
+
+"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
+sake?"
+
+"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
+had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass
+me thus."
+
+He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
+his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
+there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
+form it was not for him to make use.
+
+"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d'ici,"
+said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming for
+the effort."
+
+"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
+hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."
+
+And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
+to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.
+
+"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away; _he_
+was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer,
+thoroughly screened by his person?"
+
+"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
+history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
+and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to
+the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
+thirsty?"
+
+"If that was all, he would do my errand."
+
+He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
+behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
+prey had escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DRYAD.
+
+
+The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
+This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many
+others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this time
+left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid days.
+
+One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
+the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
+refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
+down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
+
+Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
+watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
+foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
+entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
+centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
+and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
+
+My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
+in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
+a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
+she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
+between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers, and
+the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul was not
+of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him ere
+now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to judge, she
+seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an indulgent
+guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his, and
+hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had struck
+through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the family of
+presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell upon it.
+While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and following
+the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly dressed, for
+she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the glancing leaves
+of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they closed; my lassitude,
+the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all lulled me, and at
+last I slept.
+
+Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight
+behind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees had
+gone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests, too,
+had vanished; each alley was void.
+
+On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have been
+after sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were
+not benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of
+the bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,
+carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (both
+taken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round me.
+
+Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of
+the pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of
+them had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?
+Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have
+heard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?
+
+As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at
+all, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had
+meddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; she
+has come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. She
+considers me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which it
+was hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"
+methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very chill."
+
+So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.
+
+I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have
+hardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious illusion
+of vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place some months
+ago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey crown of
+Jean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet vanished into
+their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-ivy. I paced up
+and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had pondered that night
+when I buried my glass jar--how I should make some advance in life,
+take another step towards an independent position; for this train of
+reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by me been wholly
+abandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from me, and a
+certain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice, into that
+track of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little by little, I
+had laid half a plan.
+
+"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town of
+Villette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are in
+dear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and less
+emulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite as
+homely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a prudently
+chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved one
+thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and two or
+three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and desks, a
+black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and table, with a
+sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-pupils, and so work
+my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as I have often heard
+her say--from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All these
+premises and this garden are hers, bought with her money; she has a
+competency already secured for old age, and a flourishing establishment
+under her direction, which will furnish a career for her children.
+
+"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady
+exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to
+complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks
+interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,
+by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is
+there nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearer
+to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me
+better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whose
+feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and
+gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for
+others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so
+rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a
+huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see that
+a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on conditions
+of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be of the few
+favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening
+the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the
+beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep."
+
+So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts
+bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a
+poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items, and
+sets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Call
+anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong
+characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to
+Doom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written "pain;"
+and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass, or accept
+the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the strongest--if the
+darkest angel of God's host--water, when he has asked blood--will he
+take it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I settled another
+account.
+
+Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--and
+leaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone
+sealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of
+feeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him;
+my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become of
+that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life;
+only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?
+
+Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I
+thought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and
+of hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.
+
+Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would
+occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr.
+John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still
+kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well as
+when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this
+cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of
+himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow
+mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the
+rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their
+perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is
+the sweetbriar enamoured of the air?
+
+"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not
+mine. Good-night, and God bless you!"
+
+Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heard
+the words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.
+
+"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarce
+set; I hope you slept well?"
+
+I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and
+speaker.
+
+"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"
+
+"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,
+and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"
+
+"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen,
+gift-bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how
+I fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."
+
+"Did the shawls keep you warm?"
+
+"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"
+
+"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"
+
+"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."
+
+"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,
+Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very
+faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,
+and keeping down."
+
+This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the most
+habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of
+it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not
+trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been
+gone had I left him nothing to "keep down."
+
+"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well for
+you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I watch
+you and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and oftener
+than you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in it?"
+
+He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.
+
+"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for a
+study--virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read for
+hours together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; its
+contents are human nature--female human nature. I know you all by
+heart. Ah! I know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cette
+maîtresse-femme, my cousin Beck herself."
+
+"It is not right, Monsieur."
+
+"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin or
+Luther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich
+father (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a year
+in a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and
+sometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was a
+good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. I
+retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they not
+aided me!"
+
+"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."
+
+"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. You
+know the St. Pierre?"
+
+"Partially."
+
+He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know her
+_thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me the
+amiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned on
+me. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against my
+reason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young, or
+knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art of
+dressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which spared
+me the pain of embarrassment--"
+
+"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassed
+in my life."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite
+pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"
+
+"Monsieur, I never saw it."
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."
+
+"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,
+before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in the
+third division."
+
+"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and
+publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it
+quite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into
+action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.
+If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may
+spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at the
+thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could look
+upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved that
+I am as I say--modest."
+
+I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a
+sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.
+
+"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voice
+had altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I
+don't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little lattice
+with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thou
+wrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her vanities, her
+levities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklers
+me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zélie."
+
+"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunes
+filles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp like
+boys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the
+trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early
+preference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched her
+well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you recollect my
+once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets
+when we were strangers?"
+
+"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."
+
+"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without
+prudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when
+it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Not
+only did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--another
+guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after night my
+cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly pursued your
+movements when you did not see her."
+
+"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see what
+passed in this garden at night?"
+
+"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but the
+garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a
+door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of that
+door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This
+afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again this
+evening I have availed myself of the same entrance."
+
+I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, how
+terrible would all this be!"
+
+His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the
+subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a
+tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour
+was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often
+lectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speak
+my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his
+Jesuit-system.
+
+"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming
+and going by stealth degrades your own dignity."
+
+"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble my
+head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' How
+often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in
+trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,
+scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with
+such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a
+third-rate London actor."
+
+"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a
+wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human
+heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.
+I wish you were a Protestant."
+
+Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet
+thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen other
+things."
+
+"What other things?"
+
+Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs,
+where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
+
+"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you and
+me?"
+
+He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I have
+seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch
+all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."
+
+The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
+
+"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just
+winking itself out?"
+
+"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it
+is time to go in."
+
+"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this
+question."
+
+Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk
+had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the
+trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too
+much absorbed to be sensible of the change.
+
+"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"
+
+"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst
+Protestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do you
+ask such a question?"
+
+"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"
+
+"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such
+subjects. I dislike it the more because--"
+
+"You believe?"
+
+"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"
+
+"Since you came here?"
+
+"Yes; not many months ago."
+
+"Here?--in this house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
+conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
+choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
+strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are
+alike--there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when
+you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
+mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
+of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
+perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
+you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
+mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
+knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
+But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too, have
+had my 'impressions.'"
+
+"Monsieur, tell me them."
+
+"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
+house and garden?"
+
+"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
+here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
+bears us."
+
+"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."
+
+"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"
+
+"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house
+by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have
+indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual
+weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other
+living being. A nun!"
+
+"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."
+
+"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
+that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
+as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
+has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"
+
+Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
+the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--the
+high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs
+on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
+inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had
+swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and
+crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,
+and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood
+still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and
+heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more
+solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the
+boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?
+What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell
+rang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there
+came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a
+sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the very
+NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of
+stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; the
+rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE FIRST LETTER.
+
+
+Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my
+intercourse with the sumptuous Hôtel Crécy? That intercourse had, for
+an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had
+been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and capital
+of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly after it
+took place.
+
+I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly
+on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing,
+when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just
+encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad,
+smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and
+young lady, on the other--a young and handsome man. Very graceful was
+the lady's mien, choice her appointments, delicate and stately her
+whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known to me, and,
+drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the Count Home de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.
+
+How animated was Graham's face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring
+the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the
+combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to subdue
+and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of great price
+and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in appreciating the gem,
+could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina with the same youth,
+beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in simple attire,
+a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a pretty
+little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and
+her mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now
+vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and
+even with gain to his manly honour, one saw that he was reduced; there
+was about Dr. John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not
+suffice; society must approve--the world must admire what he did, or he
+counted his measures false and futile. In his victrix he required all
+that was here visible--the imprint of high cultivation, the
+consecration of a careful and authoritative protection, the adjuncts
+that Fashion decrees, Wealth purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these
+conditions his spirit stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to
+the utmost fulfilled; and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did
+homage to Paulina as his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling,
+rather than of conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.
+
+They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he
+skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome;
+mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.
+
+"Papa, there is Lucy!" cried a musical, friendly voice. "Lucy, dear
+Lucy--_do_ come here!"
+
+I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her saddle
+to kiss me.
+
+"I was coming to see you to-morrow," said she; "but now to-morrow you
+will come and see me."
+
+She named the hour, and I promised compliance.
+
+The morrow's evening found me with her--she and I shut into her own
+room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were
+brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so
+signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the
+interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tête-à-tête,
+a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear soft
+voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My own
+attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she
+herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up
+her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an
+abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed--a restless
+silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in a
+diffident, half-appealing voice--"Lucy--"
+
+"Well, I am at your side."
+
+"Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck's?"
+
+"Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her."
+
+"No--not much."
+
+"You want to invite her to spend another evening?"
+
+"No... I suppose she still talks about being married?"
+
+"Not to any one you care for."
+
+"But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have changed
+her mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months ago."
+
+"Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they
+stood."
+
+"There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she
+seem unhappy?"
+
+"Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or
+from, Graham during your absence?"
+
+"Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He
+undertook the management of some affair which required attention while
+we were away. Dr. Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure
+in obliging him."
+
+"Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to
+judge from his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious
+about his health?"
+
+"Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is
+not particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of
+other things than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr.
+Bretton rode away, Really it does a man good to see the spirit and
+energy of that boy.' He called Dr. Bretton a boy; I believe he almost
+thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little girl; he was not speaking
+to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy...."
+
+Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her
+chair, and came and sat on the stool at my feet.
+
+I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my
+acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it
+for once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina
+only what was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard
+for her lay deep. An admiration more superficial might have been more
+demonstrative; mine, however, was quiet.
+
+"What have you to ask of Lucy?" said I; "be brave, and speak out."
+
+But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and there
+was no coolness on her cheek--not a transient surface-blush, but a
+gathering inward excitement raised its tint and its temperature.
+
+"Lucy, I _do_ wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do, _do_ give
+me your real opinion of his character, his disposition."
+
+"His character stands high, and deservedly high."
+
+"And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition," she urged; "you
+know him well."
+
+"I know him pretty well."
+
+"You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of
+him as a son."
+
+"He is a fine-hearted son; his mother's comfort and hope, her pride and
+pleasure."
+
+She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a
+little caressing stroke.
+
+"In what other way is he good, Lucy?"
+
+"Dr. Bretton is benevolent--humanely disposed towards all his race, Dr.
+Bretton would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst
+criminal."
+
+"I heard some gentlemen, some of papa's friends, who were talking about
+him, say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the hospitals,
+who tremble before some pitiless and selfish surgeons, welcome him."
+
+"They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a
+hospital; I saw how he was received: your father's friends are right."
+
+The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She
+had yet more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk
+was beginning to reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight
+ruddiness; but I thought she wished the room dimmer, the hour later.
+
+"How quiet and secluded we feel here!" I remarked, to reassure her.
+
+"Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to
+tea; papa is dining out."
+
+Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously,
+dressed them, now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine
+of her beautiful hair; she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and
+at last, having cleared a voice that was naturally liquid as a lark's,
+she said:--
+
+"You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr.
+Bretton, ask so many questions, take such an interest, but--".
+
+"Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him."
+
+"And if I did," said she, with slight quickness, "is that a reason why
+I should talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?"
+
+"If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here
+waiting for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about
+the room, and anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go on."
+
+"I mean to go on," retorted she; "what else do you suppose I mean to
+do?"
+
+And she looked and spoke--the little Polly of Bretton--petulant,
+sensitive.
+
+"If," said she, emphatically, "if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to
+die for liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise
+than dumb--dumb as the grave--dumb as you, Lucy Snowe--you know it--and
+you know you would despise me if I failed in self-control, and whined
+about some rickety liking that was all on my side."
+
+"It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either
+in boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of feelings.
+But as to you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear you. Tell
+me all it will give you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no more."
+
+"Do you care for me, Lucy?"
+
+"Yes, I do, Paulina."
+
+"And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I was
+a little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me then to
+lavish on you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable to me,
+and I like to talk with and trust you. So listen, Lucy."
+
+And she settled herself, resting against my arm--resting gently, not
+with honest Mistress Fanshawe's fatiguing and selfish weight.
+
+"A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham
+during our absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on
+business; this was true, but I did not tell you all."
+
+"You evaded?"
+
+"I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak the
+truth now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one's ease. Papa often
+lets me open the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One morning,
+about three weeks ago, you don't know how surprised I was to find,
+amongst a dozen letters for M. de Bassompierre, a note addressed to
+Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, amidst all the rest; the
+handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. I was going to
+say, 'Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;' but the 'Miss'
+struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman
+before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read
+it first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa's ideas
+about me: he forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is
+not aware that other people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be;
+so, with a curious mixture of feelings, some of them self-reproachful,
+and some so fluttering and strong, I cannot describe them, I gave papa
+his twelve letters--his herd of possessions--and kept back my one, my
+ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during breakfast, looking up at me with an
+inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself a thing double-existent--a
+child to that dear papa, but no more a child to myself. After breakfast
+I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured myself by turning the
+key in the door, I began to study the outside of my treasure: it was
+some minutes before I could get over the direction and penetrate the
+seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind by instant
+storm--one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say. Graham's hand
+is like himself, Lucy, and so is his seal--all clear, firm, and
+rounded--no slovenly splash of wax--a full, solid, steady drop--a
+distinct impress; no pointed turns harshly pricking the optic nerve,
+but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, that soothes you as you read.
+It is like his face--just like the chiselling of his features: do you
+know his autograph?"
+
+"I have seen it: go on."
+
+"The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my
+scissors. On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew
+back voluntarily; it was too soon yet to drink that draught--the
+sparkle in the cup was so beautiful--I would watch it yet a minute.
+Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my prayers that
+morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a little earlier than
+usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had hastened to
+join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers till
+afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and
+then man; but I don't think heaven could be jealous of anything I might
+do for papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to say
+that another feeling than filial affection was in question--to urge me
+to pray before I dared to read what I so longed to read--to deny myself
+yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I have had these
+impulses ever since I can remember. I put the letter down and said my
+prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that whatever happened,
+I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and might
+never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of such a
+possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But still, Lucy,
+I felt that in time papa would have to be taught the truth, managed,
+and induced to hear reason.
+
+"I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment. _I_
+was not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart did more
+than throb--it trembled fast--every quiver seemed like the pant of an
+animal athirst, laid down at a well and drinking; and the well proved
+quite full, gloriously clear; it rose up munificently of its own
+impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and not a mote, Lucy, no moss,
+no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden gurgle.
+
+"Life," she went on, "is said to be full of pain to some. I have read
+biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to
+suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near, or
+lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing grasp.
+I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from
+being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by
+sudden whirlwind; and, alas! some of these met the winter with empty
+garners, and died of utter want in the darkest and coldest of the year."
+
+"Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?"
+
+"Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I
+am not endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow
+in sun, due moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered, taught,
+by my dear father; and now--now--another comes. Graham loves me."
+
+For some minutes we both paused on this climax.
+
+"Does your father know?" I inquired, in a low voice.
+
+"Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not
+approach that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added
+that he must have some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere
+he ventured to risk a step in the matter elsewhere."
+
+"How did you reply?"
+
+"I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled
+for fear of making the answer too cordial: Graham's tastes are so
+fastidious. I wrote it three times--chastening and subduing the phrases
+at every rescript; at last, having confected it till it seemed to me to
+resemble a morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest of fruit
+or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch it."
+
+"Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr. Bretton."
+
+"But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain."
+
+"Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further
+correspondence till your father knows all, and gives his sanction."
+
+"Will he ever give it?"
+
+"Time will show. Wait."
+
+"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm, brief
+note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my
+sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my father's
+knowledge, write again."
+
+"You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it will
+increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable of
+increase. Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so much
+pure, fine flame, is a priceless privilege of nature."
+
+"You see I feel Graham's disposition," said she. "I feel that no
+delicacy can be too exquisite for his treatment."
+
+"It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then--whatever Dr.
+Bretton's disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly
+met--you would still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your
+father."
+
+"Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake
+papa from his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!"
+
+"Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and
+your kind Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for
+you: doubt not she will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly
+appoint the hour. Yes: I have thought over your life just as you have
+yourself thought it over; I have made comparisons like those to which
+you adverted. We know not the future, but the past has been propitious.
+
+"As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more
+susceptible than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect,
+neither your outward nor your inward self would have ripened to what
+they now are. Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled
+the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have
+harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation; you would
+have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness.
+Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake,
+but I believe for Graham's. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop
+fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there
+you are, ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you
+together at La Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham
+there seems to me promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny
+youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is
+deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy--not as
+angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives _are_ thus
+blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering
+evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other
+travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and
+variable--breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early
+closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of
+God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored
+the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures
+contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.
+
+
+On the first of May, we had all--i.e. the twenty boarders and the four
+teachers--notice to rise at five o'clock of the morning, to be dressed
+and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le
+Professeur Emanuel, who was to head our march forth from Villette, for
+it was on this day he proposed to fulfil his promise of taking us to
+breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the reader may perhaps
+remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this excursion
+was first projected--rather the contrary; but on my now making allusion
+to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear received a
+pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the repetition by
+raising, further difficulties.
+
+"Je vous conseille de vous faire prier," said M. Emanuel, imperially
+menacing the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was enough,
+so I made up my mind to be of the party.
+
+The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden,
+and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm,
+and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in
+assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print
+dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French
+workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly
+unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume.
+Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best article.
+
+At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase, through
+the carré, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood our
+Professor, wearing, not his savage-looking paletôt and severe
+bonnet-grec, but a young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat.
+He had for us all the kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had a
+thanksgiving smile. We were marshalled in order and soon started.
+
+The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful
+as fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief
+of ours had the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when he
+would; just as, in an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to fear.
+
+He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a word
+to every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly neglecting
+even those he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason I had, to
+keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with Ginevra
+Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel's not
+unsubstantial limb--(she continued in excellent case, and I can assure
+the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of her
+loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to
+goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)--however,
+having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her
+always between myself and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I
+heard him coming up to the right hand or the left. My private motive
+for this manoeuvre might be traced to the circumstance of the new print
+dress I wore, being pink in colour--a fact which, under our present
+convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in a shawl
+with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where pastured a
+bull.
+
+For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in
+the arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but,
+by-and-by, he found out, that whether he came to this side or to that,
+Miss Fanshawe was still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance
+between Ginevra and him had never run so smooth that his temper did not
+undergo a certain crisping process whenever he heard her English
+accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; they jarred if they came
+in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed him bearish,
+meddling, repellent.
+
+At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time,
+finding still the same untoward result to the experiment--he thrust his
+head forward, settled his eyes on mine, and demanded with impatience,
+"Qu'est-ce que c'est? Vous me jouez des tours?"
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his
+customary quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I
+shook out the long fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf.
+"A-h-h! c'est la robe rose!" broke from his lips, affecting me very
+much like the sudden and irate low of some lord of the meadow.
+
+"It is only cotton," I alleged, hurriedly; "and cheaper, and washes
+better than any other colour."
+
+"Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes," he answered.
+"A-t-on jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutôt son chapeau,
+et ses gants, et ses brodequins!" These articles of dress were just
+like what my companions wore; certainly not one whit smarter--perhaps
+rather plainer than most--but Monsieur had now got hold of his text,
+and I began to chafe under the expected sermon. It went off, however,
+as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes passes on a summer day. I
+got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape of a single bantering
+smile from his eyes; and then he said, "Courage!--à vrai dire je ne
+suis pas fâché, peut-être même suis je content qu'on s'est fait si
+belle pour ma petite fête."
+
+"Mais ma robe n'est pas belle, Monsieur--elle n'est que propre."
+
+"J'aime la propreté," said he. In short, he was not to be dissatisfied;
+the sun of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious morning; it
+consumed scudding clouds ere they sullied its disk.
+
+And now we were in the country, amongst what they called "les bois et
+les petits sentiers." These woods and lanes a month later would offer
+but a dusty and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May
+greenness and morning repose, they looked very pleasant.
+
+We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour,
+with an orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the
+green swell of ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be
+seated, Monsieur taking his place in our midst, and suffering us to
+gather in a knot round him. Those who liked him more than they feared,
+came close, and these were chiefly little ones; those who feared more
+than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom much affection had
+given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, observed the
+greatest distance.
+
+He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction
+as children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its
+strength, and strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches in
+that little tale; sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description
+that, while I listened, sunk into my mind, and since have never faded.
+He tinted a twilight scene--I hold it in memory still--such a picture I
+have never looked on from artist's pencil.
+
+I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps
+that very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it in
+perfection. M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have heard
+him lavish, with careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental wealth
+as books seldom boast; his mind was indeed my library, and whenever it
+was opened to me, I entered bliss. Intellectually imperfect as I was, I
+could read little; there were few bound and printed volumes that did
+not weary me--whose perusal did not fag and blind--but his tomes of
+thought were collyrium to the spirit's eyes; over their contents,
+inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to think what a delight it
+would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather
+and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to
+heaven's reckless winds.
+
+His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat
+apart. In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence
+to wait till it was voluntarily offered) he asked, "Were you
+interested?"
+
+According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply
+answered--"Yes."
+
+"Was it good?"
+
+"Very good."
+
+"Yet I could not write that down," said he.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur?"
+
+"I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could
+dictate it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me.
+Would Mademoiselle Lucy write for me if I asked her?"
+
+"Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my pen
+did not keep pace with his lips."
+
+"Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the
+circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean
+to make you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?"
+
+"Surrounded with trees? Yes."
+
+"There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermière makes the café
+au lait in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will
+spread with butter half a hundred rolls."
+
+Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on
+the farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without capitulation.
+
+Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen
+of us, chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to
+prepare for breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had
+been ordered to provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming.
+Coffee and chocolate were already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs
+were added to the treat, and M. Emanuel, always generous, would have
+given a large order for "jambon" and "confitures" in addition, but that
+some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our influence, insisted that it
+would be a most reckless waste of victual. He railed at us for our
+pains, terming us "des ménagères avares;" but we let him talk, and
+managed the economy of the repast our own way.
+
+With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth
+looking on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he
+liked to have movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him.
+We asked where he would sit. He told us, we knew well he was our slave,
+and we his tyrants, and that he dared not so much as choose a chair
+without our leave; so we set him the farmer's great chair at the head
+of the long table, and put him into it.
+
+Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he
+could be so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed,
+at the worst, it was only his nerves that were irritable, not his
+temper that was radically bad; soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he
+was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. Only to the very stupid, perverse,
+or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest degree dangerous.
+
+Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say a
+little prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as devotedly
+as a woman. I had never seen him pray before, or make that pious sign;
+he did it so simply, with such child-like faith, I could not help
+smiling pleasurably as I watched; his eyes met my smile; he just
+stretched out his kind hand, saying, "Donnez-moi la main! I see we
+worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different rites."
+
+Most of M. Emanuel's brother Professors were emancipated free-thinkers,
+infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would not bear
+scrutiny; he was more like a knight of old, religious in his way, and
+of spotless fame. Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were safe at his
+side. He had vivid passions, keen feelings, but his pure honour and his
+artless piety were the strong charm that kept the lions couchant.
+
+That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant
+clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his
+social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only
+by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he had
+his own way, and a pleasant way it was.
+
+The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a
+few stayed to help the farmer's wife to put away her earthenware. M.
+Paul called me from among these to come out and sit near him under a
+tree--whence he could view the troop gambolling, over a wide
+pasture--and read to him whilst he took his cigar. He sat on a rustic
+bench, and I at the tree-root. While I read (a pocket-classic--a
+Corneille--I did not like it, but he did, finding therein beauties I
+never could be brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of
+calm the more impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature;
+the deepest happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad
+forehead. I, too, was happy--happy with the bright day, happier with
+his presence, happiest with his kindness.
+
+He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than
+sit there? I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked
+whether, if I were his sister, I should always be content to stay with
+a brother such as he. I said, I believed I should; and I felt it.
+Again, he inquired whether, if he were to leave Villette, and go far
+away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, and made no reply.
+
+"Petite soeur," said he; "how long could you remember me if we were
+separated?"
+
+"That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it
+will be before I shall cease to remember everything earthly."
+
+"If I were to go beyond seas for two--three--five years, should you
+welcome me on my return?"
+
+"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?"
+
+"Pourtant j'ai été pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant."
+
+I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked him
+why he talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and cheered me
+again with the kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness with which
+he treated me during the rest of the day, went somehow to my heart. It
+was too tender. It was mournful. I would rather he had been abrupt,
+whimsical, and irate as was his wont.
+
+When hot noon arrived--for the day turned out as we had anticipated,
+glowing as June--our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture, and
+proceeded to lead us all softly home. But we had a whole league to
+walk, thus far from Villette was the farm where he had breakfasted; the
+children, especially, were tired with their play; the spirits of most
+flagged at the prospect of this mid-day walk over chaussées flinty,
+glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been foreseen and provided
+for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two spacious vehicles
+coming to fetch us--such conveyances as are hired out purposely for the
+accommodation of school-parties; here, with good management, room was
+found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made safe consignment of his
+charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a pleasant day: it would have
+been perfect, but for the breathing of melancholy which had dimmed its
+sunshine a moment.
+
+That tarnish was renewed the same evening.
+
+Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door,
+accompanied by Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an
+hour, talking earnestly: he--looking grave, yet restless; she--wearing
+an amazed, expostulatory, dissuasive air.
+
+I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered
+the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in the
+garden, I said to myself--"He called me 'petite soeur' this morning. If
+he were really my brother, how I should like to go to him just now, and
+ask what it is that presses on his mind. See how he leans against that
+tree, with his arms crossed and his brow bent. He wants consolation, I
+know: Madame does not console: she only remonstrates. What now----?"
+
+Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and
+quick down the garden. The carré doors were yet open: I thought he was
+probably going to water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his
+occasional custom; on reaching the court, however, he took an abrupt
+turn and made for the berceau and the first-classe glass door. There,
+in that first classe I was, thence I had been watching him; but there I
+could not find courage to await his approach. He had turned so
+suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within me
+grew pale, shrank and--not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing the
+shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance--she was gone on the
+wings of panic.
+
+Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty.
+Listening there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined
+apprehension, I heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing
+the doors impatiently as he went; I heard him invade the refectory
+which the "lecture pieuse" was now holding under hallowed constraint; I
+heard him pronounce these words--"Où est Mademoiselle Lucie?"
+
+And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do
+what, after all, I most wished to do in the world--viz., meet him--the
+wiry voice of St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, "Elle est au lit."
+And he passed, with the stamp of vexation, into the corridor. There
+Madame Beck met, captured, chid, convoyed to the street-door, and
+finally dismissed him.
+
+As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse
+proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me
+he wanted--me he was seeking--and had not I wanted him too? What, then,
+had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had
+something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear
+strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence
+impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience
+and solace beyond hope's reach--no sooner did opportunity suddenly and
+fully arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled
+shaft of mortality.
+
+Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort,
+the certain satisfaction, I might have won--could I but have put
+choking panic down, and stood firm two minutes--here was dead blank,
+dark doubt, and drear suspense.
+
+I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MALEVOLA.
+
+
+Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
+any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
+little commissions for her at the shops.
+
+Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
+furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
+etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
+manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I was
+just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue forth,
+when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-à-manger.
+
+"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
+thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
+good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
+
+Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
+Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
+filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
+amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
+know not what, exotic plant.
+
+"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
+toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
+favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
+with my felicitations on her fête. She lives down in the old town,
+Numéro 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long, but
+you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you are
+not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved, or
+Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing up
+some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, ma
+bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure to
+insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into
+her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is rather
+a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
+
+And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute,
+that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tedious
+business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for the
+slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
+tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was off
+my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to be
+attended to.
+
+I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
+Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
+city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
+and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
+
+I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and
+use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the
+thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--the
+quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In return, it
+sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a quiet path
+through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as if by
+eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor. Let, then,
+the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first get rid of
+this basket of fruit.
+
+An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
+too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
+when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
+the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
+square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
+houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
+of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
+region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
+quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
+dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable and
+formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had long
+since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving these
+their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or perhaps to
+stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course of winters.
+
+As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
+large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
+whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given in
+the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and propped
+on a staff--the type of eld and decay.
+
+He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
+paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
+turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
+thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
+age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a young
+ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have thought
+such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I found
+myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique peasant
+costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of native
+lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like little
+boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in character.
+
+The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
+costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
+scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
+would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
+priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
+message with which I was charged.
+
+His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
+understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit into
+her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that such
+were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
+Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
+of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
+inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
+ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
+
+The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
+windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
+coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller room;
+there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed; through
+the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These few I
+amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
+attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
+
+By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook,
+it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening
+arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair;
+both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted.
+Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon there
+fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of a substance.
+
+Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
+obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
+
+It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
+Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might the
+three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic sages of
+a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell had
+opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing picture,
+that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of a fairy
+tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the chief
+figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How was she?
+
+She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
+rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
+staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
+breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
+hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
+malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
+all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull displeasure!
+
+This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the
+gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern;
+over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for
+her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chief
+points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing with a
+lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on her
+skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green, and
+blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like a
+barbarian queen.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of male
+than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her chin.
+
+I delivered my basket and my message.
+
+"Is that all?" she demanded.
+
+"It is all," said I.
+
+"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame Beck,
+and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant à ses
+félicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her back.
+
+Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
+blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
+proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
+into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
+tempest.
+
+What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
+acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
+inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
+There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
+incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and muttering
+venomously as she vanished.
+
+Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
+while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as
+if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower,
+I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the gleams of
+lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near; this storm
+had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have burst at the
+zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts pierced athwart
+vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent blanched as white
+metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its swollen abundance.
+
+Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
+cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
+Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
+priest.
+
+"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
+displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in this
+house."
+
+And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
+discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
+furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me.
+Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like an
+oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking as if it
+were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than designed
+for present use and comfort.
+
+The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
+conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
+employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
+A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
+remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
+seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
+bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then, it
+was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
+awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
+thoughts and observations were free.
+
+To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
+that Père Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
+Béguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in dusk
+and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought also
+I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one lifted
+look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that too had
+its half mystic interest.
+
+Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
+sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich missal
+and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyes
+before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and let in
+phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna; revealed by
+clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a nun's dress. The
+face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with
+the dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful;
+it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability of
+a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked long
+at that picture, and could not choose but look.
+
+The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
+yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
+his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as I
+knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
+attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped, concerning
+it, these four observations:--
+
+"She was much beloved.
+
+"She gave herself to God.
+
+"She died young.
+
+"She is still remembered, still wept."
+
+"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I had
+discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that same
+aged lady's desperate ill-humour.
+
+The father shook his head with half a smile.
+
+"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
+children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it is
+only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have trebly
+denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as Justine
+Marie is still mourned."
+
+I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
+inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
+reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively, with
+the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say it
+might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been less
+French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and rather
+more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father was
+obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more persuaded
+of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of Rome; when he
+did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and
+sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear
+and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good old man.
+
+The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
+his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine Marie,
+the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly prospects
+were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand. The
+pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left behind
+him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to think of
+Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen, Madame
+Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper which
+deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither the
+treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her lover;
+she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second with a
+heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her noviciate.
+
+Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
+which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
+shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
+
+Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house too:
+her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a good
+deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial transactions
+which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of grief for the
+loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked mother and his
+bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died too of want; but
+their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-hearted suitor,
+hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with singular
+devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride the revenge
+of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending them, so as no
+son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently. The mother--on
+the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange, godless,
+loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely supported by
+this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of his life,
+blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic happiness,
+long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the respect a
+good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to this house,
+"and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes,
+"here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superannuated
+servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and to other
+charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income, keeping only
+the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most modest
+accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it impossible to
+himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and to his
+angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
+
+The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words,
+and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. I
+caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleam
+shot a meaning which struck me.
+
+These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
+know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
+China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
+to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
+impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
+that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and such
+circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
+apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. Madame
+Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy to
+the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the steps
+and crossing the square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonne
+who would have sent me away, his reappearance on the staircase, my
+introduction to this room, the portrait, the narrative so affably
+volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as they fell out, seemed
+each independent of its successor; a handful of loose beads: but
+threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a Jesuit-eye,
+they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on the
+prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp of
+this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find the
+spot, or detect the means of connection.
+
+Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
+somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
+inundated streets?"
+
+"More than half a league."
+
+"You live----?"
+
+"In the Rue Fossette."
+
+"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaître mon noble
+élève, mon Paul?"
+
+"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
+
+"He and none other."
+
+A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
+become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
+
+"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
+he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
+
+"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
+emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal, of
+that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
+
+"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I accentuated the
+question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quite
+prepared for the answer which actually came.
+
+"I, daughter, am Père Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
+once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the core
+of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, I
+coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I for
+a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rooted
+interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her high
+training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zeal
+she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, your
+practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
+
+This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
+that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
+inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
+deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
+
+"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
+which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
+
+"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
+his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
+mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
+and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
+splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
+a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
+her son the jeweller's wealth."
+
+"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
+seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
+great things!"
+
+I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
+act of confession, or the saint-worship.
+
+"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
+Marie.
+
+"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very
+young, for he is not much beyond forty."
+
+"Does he yet weep her?"
+
+"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature
+is--constancy."
+
+This was said with marked emphasis.
+
+And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
+there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out
+its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
+return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,
+was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made kindly
+welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I liked
+less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
+
+"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle that made me
+shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us
+know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened
+yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:
+there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy Church"
+which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering many
+things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this man,
+Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, influenced by
+priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, for
+sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome,
+by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them for
+their own sake and for God's, or put them out to usury and made booty
+of the interest.
+
+By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me a
+portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the little
+cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
+appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
+
+"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
+Walravens give you? Elle est drôle, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
+with which I had been charged.
+
+"Oh la singulière petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous qu'elle
+me déteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce
+petit dévot qui n'ose pas bouger, à moins que son confesseur ne lui
+donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to marry
+ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he has too
+large a family already on his hands: Mère Walravens, Père Silas, Dame
+Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never was a man
+like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can bear,
+voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours a
+romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--personnage assez
+niaise à ce que je pense" (such was Madame's irreverent remark), "who
+has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and to
+whom he means to go, free from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, à
+ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you but know half M. Emanuel's
+crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder you from taking refreshment,
+ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your supper, drink your wine,
+oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les Professeurs--et bon
+soir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+FRATERNITY.
+
+
+"Oubliez les Professeurs." So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise
+woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a
+mistake. That night she should have left me calm--not excited,
+indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
+others--not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I was
+to forget.
+
+Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him--the
+wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
+man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
+of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
+he could love at all or not?
+
+I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
+tendernesses, fitfulnesses--a softness which came like a warm air, and
+a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
+irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Père Silas and
+Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
+doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart--showed me one grand love, the
+child of this southern nature's youth, born so strong and perfect, that
+it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of matter,
+clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside
+a tomb twenty years.
+
+This had been done--not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
+sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
+energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless personal
+sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized--he had laid down
+vengeance, and taken up a cross.
+
+Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had seen
+her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in Madame
+Beck's school--phlegmatics--pale, slow, inert, but kind-natured,
+neutral of evil, undistinguished for good.
+
+If she wore angels' wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
+her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
+fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.
+
+Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
+pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
+which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to virginity?
+
+Madame Beck--Père Silas--you should not have suggested these questions.
+They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest obstruction, and
+the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of nights and days I
+fell asleep--I dreamt, and I woke upon these two questions. In the
+whole world there was no answer to them, except where one dark little
+man stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the head-piece of a bandit
+bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry paletôt, much be-inked,
+and no little adust.
+
+After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him again. I
+felt as if--knowing what I now knew--his countenance would offer a page
+more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing to trace in it
+the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of that
+half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest's narrative
+imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
+character I wanted to view him.
+
+Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
+test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my "Christian
+hero"--an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
+lively enough in its way.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first
+classe--safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of
+Madame Beck, who, _in propriâ personâ_ was giving one of her orderly
+and useful lessons--this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by
+the wild inburst of a paletôt.
+
+Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
+by Madame Beck's presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
+edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
+taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing--that is, copying an
+elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish of
+the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange to
+say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
+curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint
+plates--things about as valuable as so many achievements in
+worsted-work, but I thought pretty well of them in those days.
+
+What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy, gathered
+into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I myself
+appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary and
+withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited cook.
+That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletôt, one under each
+sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture; in two
+minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle--a vast
+adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
+singing-lessons--fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
+remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.
+
+Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
+presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say--one dark, the
+other light--one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
+braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
+careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
+full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
+stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
+strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "your business is to prove to these gentlemen
+that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
+questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
+shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
+unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
+sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You
+will disprove this charge."
+
+Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a
+thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering
+personages, were none other than dandy professors of the
+college--Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte--a pair of cold-blooded fops
+and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been
+rashly exhibiting something I had written--something, he had never once
+praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed
+forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only _seemed_
+remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign
+school-girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce
+noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to
+question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my
+testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their
+examination.
+
+A memorable scene ensued.
+
+They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French history.
+I hardly knew Mérovée from Pharamond. They tried me in various
+'ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an unchanging "Je
+n'en sais rien."
+
+After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general
+information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well,
+and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood
+looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he
+thought I should now show myself at least no fool.
+
+He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up fast,
+my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words. I
+either _could_ not, or _would_ not speak--I am not sure which: partly,
+I think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was crossed.
+
+I heard one of my examiners--he of the braided surtout--whisper to his
+co-professor, "Est-elle donc idiote?"
+
+"Yes," I thought, "an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as
+you."
+
+But I suffered--suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul's
+brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not
+believe in my total lack of popular cleverness; he thought I _could_ be
+prompt if I _would_.
+
+At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:
+
+"Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as
+you say, I am an idiot."
+
+I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense
+had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped,
+faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of
+triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I burst
+in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger than
+grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that pair
+on the spot--but it _was_ emotion, and I would rather have been
+scourged than betrayed it.
+
+The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice
+in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical.
+When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I heard
+it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no material
+for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously
+constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then
+clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim
+I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my
+facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor could I rest from
+research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the
+strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity
+sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was
+not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been sown in Spring,
+grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter;
+whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs
+my lapful, and shred them green into the pot. Messieurs Boissec and
+Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook my work for the work of
+a ripe scholar.
+
+They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them. As
+I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the white
+paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges began
+mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.
+
+"Nous agissons dans l'intérêt de la vérité. Nous ne voulons pas vous
+blesser," said he.
+
+Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,--
+
+"Dictate, Monsieur."
+
+Rochemorte named this theme: "Human Justice."
+
+Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction,
+unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel,
+sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.
+
+At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I
+would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction, that
+their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and that,
+notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M. Emanuel's
+honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced themselves
+the--champions: I _meant_ to utter all this, I say, when suddenly, a
+light darted on memory.
+
+Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and
+whisker--those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous
+visages--were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full
+gaslight from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me
+to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt
+morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless
+foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless
+over a whole quarter of the town.
+
+"Pious mentors!" thought I. "Pure guides for youth! If Human Justice'
+were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post,
+or enjoy your present credit."
+
+An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me
+in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in
+her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or
+help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and
+starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled
+round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy,
+cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had
+a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short
+black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she smoked
+and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a cry of the
+suffering souls about her pierced her ears too keenly--my jolly dame
+seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak,
+wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was strong,
+lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her
+deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.
+
+Such was the sketch of "Human Justice," scratched hurriedly on paper,
+and placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M. Emanuel
+read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to the trio,
+and withdrew.
+
+After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting
+did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that
+forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed
+dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et
+sans-coeur," and in Monsieur's temporary departure.
+
+Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that
+such a transport as he had that day given way to, could not be indulged
+with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon after,
+gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew near
+also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by Monsieur
+laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation, passed to
+other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.
+
+Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a
+charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted,
+too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some
+allowance ought to be made for him. "But," said he, "I can hardly
+expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my
+position, nor my history."
+
+His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.
+
+"No, Monsieur," I rejoined. "Of course, as you say, I know neither your
+history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your
+sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know
+nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger."
+
+"Hein?" he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.
+
+"You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe--stern, dogmatic, hasty,
+imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to
+originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man
+like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without dependants, no
+duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are machines, which you
+thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your
+recreations in public, by the light of the evening chandelier: this
+school and yonder college are your workshops, where you fabricate the
+ware called pupils. I don't so much as know where you live; it is
+natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and need none."
+
+"I am judged," said he. "Your opinion of me is just what I thought it
+was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of
+affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by
+principle or faith. It is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in
+this life."
+
+"You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher" (and I looked at
+his paletôt, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his
+hand), "despising the foibles of humanity--above its
+luxuries--independent of its comforts."
+
+"Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous êtes proprette et douillette, et
+affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marché."
+
+"But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you _must_ live somewhere?
+Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?"
+
+With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of
+scorn the most decided, he broke out--
+
+"Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss--a cavern, where you would
+not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole
+truth, I talked about my 'study' in that college: know now that this
+'study' is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As
+for my 'establishment of servants'" (mimicking my voice) "they number
+ten; les voilà."
+
+And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.
+
+"I black my boots," pursued he savagely. "I brush my paletôt."
+
+"No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that," was my parenthesis.
+
+"Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my
+supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless;
+nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and
+nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn
+like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in
+purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to
+whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom
+of heaven."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur; but I know!"
+
+"What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!"
+
+"I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of
+the Basse-Ville--why don't you go and live there?"
+
+"Hein?" muttered he again.
+
+"I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the
+grey flags in front, the nodding trees behind--real trees, not
+shrubs--trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the
+boudoir-oratoire--you should make that room your study; it is so quiet
+and solemn."
+
+He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. "Where did you pick
+up all that? Who told you?" he asked.
+
+"Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?"
+
+"Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman's waking thoughts,
+much less her sleeping fantasies?"
+
+"If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I
+saw a priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic--old, too, and
+picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce
+reach to my elbow--her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a
+gown bright as lapis-lazuli--a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was
+decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a
+beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in
+two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years
+of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and
+sorrow. She was become morose--almost malevolent; yet _somebody_, it
+appears, cared for her in her infirmities--somebody forgave her
+trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived
+together, these three people--the mistress, the chaplain, the
+servant--all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing."
+
+He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not
+conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.
+
+"I see you have entered into my secrets," said he, "but how was it
+done?"
+
+So I told him how--the commission on which I had been sent, the storm
+which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the
+priest.
+
+"As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Père Silas whiled away the
+time with a story," I said.
+
+"A story! What story? Père Silas is no romancist."
+
+"Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?"
+
+"Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy's
+French--her best or her worst--I don't much care which: let us have a
+good poignée of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent."
+
+"Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious
+proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the
+midst. But I will tell him the title--the 'Priest's Pupil.'"
+
+"Bah!" said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. "The
+good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak
+point. But what of the 'Priest's Pupil?'"
+
+"Oh! many things."
+
+"You may as well define _what_ things. I mean to know."
+
+"There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his
+ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil,
+Monsieur!--so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!
+
+"Et puis?" said he, taking a cigar.
+
+"Et puis," I pursued, "he underwent calamities which one did not
+pity--bore them in a spirit one did not admire--endured wrongs for
+which one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of
+heaping coals of fire on his adversary's head."
+
+"You have not told me all," said he.
+
+"Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Père Silas's
+chapters."
+
+"You have forgotten one--that which touched on the pupil's lack of
+affection--on his hard, cold, monkish heart."
+
+"True; I remember now. Père Silas _did_ say that his vocation was
+almost that of a priest--that his life was considered consecrated."
+
+"By what bonds or duties?"
+
+"By the ties of the past and the charities of the present."
+
+"You have, then, the whole situation?"
+
+"I have now told Monsieur all that was told me."
+
+Some meditative minutes passed.
+
+"Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I
+believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise your
+eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust me--I am
+a man to be trusted."
+
+I raised my eyes.
+
+"Knowing me thoroughly now--all my antecedents, all my
+responsibilities--having long known my faults, can you and I still be
+friends?"
+
+"If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in
+him."
+
+"But a close friend I mean--intimate and real--kindred in all but
+blood. Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered, burdened,
+encumbered man?"
+
+I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I _did_ answer him; he
+took my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his. _His_
+friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit--a cold, distant
+hope--a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a finger: I
+at once felt (or _thought_ I felt) its support like that of some rock.
+
+"When I talk of friendship, I mean _true_ friendship," he repeated
+emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so earnest had
+blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of that kind, anxious
+look he gave. If he _really_ wished for my confidence and regard, and
+_really_ would give me his--why, it seemed to me that life could offer
+nothing more or better. In that case, I was become strong and rich: in
+a moment I was made substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix
+and seal it, I asked--
+
+"Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can
+take an interest in me as a sister?"
+
+"Surely, surely," said he; "a lonely man like me, who has no sister,
+must be but too glad to find in some woman's heart a sister's pure
+affection."
+
+"And dare I rely on Monsieur's regard? Dare I speak to him when I am so
+inclined?"
+
+"My little sister must make her own experiments," said he; "I will give
+no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she has
+drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile
+material in some hands."
+
+While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now
+affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never
+felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her
+husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend. If
+he would but prove reliable, and he _looked_ reliable, what, beyond his
+friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a dream, as
+once before had happened--?
+
+"Qu'est-ce donc? What is it?" said he, as this thought threw its weight
+on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and after a
+moment's pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an equal
+fear--lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult and
+fitful--had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.
+
+On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of
+re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was
+courted. I grew quite happy--strangely happy--in making him secure,
+content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth
+held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing.
+Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close
+darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and
+grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.
+
+"Lucy," said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did you
+see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"
+
+"I did; a picture painted on a panel."
+
+"The portrait of a nun?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You heard her history?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"
+
+"I shall never forget it."
+
+"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"
+
+"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait," said I; which
+was true enough.
+
+"You did not, nor will you fancy," pursued he, "that a saint in heaven
+perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely
+superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset _you?_"
+
+"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly
+natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at."
+
+"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman--much less a pure,
+happy spirit--would trouble amity like ours n'est-il pas vrai?"
+
+Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out
+that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some
+English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were
+needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable:
+sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good
+sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid
+fancies," against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE APPLE OF DISCORD.
+
+
+Besides Fifine Beck's mother, another power had a word to say to M.
+Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We
+were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously
+her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to
+which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the
+confessional.
+
+"Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?" asks the reader.
+"Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof
+of a certain partiality in his feelings?"
+
+Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly--that he
+was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender
+deference--that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when
+taught how. He had called me "sister." It was well. Yes; he might call
+me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be
+his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that
+relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to
+celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.
+
+Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening's
+interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for
+the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and
+breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last
+which brought me the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more
+thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how
+much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to prove
+how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover whether I
+could summon a sister's courage, and he a brother's frankness.
+
+He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will
+not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His
+lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also
+more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly
+to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I got
+neither: to my portion fell one nod--hurried, shy.
+
+This distance, I argued, is accidental--it is involuntary; patience,
+and it will vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it
+increased. I suppressed my surprise, and swallowed whatever other
+feelings began to surge.
+
+Well might I ask when he offered fraternity--"Dare I rely on you?" Well
+might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True, he had
+bid me make my own experiments--tease and try him. Vain injunction!
+Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use it! Nothing in
+my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave band. Left alone, I
+was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my lips would not utter,
+nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had been an error
+somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to disclose it.
+
+But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One
+evening in seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to
+the examination of what had been done in various studies during the
+past week, and to the preparation of work for the week in prospect. On
+these occasions my schoolroom was anywhere, wherever the pupils and the
+other teachers happened to be, or in their close vicinage, very often
+in the large second division, where it was easy to choose a quiet nook
+when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the few boarders gathered
+in a knot about the surveillante's estrade.
+
+On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I
+collected my books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large
+division.
+
+In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but
+through the open double doors was seen the carré, filled with pupils
+and with light; over hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It
+blushed so ruddily and vividly, that the hues of the walls and the
+variegated tints of the dresses seemed all fused in one warm glow. The
+girls were seated, working or studying; in the midst of their circle
+stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. His dark
+paletôt, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of crimson; his
+Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the sun's
+animated kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk.
+
+The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom,
+basked also in the sun's laughing bounty; they had partaken it the
+whole day, and now asked water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening;
+he liked to tend and foster plants. I used to think that working
+amongst shrubs with a spade or a watering-pot soothed his nerves; it
+was a recreation to which he often had recourse; and now he looked to
+the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous cactuses, and revived
+them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His lips meantime
+sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and prime
+luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the
+flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor
+to the mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small
+spanieless (if one may coin a word), that nominally belonged to the
+house, but virtually owned him as master, being fonder of him than any
+inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and lovable little doggie she was,
+trotting at his side, looking with expressive, attached eyes into his
+face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his handkerchief,
+which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the air of
+a miniature lion guarding a kingdom's flag.
+
+There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the
+water from the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work
+spun on to some length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour
+struck. The carré and the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset.
+Day was drooping. My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very short;
+but the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Was
+it my turn?
+
+Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,--favourite
+rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and
+whine followed the receding paletôt down the alleys. I put up some of
+my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited,
+involuntarily deprecating the creeping invasion of twilight.
+
+Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the
+returning paletôt; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it
+had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in
+a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere
+long the prayer-bell must ring; but still we should meet; he would
+speak; a chance would be offered of reading in his eyes the riddle of
+his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly re-arranging his
+cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the opal sky,
+and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched the
+mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to
+break it. He looked down.
+
+"Petite exigeante," said he; "you must not be forgotten one moment, it
+seems."
+
+He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within
+a yard of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered
+lingeringly, fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender
+names in a tender voice. On the front-door steps he turned; once again
+he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires
+and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the
+sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he
+suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white
+façade of the classes, swept the long line of croisées. I think he
+bowed; if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he
+was gone; the moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the
+closed front door.
+
+Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I
+carried back the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The
+prayer-bell rang; I obeyed its summons.
+
+The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being
+devoted entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over
+the intermediate hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself for
+its heavy ennuis. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates, or
+to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter
+alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart
+or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the
+lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some
+book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black
+fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with
+a weary hand I turned up its contents.
+
+One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers,
+were taken out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could not
+comfort. Is this something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not seen
+it before, and I re-arranged my desk this very day--this very
+afternoon; the tract must have been introduced within the last hour,
+while we were at dinner.
+
+I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me?
+
+It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither
+sung, nor related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it
+preached and it persuaded.
+
+I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed
+its own spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism; it
+persuaded to conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a
+honeyed voice; its accents were all unction and balm. Here roared no
+utterance of Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her
+displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, not so much in fear of
+the heretic's hell, as on account of the comfort, the indulgence, the
+tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten or to
+coerce; her wish was to guide and win. _She_ persecute? Oh dear no! not
+on any account!
+
+This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was
+not even strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild
+effluence of a mother's love towards her tenderest and her youngest;
+intended wholly and solely for those whose head is to be reached
+through the heart. Its appeal was not to intellect; it sought to win
+the affectionate through their affections, the sympathizing through
+their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his orphans about him,
+never spoke more sweetly.
+
+I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact
+that the Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the
+unspeakable solace of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did not
+touch on the firmer peace of those whose belief dispenses with
+purgatory altogether: but I thought of this; and, on the whole,
+preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. The little book
+amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting,
+sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my
+gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked
+wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless
+lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I
+had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same
+seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no
+bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained cunning--the
+cloven hoof of his system--I should pause before accusing himself of
+insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props; it was
+rickety.
+
+I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the
+ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own
+disinclination, not to say disability, to meet these melting favours.
+Glancing at the title-page, I found the name of "Père Silas." A
+fly-leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known pencil characters:
+"From P. C. D. E. to L--y." And when I saw this I laughed: but not in
+my former spirit. I was revived.
+
+A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the
+solution of the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two
+names, Père Silas and Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent
+had been with his director; permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to
+keep no corner of his heart sacred to God and to himself; the whole
+narrative of our late interview had been drawn from him; he had avowed
+the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted sister. How could
+such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church? Fraternal
+communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Père Silas annulling the
+unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils; entreating, enjoining
+reserve, nay, by the authority of his office, and in the name, and by
+the memory of all M. Emanuel held most dear and sacred, commanding the
+enforcement of that new system whose frost had pierced to the marrow of
+my bones.
+
+These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were
+welcome. The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background,
+was as nothing, matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in
+M. Paul himself.
+
+At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above
+conjectures were self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their
+origin and confirmation to another quarter. Help was not wanting.
+
+This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud;
+no summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a
+clammy fog from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the
+watering-pot might rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had been
+drizzling all the afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly. This
+was no weather for rambling in the wet alleys, under the dripping
+trees; and I started to hear Sylvie's sudden bark in the garden--her
+bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied and yet this glad,
+quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one presence.
+
+Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep
+vista of the allée défendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through
+its gloom like a white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining,
+springing, harassing little birds amongst the bushes. I watched five
+minutes; no fulfilment followed the omen. I returned to my books;
+Sylvie's sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I looked up. She was
+standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery tail as
+fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of
+a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel,
+bent over the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden and
+streaming shrubs, working as hard as if his day's pittance were yet to
+earn by the literal sweat of his brow.
+
+In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow on
+the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion, whether
+of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He would dig
+by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his head, or
+open his lips.
+
+Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding
+here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last
+discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as if
+to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she had
+seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and I doubt
+not, considered it my duty to join him now, wet as it was.
+
+She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course
+perceived why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off; she
+only barked the louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the glass
+door opened. Tired, I suppose, with her importunity, he threw down his
+spade, approached, and pushed the door ajar. Sylvie burst in all
+impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her paws at my neck, and her
+little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy about my face,
+mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and scattered
+books and papers far and wide.
+
+M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the disarrangement.
+Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and stowed her away
+under his paletôt, where she nestled as quiet as a mouse, her head just
+peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the prettiest little innocent
+face, the silkiest long ears, the finest dark eyes in the world. I
+never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de Bassompierre: forgive the
+association, reader, it _would_ occur.
+
+M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not to
+be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her vivacious
+life.
+
+While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books
+just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he
+half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to
+address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more
+honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second
+effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It
+is not sufficiently inviting?"
+
+I replied that I had read it.
+
+He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked.
+Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any
+concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was
+the affair of the very docile pupil of Père Silas, not mine. His eye
+settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue
+ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings
+composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment
+probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I
+could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed
+confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my
+desk, and begin soberly to mend them.
+
+I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to see
+me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was
+unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own
+finger--half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state,
+to set him at his ease, to get him to chide.
+
+"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."
+
+He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
+depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
+point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.
+
+"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.
+
+Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.
+
+"Had it moved me?"
+
+"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."
+
+(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
+him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my faults
+at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilité et de
+sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so touching."
+
+"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
+all--not a whit."
+
+And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief, still
+clean and in its folds.
+
+Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant
+than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural
+silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just
+in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie
+with the contents of a bonbonnière, which M. Emanuel's gifts kept well
+supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see even a small
+matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me and the spaniel
+while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife. Touching my hand
+with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites donc, petite
+soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during the last two
+days?"
+
+But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made
+my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--over the
+desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he said: "I
+hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think
+of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you are to be
+feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper caution."
+
+"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."
+
+"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
+whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
+panoply. You are good--Père Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
+your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
+expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it gives you certain
+tones and certain gestures that make my flesh creep. You are not
+demonstrative, and yet, just now--when you handled that tract--my God!
+I thought Lucifer smiled."
+
+"Certainly I don't respect that tract--what then?"
+
+"Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love,
+charity! I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted
+that it could not fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must
+indeed be a sinner: Heaven will not hear the petitions that come
+warmest from my heart. You scorn my little offering. Oh, cela me fait
+mal!"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't scorn it--at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit
+down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not
+unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble
+your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I."
+
+"But _do_ you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation? What
+limits are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and sect.
+Père Silas dropped dark hints."
+
+By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they
+amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked
+seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. _I_ could not argue--a
+fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical opposition to
+effect all the director wished to be effected; but I could talk in my
+own way--the way M. Paul was used to--and of which he could follow the
+meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the strange stammerings,
+strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I could defend my creed and
+faith in my own fashion; in some degree I could lull his prejudices. He
+was not satisfied when he went away, hardly was he appeased; but he was
+made thoroughly to feel that Protestants were not necessarily the
+irreverent Pagans his director had insinuated; he was made to
+comprehend something of their mode of honouring the Light, the Life,
+the Word; he was enabled partly to perceive that, while their
+veneration for things venerable was not quite like that cultivated in
+his Church, it had its own, perhaps, deeper power--its own more solemn
+awe.
+
+I found that Père Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though
+the advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in
+general, and myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to
+us strange "isms;" Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank
+fashion, which knew not secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with a
+kind, earnest fear, almost trembling lest there should be truth in the
+charges. Père Silas, it seems, had closely watched me, had ascertained
+that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, to the three Protestant
+Chapels of Villette--the French, German, and English--_id est_, the
+Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such liberality argued in the
+father's eyes profound indifference--who tolerates all, he reasoned,
+can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had often secretly
+wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the differences
+between these three sects--at the unity and identity of their vital
+doctrines: I saw nothing to hinder them from being one day fused into
+one grand Holy Alliance, and I respected them all, though I thought
+that in each there were faults of form, incumbrances, and trivialities.
+Just what I thought, that did I tell M. Emanuel, and explained to him
+that my own last appeal, the guide to which I looked, and the teacher
+which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, rather than any sect,
+of whatever name or nation.
+
+He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as strong
+as a prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right. I heard,
+poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to "Marie, Reine
+du Ciel," some deep aspiration that _his_ hope might yet be _mine_.
+
+Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his
+fathers. I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and
+clay; but it seemed to me that _this_ Romanist held the purer elements
+of his creed with an innocency of heart which God must love.
+
+The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o'clock of the
+evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a
+sequestered garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour
+of the succeeding evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience,
+were breathed verbatim in an attent ear, at the panel of a
+confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It ensued that Père
+Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not what
+mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the
+Englishwoman's spiritual direction.
+
+Hereupon I was put through a course of reading--that is, I just glanced
+at the books lent me; they were too little in my way to be thoroughly
+read, marked, learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I had a book
+up-stairs, under my pillow, whereof certain chapters satisfied my needs
+in the article of spiritual lore, furnishing such precept and example
+as, to my heart's core, I was convinced could not be improved on.
+
+Then Père Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and
+bade me judge the tree by its fruits.
+
+In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were _not_ the fruits
+of Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair promise
+she showed the world, that bloom when set, savoured not of charity;
+the apple full formed was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry. Out of
+men's afflictions and affections were forged the rivets of their
+servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and sheltered, to bind it by
+obligation to "the Church;" orphanage was reared and educated that it
+might grow up in the fold of "the Church;" sickness was tended that it
+might die after the formula and in the ordinance of "the Church;" and
+men were overwrought, and women most murderously sacrificed, and all
+laid down a world God made pleasant for his creatures' good, and took
+up a cross, monstrous in its galling weight, that they might serve
+Rome, prove her sanctity, confirm her power, and spread the reign of
+her tyrant "Church."
+
+For man's good was little done; for God's glory, less. A thousand ways
+were opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life;
+mountains were cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to
+their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight on
+and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they might at
+last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch "Church."
+
+It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still for
+the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and ambitions, as
+once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed Jerusalem!
+
+Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world's kingdoms! an
+hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your
+hearts--pausing faint at each broken beat--that there is a Mercy beyond
+human compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even
+you must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
+even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds--nay, absolves Priests.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome--the glory of her
+kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions--days of fête
+and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at it.
+
+Many people--men and women--no doubt far my superiors in a thousand
+ways, have felt this display impressive, have declared that though
+their Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say
+the same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers,
+nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
+jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
+tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
+
+This I did not tell Père Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
+through every abortive experiment, under every repeated disappointment,
+he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender of hurting his
+feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when, from the balcony of
+a great house, I had been made to witness a huge mingled procession of
+the church and the army--priests with relics, and soldiers with
+weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited in cambric and lace,
+looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-paradise plumage, and a
+band of young girls fantastically robed and garlanded--_then_ I spoke
+my mind to M. Paul.
+
+"I did not like it," I told him; "I did not respect such ceremonies; I
+wished to see no more."
+
+And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to go
+on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show him
+that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
+Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were errors
+in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely pure was
+my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face had been
+unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer forms between
+us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of
+mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I
+could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-lights and embroidery, at
+such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting
+the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His
+being--Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly
+corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe--I could not care
+for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of
+existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me--when the
+mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in view--_then_,
+even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and
+dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry--"God
+be merciful to me, a sinner!"
+
+When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
+myself, from him I addressed--then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
+echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting spirits.
+
+"Whatever say priests or controversialists," murmured M. Emanuel, "God
+is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
+believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
+cry--'O Dieu, sois appaisé envers moi qui suis pécheur!'"
+
+He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:
+
+"How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
+nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
+yonder--how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God,
+nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in
+our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of
+one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He
+has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites
+about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that
+mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange
+mental effort only divined.
+
+"God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SUNSHINE.
+
+
+It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
+Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
+could not live within a league of the Hôtel Crécy, and not contrive to
+visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
+distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
+went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.
+
+All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
+awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
+Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
+intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
+all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
+gratification when it came.
+
+I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
+formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
+reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
+fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
+very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
+chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
+response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
+to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
+talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and answered
+with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a music waxing
+finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a suggestive,
+persuasive, magic accent that opened a scarce-known treasure-house
+within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind, and what was
+better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way in which the
+other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression pleased; each
+keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met each other's
+meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often matched like
+carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina
+possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--unstimulated, she
+inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she seemed merry as a
+lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad
+light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I can hardly express,
+but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice of hers--that reserve
+on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah! Graham would not long
+bear it; he brought with him a generous influence that soon thawed the
+timid, self-imposed restriction.
+
+Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
+with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
+growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
+than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
+collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
+reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his
+own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
+than if suggested by me.
+
+More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
+and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
+in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
+seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she had
+once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces, and
+cried out, "Graham, I _do_ like you!" He told her how she would set a
+footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At this day he
+said he could recall the sensation of her little hands smoothing his
+cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He remembered the touch
+of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly, half curiously, in
+the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with which she would name it
+"a pretty dimple," then seek his eyes and question why they pierced so,
+telling him he had a "nice, strange face; far nicer, far stranger, than
+either his mamma or Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Child as I was," remarked Paulina, "I wonder how I dared be so
+venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
+and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin,
+at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is
+not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful, but what is
+he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do _you_ admire him?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I do, Paulina," was once my answer to her many
+questions. "_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice about a
+year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he
+were to cross their balls twelve times between each day's sunset and
+sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what shape had gone
+by."
+
+"Lucy, what do you mean?" said she, under her breath.
+
+"I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind."
+
+It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the
+tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and
+sometimes dropped in my ear--molten lead. To me, she commented no more
+on her lover's beauty.
+
+Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
+sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite in
+itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
+gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled her
+native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy--fitful.
+
+"Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says
+you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
+you are excellent; we both think so."
+
+"You both think you know not what," said I. "Have the goodness to make
+me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
+I have my sort of life apart from yours."
+
+"But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
+share it."
+
+"I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you
+understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
+sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary."
+
+"But solitude is sadness."
+
+"Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
+melancholy, lies heart-break."
+
+"Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether."
+
+There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a
+witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had
+forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
+correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
+these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and of
+the heiress's imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I read
+Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride:
+they were fine letters--manly and fond--modest and gallant. Hers must
+have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to show her
+talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the contrary, it
+appeared that she had proposed to herself the task of hiding that
+feeling, and bridling her lover's ardour. But how could such letters
+serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her life; he drew her
+like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence unspeakable in all
+he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this unconfessed
+confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from greeting to adieu.
+
+"I wish papa knew; I _do_ wish papa knew!" began now to be her anxious
+murmur. "I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back from
+telling him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this affair
+settled--to speak out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I know, I
+am certain, papa will be angry at the first; I fear he will dislike me
+almost; it will seem to him an untoward business; it will be a
+surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its whole effect on him."
+
+The fact was--her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little
+stirred: long blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning to
+trespass on his eye.
+
+To _her_, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or perhaps
+thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her.
+
+One evening--Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to
+Graham; she had left me in the library, reading--M. de Bassompierre
+came in; he sat down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to
+remain--gently, yet in a manner which showed he wished compliance. He
+had taken his seat near the window, at a distance from me; he opened a
+desk; he took from it what looked like a memorandum-book; of this book
+he studied a certain entry for several minutes.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said he, laying it down, "do you know my little girl's
+age?"
+
+"About eighteen, is it not, sir?"
+
+"It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of
+May, in the year 18--, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost
+the just reckoning of her age. I thought of her as twelve--fourteen--an
+indefinite date; but she seemed a child."
+
+"She is about eighteen," I repeated. "She is grown up; she will be no
+taller."
+
+"My little jewel!" said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated
+like some of his daughter's accents.
+
+He sat very thoughtful.
+
+"Sir, don't grieve," I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken
+as they were.
+
+"She is the only pearl I have," he said; "and now others will find out
+that she is pure and of price: they will covet her."
+
+I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had
+shone both in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom
+embellished his aspect and mellowed his intercourse. Under the stimulus
+of a high hope, something had unfolded in his whole manner which
+compelled attention. I think he had purposed on that day to indicate
+the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his ambition. M. de
+Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the
+direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he
+was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided
+him through a long labyrinth.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked.
+
+"She is up-stairs."
+
+"What is she doing?"
+
+"She is writing."
+
+"She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?"
+
+"None but such as she can show me. And--sir--she--_they_ have long
+wanted to consult you."
+
+"Pshaw! They don't think of me--an old father! I am in the way."
+
+"Ah, M. de Bassompierre--not so--that can't be! But Paulina must speak
+for herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate."
+
+"It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems."
+
+"Sir, till you approve, nothing is done--only they love each other."
+
+"Only!" he echoed.
+
+Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was
+obliged to go on: "Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point
+of appealing to you, sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you
+mortally."
+
+"He may well--he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I
+have. Had he but let her alone, she would have remained a child for
+years yet. So. Are they engaged?"
+
+"They could not become engaged without your permission."
+
+"It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety
+which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my
+little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son; Bretton
+might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich and
+pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks, and
+conduct, and connection. Would nothing serve him but my Polly?"
+
+"If he had never seen your 'Polly,' others might and would have pleased
+him--your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance."
+
+"Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!--I
+can't let him have her. No--I can't. He is not her equal," he affirmed,
+rather gruffly. "In what particular is he her match? They talk of
+fortune! I am not an avaricious or interested man, but the world thinks
+of these things--and Polly will be rich."
+
+"Yes, that is known," said I: "all Villette knows her as an heiress."
+
+"Do they talk of my little girl in that light?"
+
+"They do, sir."
+
+He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, "Would you, sir, think
+any one Paulina's match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do
+you think higher rank or more wealth would make much difference in your
+feelings towards a future son-in-law?"
+
+"You touch me there," said he.
+
+"Look at the aristocracy of Villette--you would not like them, sir?"
+
+"I should not--never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot."
+
+"I am told many of these persons think about her, sir," I went on,
+gaining courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse.
+"Other suitors will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused.
+Wherever you go, I suppose, aspirants will not be wanting. Independent
+of heiress-ship, it appears to me that Paulina charms most of those who
+see her."
+
+"Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty."
+
+"Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful."
+
+"Nonsense!--begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too
+partial. I like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks--but then
+I am her father; and even I never thought about beauty. She is amusing,
+fairy-like, interesting to me;--you must be mistaken in supposing her
+handsome?"
+
+"She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your
+wealth and position."
+
+"My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought
+so----"
+
+"Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de
+Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would--as _you_ would
+yourself, under the same circumstances--but they are not his baits. He
+loves your daughter very much; he feels her finest qualities, and they
+influence him worthily."
+
+"What! has my little pet 'fine qualities?'"
+
+"Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of eminence
+and learning dined here?"
+
+"I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day;
+its womanliness made me smile."
+
+"And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation--as one might amuse
+one's self with a pretty infant."
+
+"Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French
+gentlemen say she was 'pétrie d'esprit et de graces.' Dr. Bretton
+thought the same."
+
+"She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I _do_ believe she has
+some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly nursed me;
+they thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once stronger and
+tenderer as I grew worse in health. And as I recovered, what a sunbeam
+she was in my sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair as noiselessly
+and as cheerful as light. And now she is sought in marriage! I don't
+want to part with her," said he, and he groaned.
+
+"You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long," I suggested, "it would
+be less like separation to give her to him than to another."
+
+He reflected rather gloomily.
+
+"True. I have long known Louisa Bretton," he murmured. "She and I are
+indeed old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was young.
+You talk of beauty, Miss Snowe! _she_ was handsome, if you will--tall,
+straight, and blooming--not the mere child or elf my Polly seems to me:
+at eighteen, Louisa had a carriage and stature fit for a princess. She
+is a comely and a good woman now. The lad is like her; I have always
+thought so, and favoured and wished him well. Now he repays me by this
+robbery! My little treasure used to love her old father dearly and
+truly. It is all over now, doubtless--I am an incumbrance."
+
+The door opened--his "little treasure" came in. She was dressed, so to
+speak, in evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with the
+close of day, warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson
+heightened her complexion; her curls fell full and long on her lily
+neck; her white dress suited the heat of June. Thinking me alone, she
+had brought in her hand the letter just written--brought it folded but
+unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her father, her tripping step
+faltered a little, paused a moment--the colour in her cheek flowed rosy
+over her whole face.
+
+"Polly," said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile,
+"do you blush at seeing papa? That is something new."
+
+"I don't blush--I never _do_ blush," affirmed she, while another eddy
+from the heart sent up its scarlet. "But I thought you were in the
+dining-room, and I wanted Lucy."
+
+"You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has just
+been called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your letter
+for you; it will save Matthieu a 'course,' as he calls it."
+
+"I don't post letters," said she, rather pettishly.
+
+"What do you do with them, then?--come here and tell me."
+
+Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second--to say "Shall I
+come?"--but she approached.
+
+"How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems
+yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely
+with both hands at the pen."
+
+"Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag;
+they are only notes, which I give now and then into the person's hands,
+just to satisfy."
+
+"The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?"
+
+"No, papa--not Lucy."
+
+"Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"No, papa--not Mrs. Bretton."
+
+"Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth."
+
+"Oh, papa!" she cried with earnestness, "I will--I _will_ tell you the
+truth--all the truth; I am glad to tell you--glad, though I tremble."
+
+She _did_ tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also
+gathering courage, shook her.
+
+"I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you
+above everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address."
+
+She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand
+shaking, his eyes glistening meantime.
+
+He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender, mournful
+amaze.
+
+"Can _she_ write so--the little thing that stood at my knee but
+yesterday? Can she feel so?"
+
+"Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?"
+
+"There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains
+me."
+
+"But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up
+everything--almost" (correcting herself); "I would die rather than make
+you unhappy; that would be too wicked!"
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It
+shall, for your sake, if you order it."
+
+"I order nothing."
+
+"Order something, papa; express your wish; only don't hurt, don't
+grieve Graham. I cannot, _cannot_ bear that. I love you, papa; but I
+love Graham too--because--because--it is impossible to help it."
+
+"This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly--that is my present
+notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not
+love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye I
+never quite fathomed--something his mother has not--a depth which
+warned a man not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I
+find myself taken over the crown of the head."
+
+"Papa, you don't--you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank; you
+can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up in a
+convent, and break Graham's heart to-morrow, if you choose to be so
+cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?"
+
+"Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don't like
+him, Polly, and I wonder that you should."
+
+"Papa," said she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
+look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
+an expression in your face which does not belong to you."
+
+"Off with him!" pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely crossed
+and annoyed--even a little bitter; "but, I suppose, if he went, Polly
+would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly won--won,
+and weaned from her old father."
+
+"Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way.
+I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence
+_can_ wean me."
+
+"Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
+go and be a wife!"
+
+"Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
+prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
+countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
+when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."
+
+"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."
+
+She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
+superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his few
+foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring;
+it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let it pass with
+dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in no stead.
+Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:--"I won't
+leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you! I'll never
+pain you!" was her cry.
+
+"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said
+no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
+
+The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
+Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to
+prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman
+was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
+slowly--lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
+sign nor word; yet his eye said:--"Lucy, come here." And I went.
+
+Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
+save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
+which now fevered him.
+
+"M. de Bassompierre is there--is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the
+library.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?"
+
+"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
+"is talking to his daughter."
+
+"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
+
+He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
+to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living like
+him)--a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this
+trouble his smile never faded.
+
+"Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?"
+
+"_She_ is very faithful, Graham."
+
+"What will be done unto me?"
+
+"Graham, your star must be fortunate."
+
+"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to
+quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them,
+and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_ are true as
+steel. Are you not?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
+hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
+with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"
+
+He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"--which I did to please him:
+the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
+and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born
+vanquished.
+
+"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home's presence.
+
+"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"
+
+The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
+
+"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of
+hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
+glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You
+spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me, but I am
+bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have won."
+
+"Sir, I cannot repent."
+
+"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
+partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
+in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
+The red--(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of guile, and
+brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."
+
+"Sir, I _feel_ honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English blush
+covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet," he
+added, "I won't deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
+your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I
+did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
+world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
+now."
+
+"John, you ask much."
+
+"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
+your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."
+
+"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
+Answer this 'braw wooer;' send him away!"
+
+She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
+gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
+
+"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I need
+not send Graham away--he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,"
+she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont
+to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.
+
+"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr.
+Home. "I don't want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
+him to march."
+
+"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
+first--like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would
+rather not have him otherwise."
+
+"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
+should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
+that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."
+
+"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."
+
+"Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and
+tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly,
+you and I will bid him good-by."
+
+"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."
+
+"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don't think to coax me
+between you."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your right
+hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don't be stiff;
+close your fingers; be pliant--there! But that is not a clasp--it is a
+grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham's hand to the
+bone; you hurt him!"
+
+He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
+brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham's flesh and drew
+blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him smile.
+
+"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They
+went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive.
+The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many
+things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and language
+or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I understood
+afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had managed his
+affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his fortunes were
+in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to marry.
+
+Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
+Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
+
+"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with you
+as you deal with her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
+seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
+palace at Bois l'Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
+evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
+them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
+the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
+evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
+climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
+this group, was solitary.
+
+Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little
+hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a
+nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she
+had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and was now
+occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden wave. The
+plait woven--no silk-thread being at hand to bind it--a tress of her
+own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a knot,
+prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
+
+"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you
+two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."
+
+An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
+impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
+mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
+borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
+
+"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the
+father, the daughter, the future husband, now united--all blessed and
+blessing.
+
+Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of
+fancy, it is so. Some real lives do--for some certain days or
+years--actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
+such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
+never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
+follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
+precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
+the deep cloud.
+
+I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so born,
+so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that
+no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous
+blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered,
+selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and benign; men and
+women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind attributes.
+
+Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
+Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
+did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
+he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
+filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too,
+was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband's love, she
+aided in his progress--of his happiness she was the corner stone.
+
+This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
+prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
+Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these
+were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose
+face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to
+the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Bassompierre was
+taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a
+cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others
+sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw
+himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his
+disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these
+children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up
+according to inheritance and nurture.
+
+In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of
+Graham and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob's favoured son,
+with "blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies
+under." It was so, for God saw that it was good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CLOUD.
+
+
+But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it
+surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The
+impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and
+unseen, has its fulfilment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be
+given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that proof be written. In
+fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire and
+in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not through
+terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins;
+look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join in
+friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches
+the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross our
+banner. For staff we have His promise, whose "word is tried, whose way
+perfect:" for present hope His providence, "who gives the shield of
+salvation, whose gentleness makes great;" for final home His bosom, who
+"dwells in the height of Heaven;" for crowning prize a glory, exceeding
+and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain: let us endure hardness
+as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep the faith, reliant
+in the issue to come off more than conquerors: "Art thou not from
+everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE!"
+
+On a Thursday morning we were all assembled in classe, waiting for the
+lesson of literature. The hour was come; we expected the master.
+
+The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written
+compositions prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them,
+neatly tied with ribbon, waiting to be gathered by the hand of the
+Professor as he made his rapid round of the desks. The month was July,
+the morning fine, the glass-door stood ajar, through it played a fresh
+breeze, and plants, growing at the lintel, waved, bent, looked in,
+seeming to whisper tidings.
+
+M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his
+being a little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and,
+instead of him with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly upon
+us the cautious Madame Beck.
+
+She approached M. Paul's desk; she stood before it; she drew round her
+the light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet
+firm tones, and with a fixed gaze, she said, "This morning there will
+be no lesson of literature."
+
+The second paragraph of her address followed, after about two minutes'
+pause.
+
+"It is probable the lessons will be suspended for a week. I shall
+require at least that space of time to find an efficient substitute for
+M. Emanuel. Meanwhile, it shall be our study to fill the blanks
+usefully.
+
+"Your Professor, ladies," she went on, "intends, if possible, duly to
+take leave of you. At the present moment he has not leisure for that
+ceremony. He is preparing for a long voyage. A very sudden and urgent
+summons of duty calls him to a great distance. He has decided to leave
+Europe for an indefinite time. Perhaps he may tell you more himself.
+Ladies, instead of the usual lesson with M. Emanuel, you will, this
+morning, read English with Mademoiselle Lucy."
+
+She bent her head courteously, drew closer the folds of her shawl, and
+passed from the classe.
+
+A great silence fell: then a murmur went round the room: I believe some
+pupils wept.
+
+Some time elapsed. The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing
+increased. I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of
+growing disorder, as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn, and
+that surveillance had virtually left the classe. Habit and the sense of
+duty enabled me to rally quickly, to rise in my usual way, to speak in
+my usual tone, to enjoin, and finally to establish quiet. I made the
+English reading long and close. I kept them at it the whole morning. I
+remember feeling a sentiment of impatience towards the pupils who
+sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value: it was only an
+hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half ridiculed them.
+I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their tears, or that
+gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-minded, low-spirited
+pupil kept it up when the others had done; relentless necessity obliged
+and assisted me so to accost her, that she dared not carry on the
+demonstration, that she was forced to conquer the convulsion.
+
+That girl would have had a right to hate me, except that, when school
+was over and her companions departing, I ordered her to stay, and when
+they were gone, I did what I had never done to one among them
+before--pressed her to my heart and kissed her cheek. But, this impulse
+yielded to, I speedily put her out of the classe, for, upon that
+poignant strain, she wept more bitterly than ever.
+
+I filled with occupation every minute of that day, and should have
+liked to sit up all night if I might have kept a candle burning; the
+night, however, proved a bad time, and left bad effects, preparing me
+ill for the next day's ordeal of insufferable gossip. Of course this
+news fell under general discussion. Some little reserve had accompanied
+the first surprise: that soon wore off; every mouth opened; every
+tongue wagged; teachers, pupils, the very servants, mouthed the name of
+"Emanuel." He, whose connection with the school was contemporary with
+its commencement, thus suddenly to withdraw! All felt it strange.
+
+They talked so much, so long, so often, that, out of the very multitude
+of their words and rumours, grew at last some intelligence. About the
+third day I heard it said that he was to sail in a week; then--that he
+was bound for the West Indies. I looked at Madame Beck's face, and into
+her eyes, for disproof or confirmation of this report; I perused her
+all over for information, but no part of her disclosed more than what
+was unperturbed and commonplace.
+
+"This secession was an immense loss to her," she alleged. "She did not
+know how she should fill up the vacancy. She was so used to her
+kinsman, he had become her right hand; what should she do without him?
+She had opposed the step, but M. Paul had convinced her it was his
+duty."
+
+She said all this in public, in classe, at the dinner-table, speaking
+audibly to Zélie St. Pierre.
+
+"Why was it his duty?" I could have asked her that. I had impulses to
+take hold of her suddenly, as she calmly passed me in classe, to
+stretch out my hand and grasp her fast, and say, "Stop. Let us hear the
+conclusion of the whole matter. _Why_ is it his duty to go into
+banishment?" But Madame always addressed some other teacher, and never
+looked at me, never seemed conscious I could have a care in the
+question.
+
+The week wore on. Nothing more was said about M. Emanuel coming to bid
+us good-by; and none seemed anxious for his coming; none questioned
+whether or not he would come; none betrayed torment lest he should
+depart silent and unseen; incessantly did they talk, and never, in all
+their talk, touched on this vital point. As to Madame, she of course
+could see him, and say to him as much as she pleased. What should _she_
+care whether or not he appeared in the schoolroom?
+
+The week consumed. We were told that he was going on such a day, that
+his destination was "Basseterre in Guadaloupe:" the business which
+called him abroad related to a friend's interests, not his own: I
+thought as much.
+
+"Basseterre in Guadaloupe." I had little sleep about this time, but
+whenever I _did_ slumber, it followed infallibly that I was quickly
+roused with a start, while the words "Basseterre," "Guadaloupe," seemed
+pronounced over my pillow, or ran athwart the darkness round and before
+me, in zigzag characters of red or violet light.
+
+For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling? M.
+Emanuel had been very kind to me of late days; he had been growing
+hourly better and kinder. It was now a month since we had settled the
+theological difference, and in all that time there had been no quarrel.
+Nor had our peace been the cold daughter of divorce; we had not lived
+aloof; he had come oftener, he had talked with me more than before; he
+had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with eye content, with
+manner home-like and mild. Kind subjects of conversation had grown
+between us; he had inquired into my plans of life, and I had
+communicated them; the school project pleased him; he made me repeat it
+more than once, though he called it an Alnaschar dream. The jar was
+over; the mutual understanding was settling and fixing; feelings of
+union and hope made themselves profoundly felt in the heart; affection
+and deep esteem and dawning trust had each fastened its bond.
+
+What quiet lessons I had about this time! No more taunts on my
+"intellect," no more menaces of grating public shows! How sweetly, for
+the jealous gibe, and the more jealous, half-passionate eulogy, were
+substituted a mute, indulgent help, a fond guidance, and a tender
+forbearance which forgave but never praised. There were times when he
+would sit for many minutes and not speak at all; and when dusk or duty
+brought separation, he would leave with words like these, "Il est doux,
+le repos! Il est précieux le calme bonheur!"
+
+One evening, not ten short days since, he joined me whilst walking in
+my alley. He took my hand. I looked up in his face. I thought he meant
+to arrest my attention.
+
+"Bonne petite amie!" said he, softly; "douce consolatrice!" But through
+his touch, and with his words, a new feeling and a strange thought
+found a course. Could it be that he was becoming more than friend or
+brother? Did his look speak a kindness beyond fraternity or amity?
+
+His eloquent look had more to say, his hand drew me forward, his
+interpreting lips stirred. No. Not now. Here into the twilight alley
+broke an interruption: it came dual and ominous: we faced two bodeful
+forms--a woman's and a priest's--Madame Beck and Père Silas.
+
+The aspect of the latter I shall never forget. On the first impulse it
+expressed a Jean-Jacques sensibility, stirred by the signs of affection
+just surprised; then, immediately, darkened over it the jaundice of
+ecclesiastical jealousy. He spoke to _me_ with unction. He looked on
+his pupil with sternness. As to Madame Beck, she, of course, saw
+nothing--nothing; though her kinsman retained in her presence the hand
+of the heretic foreigner, not suffering withdrawal, but clasping it
+close and fast.
+
+Following these incidents, that sudden announcement of departure had
+struck me at first as incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent
+repetition, and the credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me,
+which forced on me its full acceptance. As to that week of suspense,
+with its blank, yet burning days, which brought from him no word of
+explanation--I remember, but I cannot describe its passage.
+
+The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now he would come and speak
+his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore.
+
+This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living
+creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted as
+usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of their late
+Professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary
+duties.
+
+So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so
+inexpectant its aspect--I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere
+thus stagnant, thus smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no
+one a wish, no one a word, no one a prayer to which I could say--Amen?
+
+I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a treat, a
+holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they _would_ not now
+band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a
+Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some--loved as _they_
+could love--but, oh! what _is_ the love of the multitude?
+
+I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
+communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone's-throw: had it been
+in the next room--unsummoned, I could make no use of my knowledge. To
+follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall--for these things I had no
+faculty.
+
+M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
+silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
+to go by.
+
+Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart
+trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was
+quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post--or do my work. Yet
+the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund,
+free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days
+since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared
+quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
+
+A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent
+for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter
+she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to
+this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her
+chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot
+day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
+indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce
+distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? what
+sound?
+
+I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening
+and winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off
+the traveller's tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the
+middle of the letter I heard--what checked my pen--a tread in the
+vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by
+orders--had anticipated such réveillée. Madame saw me halt. She
+coughed, made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the
+classes.
+
+"Proceed," said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my
+thoughts were carried off captive.
+
+The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the
+dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden stir
+of numbers, a whole division rising at once.
+
+"They are putting away work," said Madame.
+
+It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush--that
+instant quell of the tumult?
+
+"Wait, Madame--I will see what it is."
+
+And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be
+left: powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my
+shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
+
+"Are you coming, too?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a look,
+clouded, yet resolute.
+
+We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.
+
+He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more
+appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep him
+away, but he was come.
+
+The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his
+farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This
+last ceremony, foreign custom permitted at such a parting--so solemn,
+to last so long.
+
+I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and
+watching me close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her
+breath; I became terribly goaded.
+
+He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came
+to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had stepped
+out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her
+drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and
+deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis--the
+total default of self-assertion--with which, in a crisis, I could be
+struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she
+mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door--the glass-door
+opening on the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have caught
+his eye, courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and
+there would have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the
+room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups, my figure
+was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had her will; yes, she
+got him away, and he had not seen me; he thought me absent. Five
+o'clock struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, the school separated, the
+room emptied.
+
+There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in some
+certain minutes I then passed alone--a grief inexpressible over a loss
+unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do; when all my
+life's hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?
+
+What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child--the least
+child in the school--broke with its simplicity and its unconsciousness
+into the raging yet silent centre of that inward conflict.
+
+"Mademoiselle," lisped the treble voice, "I am to give you that. M.
+Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to the
+cellar, and when I found you, to give you that."
+
+And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee, its
+olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only these
+words:--
+
+"It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
+the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
+interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
+leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
+numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
+business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate--even
+to you.--PAUL."
+
+"Be ready?" Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
+morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
+vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could that
+longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
+schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
+appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm--Apollyon straddled across
+it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
+reach me?
+
+Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
+seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
+whole throb of mine.
+
+I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
+think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
+its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
+which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades--stood,
+shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
+doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked
+for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of
+his promise: spoke thus--then towering, became a star, and vanished
+into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense--a worse boon than despair.
+
+All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet in
+the midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy. Cold
+and peculiar, I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied
+presentiment. The first hours seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung
+to the flying skirts of the last. They passed like drift cloud--like
+the wrack scudding before a storm.
+
+They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log;
+the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue
+shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
+
+Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I
+still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least
+disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
+
+How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot many
+hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had made
+for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there, when
+certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of
+hearing--there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in
+Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they
+heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could
+be sacred?
+
+Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue Fossette--the
+door unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp's flame invaded the
+moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if
+coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at
+once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to
+seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long.
+She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven
+beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted
+respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual
+circumstances, no yoke could now be borne--no curb obeyed.
+
+"It is more than time for retirement," said Madame; "the rule of the
+house has already been transgressed too long."
+
+Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my way,
+I put her out of it.
+
+"Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,"
+said she, trying to speak softly.
+
+"No!" I said; "neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me."
+
+"Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make
+you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative."
+
+"Madame," I broke out, "you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
+your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your
+own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and
+sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
+disappointment--and, perhaps, you have--nay, I _know_ you have--seek
+your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me, however.
+_Leave me_, I say!"
+
+"I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton."
+
+"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
+troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and poison.
+You envenom and you paralyze."
+
+"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."
+
+"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
+had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at
+him for a "dévot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
+might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I
+had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
+came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
+had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
+rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the
+smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
+
+Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my
+power, because in some moods, such as the present--in some stimulated
+states of perception, like that of this instant--her habitual disguise,
+her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with
+holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and
+ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: meek and self-possessed, though
+very uneasy, she said, "If I would not be persuaded to take rest, she
+must reluctantly leave me." Which she did incontinent, perhaps even
+more glad to get away, than I was to see her vanish.
+
+This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which
+ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was
+never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not
+know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse
+for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret
+philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her
+to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there occurred
+no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.
+
+That night passed: all nights--even the starless night before
+dissolution--must wear away. About six o'clock, the hour which called
+up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its
+cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror-glass,
+set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my
+cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids
+swollen and purple.
+
+On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me--my heart
+seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously
+certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why
+and for whom I despaired.
+
+"Isabelle," the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached
+me. Would she, too, mock me!
+
+"Que vous êtes pâle! Vous êtes donc bien malade, Mademoiselle!" said
+she, putting her finger in her mouth, and staring with a wistful
+stupidity which at the moment seemed to me more beautiful than the
+keenest intelligence.
+
+Isabelle did not long stand alone in the recommendation of ignorance:
+before the day was over, I gathered cause of gratitude towards the
+whole blind household. The multitude have something else to do than to
+read hearts and interpret dark sayings. Who wills, may keep his own
+counsel--be his own secret's sovereign. In the course of that day,
+proof met me on proof, not only that the cause of my present sorrow was
+unguessed, but that my whole inner life for the last six months, was
+still mine only. It was not known--it had not been noted--that I held
+in peculiar value one life among all lives. Gossip had passed me by;
+curiosity had looked me over; both subtle influences, hovering always
+round, had never become centred upon me. A given organization may live
+in a full fever-hospital, and escape typhus. M. Emanuel had come and
+gone: I had been taught and sought; in season and out of season he had
+called me, and I had obeyed him: "M. Paul wants Miss Lucy"--"Miss Lucy
+is with M. Paul"--such had been the perpetual bulletin; and nobody
+commented, far less condemned. Nobody hinted, nobody jested. Madame
+Beck read the riddle: none else resolved it. What I now suffered was
+called illness--a headache: I accepted the baptism.
+
+But what bodily illness was ever like this pain? This certainty that he
+was gone without a farewell--this cruel conviction that fate and
+pursuing furies--a woman's envy and a priest's bigotry--would suffer me
+to see him no more? What wonder that the second evening found me like
+the first--untamed, tortured, again pacing a solitary room in an
+unalterable passion of silent desolation?
+
+Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night--she did not
+come near me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe--a more efficient agent for the
+purpose she could not have employed. Ginevra's first words--"Is your
+headache very bad to-night?" (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought I had
+a headache--an intolerable headache which made me frightfully white in
+the face, and insanely restless in the foot)--her first words, I say,
+inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were only out of
+reach. And soon, what followed--plaints about her own
+headaches--completed the business.
+
+I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed--my miserable bed--haunted
+with quick scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when
+another emissary arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink. I
+was consumed with thirst--I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet, but
+I tasted a drug.
+
+"Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou," said Goton, as she
+received back the emptied cup.
+
+Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a
+strong opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night.
+
+The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory
+hushed. Sleep soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy
+supremacy: contented sovereign over heads and hearts which did not
+ache--he passed by the unquiet.
+
+The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or
+under-charged the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead
+of stupor, came excitement. I became alive to new thought--to reverie
+peculiar in colouring. A gathering call ran among the faculties, their
+bugles sang, their trumpets rang an untimely summons. Imagination was
+roused from her rest, and she came forth impetuous and venturous. With
+scorn she looked on Matter, her mate--"Rise!" she said. "Sluggard! this
+night I will have _my_ will; nor shalt thou prevail."
+
+"Look forth and view the night!" was her cry; and when I lifted the
+heavy blind from the casement close at hand--with her own royal
+gesture, she showed me a moon supreme, in an element deep and splendid.
+
+To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits,
+the oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to
+leave this den and follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory.
+
+She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight.
+Especially she showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys
+all silent, lone and safe; among these lay a huge stone basin--that
+basin I knew, and beside which I had often stood--deep-set in the
+tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, with a green, leafy,
+rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, locked,
+sentinelled: the place could not be entered.
+
+Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I
+mechanically dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying
+still--excited from head to foot--what could I do better than dress?
+
+The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no
+admission to the park?
+
+The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to
+the circumstance, a gap in the paling--one stake broken down: I now saw
+this gap again in recollection--saw it very plainly--the narrow,
+irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens, planted
+orderly as a colonnade. A man could not have made his way through that
+aperture, nor could a stout woman, perhaps not Madame Beck; but I
+thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, and once within, at
+this hour the whole park would be mine--the moonlight, midnight park!
+
+How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet
+breathing! How very still the whole large house! What was the time? I
+felt restless to know. There stood a clock in the classe below: what
+hindered me from venturing down to consult it? By such a moon, its
+large white face and jet black figures must be vividly distinct.
+
+As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking
+hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could
+not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the
+dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a
+board is loose, and will avoid it. The oak staircase creaks somewhat as
+I descend, but not much:--I am in the carré.
+
+The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other
+hand, the entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my
+thought, great dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and
+for me, filled with spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable
+amongst their straw and their manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful
+vista, leading to the high vestibule which opens direct upon the street.
+
+Hush!--the clock strikes. Ghostly deep as is the stillness of this
+convent, it is only eleven. While my ear follows to silence the hum of
+the last stroke, I catch faintly from the built-out capital, a sound
+like bells or like a band--a sound where sweetness, where victory,
+where mourning blend. Oh, to approach this music nearer, to listen to
+it alone by the rushy basin! Let me go--oh, let me go! What hinders,
+what does not aid freedom?
+
+There, in the corridor, hangs my garden-costume, my large hat, my
+shawl. There is no lock on the huge, heavy, porte-cochère; there is no
+key to seek: it fastens with a sort of spring-bolt, not to be opened
+from the outside, but which, from within, may be noiselessly withdrawn.
+Can I manage it? It yields to my hand, yields with propitious facility.
+I wonder as that portal seems almost spontaneously to unclose--I wonder
+as I cross the threshold and step on the paved street, wonder at the
+strange ease with which this prison has been forced. It seems as if I
+had been pioneered invisibly, as if some dissolving force had gone
+before me: for myself, I have scarce made an effort.
+
+Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing summer
+night of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew in the
+air. But here I cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so close
+under the dungeon, I can hear the prisoners moan. This solemn peace is
+not what I seek, it is not what I can bear: to me the face of that sky
+bears the aspect of a world's death. The park also will be calm--I
+know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere--yet let me seek the park.
+
+I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal
+Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was
+hushed now, but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell
+music came to meet me; another sound replaced it, a sound like a strong
+tide, a great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke, movement
+gathered, chimes pealed--to what was I coming? Entering on the level of
+a Grande Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of magic, plunged
+amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd.
+
+Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems
+abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own
+flambeaux, beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipages,
+fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even
+scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams. But where
+is the park?--I ought to be near it. In the midst of this glare the
+park must be shadowy and calm--_there_, at least, are neither torches,
+lamps, nor crowd?
+
+I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with
+known faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the
+spirited horses fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of
+that carriage well: me they could not see, or, at least, not know,
+folded close in my large shawl, screened with my straw hat (in that
+motley crowd no dress was noticeably strange). I saw the Count de
+Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely apparelled, comely and
+cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the triple halo of
+her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her countenance
+of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to note the
+gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery floating
+about her was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite to her I
+saw Graham Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect had caught
+its lustre--the light repeated in _her_ eyes beamed first out of his.
+
+It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I
+_did_ follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them alight
+(carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated splendours.
+Lo! the iron gateway, between the stone columns, was spanned by a
+flaming arch built of massed stars; and, following them cautiously
+beneath that arch, where were they, and where was I?
+
+In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled
+with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and
+golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow, but
+of strangest architectural wealth--of altar and of temple, of pyramid,
+obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the symbols of
+Egypt teemed throughout the park of Villette.
+
+No matter that in five minutes the secret was mine--the key of the
+mystery picked up, and its illusion unveiled--no matter that I quickly
+recognised the material of these solemn fragments--the timber, the
+paint, and the pasteboard--these inevitable discoveries failed to quite
+destroy the charm, or undermine the marvel of that night. No matter
+that I now seized the explanation of the whole great fête--a fête of
+which the conventual Rue Fossette had not tasted, though it had opened
+at dawn that morning, and was still in full vigour near midnight.
+
+In past days there had been, said history, an awful crisis in the fate
+of Labassecour, involving I know not what peril to the rights and
+liberties of her gallant citizens. Rumours of wars there had been, if
+not wars themselves; a kind of struggling in the streets--a bustle--a
+running to and fro, some rearing of barricades, some burgher-rioting,
+some calling out of troops, much interchange of brickbats, and even a
+little of shot. Tradition held that patriots had fallen: in the old
+Basse-Ville was shown an enclosure, solemnly built in and set apart,
+holding, it was said, the sacred bones of martyrs. Be this as it may, a
+certain day in the year was still kept as a festival in honour of the
+said patriots and martyrs of somewhat apocryphal memory--the morning
+being given to a solemn Te Deum in St. Jean Baptiste, the evening
+devoted to spectacles, decorations, and illuminations, such as these I
+now saw.
+
+While looking up at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column--while
+fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the close of
+which was couched a sphinx--I lost sight of the party which, from the
+middle of the great square, I had followed--or, rather, they vanished
+like a group of apparitions. On this whole scene was impressed a
+dream-like character: every shape was wavering, every movement
+floating, every voice echo-like--half-mocking, half-uncertain. Paulina
+and her friends being gone, I scarce could avouch that I had really
+seen them; nor did I miss them as guides through the chaos, far less
+regret them as protectors amidst the night.
+
+That festal night would have been safe for a very child. Half the
+peasantry had come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the
+decent burghers were all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My
+straw-hat passed amidst cap and jacket, short petticoat, and long
+calico mantle, without, perhaps, attracting a glance; I only took the
+precaution to bind down the broad leaf gipsy-wise, with a supplementary
+ribbon--and then I felt safe as if masked.
+
+Safe I passed down the avenues--safe I mixed with the crowd where it
+was deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe. I
+took a revel of the scene; I drank the elastic night-air--the swell of
+sound, the dubious light, now flashing, now fading. As to Happiness or
+Hope, they and I had shaken hands, but just now--I scorned Despair.
+
+My vague aim, as I went, was to find the stone-basin, with its clear
+depth and green lining: of that coolness and verdure I thought, with
+the passionate thirst of unconscious fever. Amidst the glare, and
+hurry, and throng, and noise, I still secretly and chiefly longed to
+come on that circular mirror of crystal, and surprise the moon glassing
+therein her pearly front.
+
+I knew my route, yet it seemed as if I was hindered from pursuing it
+direct: now a sight, and now a sound, called me aside, luring me down
+this alley and down that. Already I saw the thick-planted trees which
+framed this tremulous and rippled glass, when, choiring out of a glade
+to the right, broke such a sound as I thought might be heard if Heaven
+were to open--such a sound, perhaps, as _was_ heard above the plain of
+Bethlehem, on the night of glad tidings.
+
+The song, the sweet music, rose afar, but rushing swiftly on
+fast-strengthening pinions--there swept through these shades so full a
+storm of harmonies that, had no tree been near against which to lean, I
+think I must have dropped. Voices were there, it seemed to me,
+unnumbered; instruments varied and countless--bugle, horn, and trumpet
+I knew. The effect was as a sea breaking into song with all its waves.
+
+The swaying tide swept this way, and then it fell back, and I followed
+its retreat. It led me towards a Byzantine building--a sort of kiosk
+near the park's centre. Round about stood crowded thousands, gathered
+to a grand concert in the open air. What I had heard was, I think, a
+wild Jäger chorus; the night, the space, the scene, and my own mood,
+had but enhanced the sounds and their impression.
+
+Here were assembled ladies, looking by this light most beautiful: some
+of their dresses were gauzy, and some had the sheen of satin, the
+flowers and the blond trembled, and the veils waved about their
+decorated bonnets, as that host-like chorus, with its greatly-gathering
+sound, sundered the air above them. Most of these ladies occupied the
+little light park-chairs, and behind and beside them stood guardian
+gentlemen. The outer ranks of the crowd were made up of citizens,
+plebeians and police.
+
+In this outer rank I took my place. I rather liked to find myself the
+silent, unknown, consequently unaccosted neighbour of the short
+petticoat and the sabot; and only the distant gazer at the silk robe,
+the velvet mantle, and the plumed chapeau. Amidst so much life and joy,
+too, it suited me to be alone--quite alone. Having neither wish nor
+power to force my way through a mass so close-packed, my station was on
+the farthest confines, where, indeed, I might hear, but could see
+little.
+
+"Mademoiselle is not well placed," said a voice at my elbow. Who dared
+accost _me_, a being in a mood so little social? I turned, rather to
+repel than to reply. I saw a man--a burgher--an entire stranger, as I
+deemed him for one moment, but the next, recognised in him a certain
+tradesman--a bookseller, whose shop furnished the Rue Fossette with its
+books and stationery; a man notorious in our pensionnat for the
+excessive brittleness of his temper, and frequent snappishness of his
+manner, even to us, his principal customers: but whom, for my solitary
+self, I had ever been disposed to like, and had always found civil,
+sometimes kind; once, in aiding me about some troublesome little
+exchange of foreign money, he had done me a service. He was an
+intelligent man; under his asperity, he was a good-hearted man; the
+thought had sometimes crossed me, that a part of his nature bore
+affinity to a part of M. Emanuel's (whom he knew well, and whom I had
+often seen sitting on Miret's counter, turning over the current month's
+publications); and it was in this affinity I read the explanation of
+that conciliatory feeling with which I instinctively regarded him.
+
+Strange to say, this man knew me under my straw-hat and closely-folded
+shawl; and, though I deprecated the effort, he insisted on making a way
+for me through the crowd, and finding me a better situation. He carried
+his disinterested civility further; and, from some quarter, procured me
+a chair. Once and again, I have found that the most cross-grained are
+by no means the worst of mankind; nor the humblest in station, the
+least polished in feeling. This man, in his courtesy, seemed to find
+nothing strange in my being here alone; only a reason for extending to
+me, as far as he could, a retiring, yet efficient attention. Having
+secured me a place and a seat, he withdrew without asking a question,
+without obtruding a remark, without adding a superfluous word. No
+wonder that Professor Emanuel liked to take his cigar and his lounge,
+and to read his feuilleton in M. Miret's shop--the two must have suited.
+
+I had not been seated five minutes, ere I became aware that chance and
+my worthy burgher friend had brought me once more within view of a
+familiar and domestic group. Right before me sat the Brettons and de
+Bassompierres. Within reach of my hand--had I chosen to extend it--sat
+a figure like a fairy-queen, whose array, lilies and their leaves
+seemed to have suggested; whatever was not spotless white, being
+forest-green. My godmother, too, sat so near, that, had I leaned
+forward, my breath might have stirred the ribbon of her bonnet. They
+were too near; having been just recognised by a comparative stranger, I
+felt uneasy at this close vicinage of intimate acquaintance.
+
+It made me quite start when Mrs. Bretton, turning to Mr. Home, and
+speaking out of a kind impulse of memory, said,--"I wonder what my
+steady little Lucy would say to all this if she were here? I wish we
+had brought her, she would have enjoyed it much."
+
+"So she would, so she would, in her grave sensible fashion; it is a
+pity but we had asked her," rejoined the kind gentleman; and added, "I
+like to see her so quietly pleased; so little moved, yet so content."
+
+Dear were they both to me, dear are they to this day in their
+remembered benevolence. Little knew they the rack of pain which had
+driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and
+reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy. I had half a mind
+to bend over the elders' shoulders, and answer their goodness with the
+thanks of my eyes. M. de Bassompierre did not well know _me_, but I
+knew _him_, and honoured and admired his nature, with all its plain
+sincerity, its warm affection, and unconscious enthusiasm. Possibly I
+might have spoken, but just then Graham turned; he turned with one of
+his stately firm movements, so different from those, of a
+sharp-tempered under-sized man: there was behind him a throng, a
+hundred ranks deep; there were thousands to meet his eye and divide its
+scrutiny--why then did he concentrate all on me--oppressing me with the
+whole force of that full, blue, steadfast orb? Why, if he _would_ look,
+did not one glance satisfy him? why did he turn on his chair, rest his
+elbow on its back, and study me leisurely? He could not see my face, I
+held it down; surely, he _could_ not recognise me: I stooped, I turned,
+I _would_ not be known. He rose, by some means he contrived to
+approach, in two minutes he would have had my secret: my identity would
+have been grasped between his, never tyrannous, but always powerful
+hands. There was but one way to evade or to check him. I implied, by a
+sort of supplicatory gesture, that it was my prayer to be let alone;
+after that, had he persisted, he would perhaps have seen the spectacle
+of Lucy incensed: not all that was grand, or good, or kind in him (and
+Lucy felt the full amount) should have kept her quite tame, or
+absolutely inoffensive and shadowlike. He looked, but he desisted. He
+shook his handsome head, but he was mute. He resumed his seat, nor did
+he again turn or disturb me by a glance, except indeed for one single
+instant, when a look, rather solicitous than curious, stole my
+way--speaking what somehow stilled my heart like "the south-wind
+quieting the earth." Graham's thoughts of me were not entirely those of
+a frozen indifference, after all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his
+heart, he kept one little place under the sky-lights where Lucy might
+have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the
+chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall
+where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he
+treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where
+his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and
+equal kindness, he proved to me that he kept one little closet, over
+the door of which was written "Lucy's Room." I kept a place for him,
+too--a place of which I never took the measure, either by rule or
+compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I
+carried it folded in the hollow of my hand yet, released from that hold
+and constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might
+have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host.
+
+Forbearing as he was to-night, I could not stay in this proximity; this
+dangerous place and seat must be given up: I watched my opportunity,
+rose, and stole away. He might think, he might even believe that Lucy
+was contained within that shawl, and sheltered under that hat; he never
+could be certain, for he did not see my face.
+
+Surely the spirit of restlessness was by this time appeased? Had I not
+had enough of adventure? Did I not begin to flag, quail, and wish for
+safety under a roof? Not so. I still loathed my bed in the school
+dormitory more than words can express: I clung to whatever could
+distract thought. Somehow I felt, too, that the night's drama was but
+begun, that the prologue was scarce spoken: throughout this woody and
+turfy theatre reigned a shadow of mystery; actors and incidents
+unlooked-for, waited behind the scenes: I thought so foreboding told me
+as much.
+
+Straying at random, obeying the push of every chance elbow, I was
+brought to a quarter where trees planted in clusters, or towering
+singly, broke up somewhat the dense packing of the crowd, and gave it a
+more scattered character. These confines were far from the music, and
+somewhat aloof even from the lamps, but there was sound enough to
+soothe, and with that full, high moon, lamps were scarce needed. Here
+had chiefly settled family-groups, burgher-parents; some of them, late
+as was the hour, actually surrounded by their children, with whom it
+had not been thought advisable to venture into the closer throng.
+
+Three fine tall trees growing close, almost twined stem within stem,
+lifted a thick canopy of shade above a green knoll, crowned with a
+seat--a seat which might have held several, yet it seemed abandoned to
+one, the remaining members of the fortunate party in possession of this
+site standing dutifully round; yet, amongst this reverend circle was a
+lady, holding by the hand a little girl.
+
+When I caught sight of this little girl, she was twisting herself round
+on her heel, swinging from her conductress's hand, flinging herself
+from side to side with wanton and fantastic gyrations. These perverse
+movements arrested my attention, they struck me as of a character
+fearfully familiar. On close inspection, no less so appeared the
+child's equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, the small swansdown boa, the
+white bonnet--the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the gala garb
+of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Désirée Beck--and
+Désirée Beck it was--she, or an imp in her likeness.
+
+I might have taken this discovery as a thunder-clap, but such hyperbole
+would have been premature; discovery was destined to rise more than one
+degree, ere it reached its climax.
+
+On whose hand could the amiable Désirée swing thus selfishly, whose
+glove could she tear thus recklessly, whose arm thus strain with
+impunity, or on the borders of whose dress thus turn and trample
+insolently, if not the hand, glove, arm, and robe of her lady-mother?
+And there, in an Indian shawl and a pale-green crape bonnet--there,
+fresh, portly, blithe, and pleasant--there stood Madame Beck.
+
+Curious! I had certainly deemed Madame in her bed, and Désirée in her
+crib, at this blessed minute, sleeping, both of them, the sleep of the
+just, within the sacred walls, amidst the profound seclusion of the Rue
+Fossette. Most certainly also they did not picture "Meess Lucie"
+otherwise engaged; and here we all three were taking our "ébats" in the
+fête-blazing park at midnight!
+
+The fact was, Madame was only acting according to her quite justifiable
+wont. I remembered now I had heard it said among the teachers--though
+without at the time particularly noticing the gossip--that often, when
+we thought Madame in her chamber, sleeping, she was gone, full-dressed,
+to take her pleasure at operas, or plays, or balls. Madame had no sort
+of taste for a monastic life, and took care--largely, though
+discreetly--to season her existence with a relish of the world.
+
+Half a dozen gentlemen of her friends stood about her. Amongst these, I
+was not slow to recognise two or three. There was her brother, M.
+Victor Kint; there was another person, moustached and with long hair--a
+calm, taciturn man, but whose traits bore a stamp and a semblance I
+could not mark unmoved. Amidst reserve and phlegm, amidst contrasts of
+character and of countenance, something there still was which recalled
+a face--mobile, fervent, feeling--a face changeable, now clouded, and
+now alight--a face from my world taken away, for my eyes lost, but
+where my best spring-hours of life had alternated in shadow and in
+glow; that face, where I had often seen movements so near the signs of
+genius--that why there did not shine fully out the undoubted fire, the
+thing, the spirit, and the secret itself--I could never tell. Yes--this
+Josef Emanuel--this man of peace--reminded me of his ardent brother.
+
+Besides Messieurs Victor and Josef, I knew another of this party. This
+third person stood behind and in the shade, his attitude too was
+stooping, yet his dress and bald white head made him the most
+conspicuous figure of the group. He was an ecclesiastic: he was Père
+Silas. Do not fancy, reader, that there was any inconsistency in the
+priest's presence at this fête. This was not considered a show of
+Vanity Fair, but a commemoration of patriotic sacrifice. The Church
+patronised it, even with ostentation. There were troops of priests in
+the park that night.
+
+Père Silas stooped over the seat with its single occupant, the rustic
+bench and that which sat upon it: a strange mass it was--bearing no
+shape, yet magnificent. You saw, indeed, the outline of a face, and
+features, but these were so cadaverous and so strangely placed, you
+could almost have fancied a head severed from its trunk, and flung at
+random on a pile of rich merchandise. The distant lamp-rays glanced on
+clear pendants, on broad rings; neither the chasteness of moonlight,
+nor the distance of the torches, could quite subdue the gorgeous dyes
+of the drapery. Hail, Madame Walravens! I think you looked more
+witch-like than ever. And presently the good lady proved that she was
+indeed no corpse or ghost, but a harsh and hardy old woman; for, upon
+some aggravation in the clamorous petition of Désirée Beck to her
+mother, to go to the kiosk and take sweetmeats, the hunchback suddenly
+fetched her a resounding rap with her gold-knobbed cane.
+
+There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Père Silas--the whole
+conjuration, the secret junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me
+good. I cannot say that I felt weak before them, or abashed, or
+dismayed. They outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet;
+but, as yet, I was not dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this
+clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of
+entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of
+protection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me an
+obscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let me now briefly tell the
+reader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have been silently
+gathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M.
+Emanuel's departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha is
+Mammon, and its omega Interest.
+
+If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also to
+possess, in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol's
+consequence. The fact was, she had been rich--very rich; and though,
+for the present, without the command of money, she was likely one day
+to be rich again. At Basseterre, in Guadaloupe, she possessed a large
+estate, received in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequestered
+since her husband's failure; but now, it was supposed, cleared of
+claim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of integrity,
+considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
+
+Père Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for the
+sake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was a
+devout daughter. Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback and
+knowing her to be without family of her own, had long brooded over
+contingencies with a mother's calculating forethought, and, harshly
+treated as she was by Madame Walravens, never ceased to court her for
+interest's sake. Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for money
+reasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the West
+Indian estate.
+
+But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competent
+and upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man had
+Madame Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blighting
+his life, and then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man had
+Père Silas trained, taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude,
+habit, and belief. Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in some
+measure influence. "My pupil," said Père Silas, "if he remains in
+Europe, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become entangled with a
+heretic." Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred in
+her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The thing
+she could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would she
+destroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land,
+and knew Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfullest
+steward: so the three self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish.
+They reasoned, they appealed, they implored; on his mercy they cast
+themselves, into his hands they confidingly thrust their interests.
+They asked but two or three years of devotion--after that, he should
+live for himself: one of the number, perhaps, wished that in the
+meantime he might die.
+
+No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet, or
+confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust or
+repulsed the repository. What might be his private pain or inward
+reluctance to leave Europe--what his calculations for his own
+future--none asked, or knew, or reported. All this was a blank to me.
+His conferences with his confessor I might guess; the part duty and
+religion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might conjecture.
+He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst
+grouped tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed
+amongst my neighbours, I might hear, if I would; I was near enough; but
+for some time, there was scarce motive to attend. They gossiped about
+the dresses, the music, the illuminations, the fine night. I listened
+to hear them say, "It is calm weather for _his_ voyage; the _Antigua_"
+(his ship) "will sail prosperously." No such remark fell; neither the
+_Antigua_, nor her course, nor her passenger were named.
+
+Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more
+than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this
+side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if
+expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. "Où sont-ils? Pourquoi
+ne viennent-ils?" I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as if
+determined to have an answer to her question--which hitherto none
+seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase--a phrase brief enough,
+simple enough, but it sent a shock through me--"Messieurs et mesdames,"
+said she, "où donc est Justine Marie?"
+
+"Justine Marie!" What was this? Justine Marie--the dead nun--where was
+she? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens--what can you want with her?
+You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
+
+Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, but
+nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or
+at a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the
+dead-disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
+
+"Justine Marie," said one, "is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be
+here presently."
+
+Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat--chat it
+still remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,
+comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on
+references to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, that
+listen as intently as I would--and I _did_ listen _now_ with a fated
+interest--I could make out no more than that some scheme was on foot,
+in which this ghostly Justine Marie--dead or alive--was concerned. This
+family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some reason; there
+seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune--for whom I could not quite
+make out--perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel--both were
+bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a young
+fair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Mühler.
+Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded from time to
+time, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her impatience being diverted
+only by an implacable surveillance of Désirée, who could not stir but
+the old woman menaced her with her staff.
+
+"La voilà!" suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, "voilà Justine Marie
+qui arrive!"
+
+This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nun
+on the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in
+thought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the
+strange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,
+a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination once
+runs riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare and
+branchless--what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy,
+a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in
+spirituality, and make of it a phantom?
+
+With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery
+breaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass
+darkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I looked.
+
+"She comes!" cried Josef Emanuel.
+
+The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At
+this instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the
+pale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection the
+dénouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some little
+of the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the coolest
+must have "held his breath for a time!" As for me, my life stood still.
+
+It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the
+revelation are passed by.
+
+The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper's
+hand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the
+Expected--there--where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?
+What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
+
+There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,
+so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,
+that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is
+like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white
+head-clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that
+she is a risen ghost.
+
+All falsities--all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be
+honest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
+
+_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not precisely
+homely. A girl of Villette stands there--a girl fresh from her
+pensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this
+country. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks
+are round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomely
+dressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons--two
+being elderly; these she addresses as "Mon Oncle" and "Ma Tante." She
+laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
+all points, the bourgeoise belle.
+
+"So much for Justine Marie;" so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
+this last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
+the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
+
+We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
+respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
+third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? We
+ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do not
+now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and I
+drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
+ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
+stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyes
+by many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the
+_Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what was
+once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The
+_Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
+
+Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
+not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
+How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it might
+touch more nearly?
+
+After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
+stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
+Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is a
+relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
+name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
+her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
+Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
+
+The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their
+band--which is it? Vital question--which is it?
+
+I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
+had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable.
+I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth;
+I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and
+daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the covered outline
+of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty, but define to us
+one trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful sincerity; we may gasp
+in untold terror, but with that gasp we drink in a breath of thy
+divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway like rivers lifted by
+earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To see and know the worst
+is to take from Fear her main advantage.
+
+The Walravens' party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The
+gentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the turf
+under the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed, they
+jested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured, half, I
+thought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck's part. I soon gathered
+that his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own will, without
+the concurrence, even against the advice, of his friends; he had let
+the _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in the _Paul et Virginie_,
+appointed to sail a fortnight later. It was his reason for this resolve
+which they teased him to assign, and which he would only vaguely
+indicate as "the settlement of a little piece of business which he had
+set his heart upon." What _was_ this business? Nobody knew. Yes, there
+was one who seemed partly, at least, in his confidence; a meaning look
+passed between him and Justine Marie. "La petite va m'aider--n'est-ce
+pas?" said he. The answer was prompt enough, God knows?
+
+"Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon coeur. Vous ferez de moi tout ce
+que vous voudrez, mon parrain."
+
+And this dear "parrain" took her hand and lifted it to his grateful
+lips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young
+Teuton, Heinrich Mühler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He
+even grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his
+face, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drew
+his ward nearer to him.
+
+M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit
+subdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the true
+life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief
+in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving
+indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the
+pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his
+manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was
+his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he
+folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and
+cherished as the apple of his eye.
+
+Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while M.
+Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite
+ungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let him
+bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a young
+bride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration, the vow
+of constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming Present
+prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed buried.
+
+Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not
+been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which
+never _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not
+seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of
+vision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
+
+I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated
+ere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises
+doubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would have
+incredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of a
+marriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthy
+ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far from
+me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from the
+dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble suspense
+of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and faltering
+resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering and to
+conquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
+
+No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took
+it all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and folded
+it round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his colours about
+his breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the certainty,
+abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest spikes her
+strongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had entered well my
+soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.
+
+In my infatuation, I said, "Truth, you are a good mistress to your
+faithful servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even when
+the Falsehood was still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warm
+to the feelings, it wasted me with hourly torment. The persuasion that
+affection was won could not be divorced from the dread that, by another
+turn of the wheel, it might be lost. Truth stripped away Falsehood, and
+Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand--free!"
+
+Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it
+with me to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was not
+yet, indeed, quite played out. I might have waited and watched longer
+that love-scene under the trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there been
+nothing of love in the demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was so
+generous, so creative, she could have modelled for it the most salient
+lineaments, and given it the deepest life and highest colour of
+passion. But I _would_ not look; I had fixed my resolve, but I would
+not violate my nature. And then--something tore me so cruelly under my
+shawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in beak and
+talon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never felt
+jealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of Dr.
+John and Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my ears,
+while I withdrew thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony still
+acknowledged in it a charm. This was an outrage. The love born of
+beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare
+to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life
+after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy,
+consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by
+intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own
+process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at
+Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in
+_this_ Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either to its
+culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly.
+
+I turned from the group of trees and the "merrie companie" in its
+shade. Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds were
+thinning. I followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-lit
+Haute-Ville (still well lit, this it seems was to be a "nuit blanche"
+in Villette), I sought the dim lower quarter.
+
+Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight--forgotten in the
+park--here once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and calm
+and stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fête, the
+fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her for
+an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The rival
+lamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum, trumpet,
+bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with pencil-ray
+she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting. She
+and those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truth
+all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its slow-wheeling
+progress, advanced her victory--that onward movement which has been,
+and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.
+
+These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their
+lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but
+these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.
+So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly
+would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my
+strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed
+in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.
+
+Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,
+for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of
+this quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds its
+rattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully to
+the causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or fancy I
+see, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from that
+window--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant for
+me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. de
+Bassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither the
+Hôtel Crécy nor the château of La Terrasse lies in that direction.
+Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.
+
+Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was still;
+no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Désirée. I had left the great
+door ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some other
+accident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start the
+spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure must
+issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it yield?
+
+Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had
+waited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated
+breath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I
+sought the dormitory, and reached my couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next
+moment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!
+
+Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this
+hour the stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemed
+that none dreamed. Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms,
+at full-length and motionless. On mine--the twentieth couch--nothing
+_ought_ to have lain: I had left it void, and void should have found
+it. What, then; do I see between the half-drawn curtains? What dark,
+usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? Is it a robber who has made
+his way through the open street-door, and lies there in wait? It looks
+very black, I think it looks--not human. Can it be a wandering dog that
+has come in from the street and crept and nestled hither? Will it
+spring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I must. Courage! One
+step!--
+
+My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bed
+the old phantom--the NUN.
+
+A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what it
+might, I could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon.
+Besides, I was not overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nerves
+disdained hysteria. Warm from illuminations, and music, and thronging
+thousands, thoroughly lashed up by a new scourge, I defied spectra. In
+a moment, without exclamation, I had rushed on the haunted couch;
+nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the movement was mine,
+so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; as my
+instinct felt. I tore her up--the incubus! I held her on high--the
+goblin! I shook her loose--the mystery! And down she fell--down all
+around me--down in shreds and fragments--and I trode upon her.
+
+Here again--behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; the
+film of cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a long
+bolster dressed in a long black stole, and artfully invested with a
+white veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, were
+genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with a
+view to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived this
+artifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage was
+pinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words--
+
+"The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will be
+seen in the Rue Fossette no more."
+
+And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seen
+three times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that
+ghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the
+machination, for a moment, be attributed.
+
+Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,
+relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also to
+wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, I
+just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath my
+pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of Madame's
+home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many nights'
+vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic, I deeply
+slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE HAPPY PAIR.
+
+
+The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
+day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
+on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
+storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
+a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
+lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
+blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
+their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
+azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
+unclouded course.
+
+In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
+doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
+cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
+all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
+meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
+entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
+mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
+left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
+or impression.
+
+Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
+the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
+house discussed.
+
+What subject?
+
+Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
+the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained a
+coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
+one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
+Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
+morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
+pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.
+
+High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
+the house ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so
+much as a scrap of a billet rewarded the search; the nymph was
+vanished, engulfed in the past night, like a shooting star swallowed up
+by darkness.
+
+Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the
+defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so
+appalled. Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side;
+here was damage done to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event
+happened? By what outlet had the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement
+was found unfastened, not a pane of glass broken; all the doors were
+bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction
+on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and
+excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a
+certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its
+lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering
+carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as
+that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief.
+
+From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but
+myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement.
+Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound
+embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction. Having alluded to
+M. de Hamal's suit, I found, as I expected, that Madame Beck was
+perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long since discussed it with
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in the business on
+that lady's shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de Bassompierre she
+now had recourse.
+
+We found that the Hôtel Crécy was already alive to what had happened.
+Ginevra had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal
+intentions; communications had been received from the family of de
+Hamal; M. de Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He
+overtook them too late.
+
+In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well
+transcribe it; it contains explanation on more than one point:--
+
+'DEAR OLD TIM "(short for Timon),--" I am off you see--gone like a
+shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the
+first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other people;
+Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I--Dieu merci! Do you
+know, Alfred, who used to call you 'the dragon,' has seen so much of
+you during the last few months, that he begins to feel quite friendly
+towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he has gone; he begs
+to apologize for any little trouble he may have given you. He is afraid
+he rather inconvenienced you once when he came upon you in the grenier,
+just as you were reading a letter seemingly of the most special
+interest; but he could not resist the temptation to give you a start,
+you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En
+revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or
+a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a
+light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar, while waiting
+for me.
+
+"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
+the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
+will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entrée of the
+Athénée, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
+sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
+Athénée is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
+allée défendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
+amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting, first
+the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the grand
+berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
+buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and the
+grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore down
+some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all, in
+running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
+people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
+From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
+of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know, is,
+day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
+Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
+suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think you
+must allow he has very cleverly carried out.
+
+"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been caught
+again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He thinks
+you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at is,
+rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure the
+visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying out,
+telling everybody, and rousing the whole house and neighbourhood?
+
+"Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? _I_ dressed her up:
+didn't I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should have
+gone mad; but then you have such nerves!--real iron and bend-leather! I
+believe you feel nothing. You haven't the same sensitiveness that a
+person of my constitution has. You seem to me insensible both to pain
+and fear and grief. You are a real old Diogenes.
+
+"Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my moonlight
+flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent fun, and I
+did it partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear, Dr. John: to
+show them that, with all their airs, I could get married as well as
+they. M. de Bassompierre was at first in a strange fume with Alfred; he
+threatened a prosecution for 'détournement de mineur,' and I know not
+what; he was so abominably in earnest, that I found myself forced to do
+a little bit of the melodramatic--go down on my knees, sob, cry, drench
+three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, 'mon oncle' soon gave in;
+indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am married, and that's
+all about it. He still says our marriage is not legal, because I am not
+of age, forsooth! As if that made any difference! I am just as much
+married as if I were a hundred. However, we are to be married again,
+and I am to have a trousseau, and Mrs. Cholmondeley is going to
+superintend it; and there are some hopes that M. de Bassompierre will
+give me a decent portion, which will be very convenient, as dear Alfred
+has nothing but his nobility, native and hereditary, and his pay. I
+only wish uncle would do things unconditionally, in a generous,
+gentleman-like fashion; he is so disagreeable as to make the dowry
+depend on Alfred's giving his written promise that he will never touch
+cards or dice from the day it is paid down. They accuse my angel of a
+tendency to play: I don't know anything about that, but I _do_ know he
+is a dear, adorable creature.
+
+"I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed our
+flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fête, when Madame
+(for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be absent at
+the concert in the park. I suppose _you_ must have gone with her. I
+watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven o'clock. How you
+returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture. That surely was _you_
+we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did you see me wave my
+handkerchief from the carriage window?
+
+"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme
+happiness, and believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the
+best of health and spirits,
+
+GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL, née FANSHAWE.
+
+"P.S.--Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at
+home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter the Countess!' 'My
+sister the Countess!' Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John
+Bretton, hein?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In winding up Mistress Fanshawe's memoirs, the reader will no doubt
+expect to hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her
+youthful levities. Of course, a large share of suffering lies in
+reserve for her future.
+
+A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her.
+
+I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame
+Beck, and sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms laughing.
+She looked very blooming and beautiful: her curls were longer, her
+cheeks rosier than ever: her white bonnet and her Flanders veil, her
+orange-flowers and her bride's dress, became her mightily.
+
+"I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the
+substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her
+composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de
+Bassompierre is quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred a
+'nincompoop'--that's only his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe
+Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is wild with jealousy--fit to blow his
+brains out--and I'm so happy! I really think I've hardly anything left
+to wish for--unless it be a carriage and an hotel, and, oh! I--must
+introduce you to 'mon mari.' Alfred, come here!"
+
+And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to
+Madame Beck, receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of that
+lady. I was presented under my various names: the Dragon, Diogenes, and
+Timon. The young Colonel was very polite. He made me a prettily-turned,
+neatly-worded apology, about the ghost-visits, &c., concluding with
+saying that "the best excuse for all his iniquities stood there!"
+pointing to his bride.
+
+And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to
+herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained
+spirits, her girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring
+exultingly; she called herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked
+how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only
+the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing
+better--she knew me too well to look for compliments--my dry gibes
+pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien,
+the more merrily she laughed.
+
+Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army as
+the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates and
+habits; a post of attaché was procured for him, and he and his young
+wife went abroad. I thought she would forget me now, but she did not.
+For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of
+correspondence. During the first year or two, it was only of herself
+and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself and
+a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de Bassompierre de
+Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were great boastings
+about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon miracles of
+precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the phlegmatic
+incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what it was to
+be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities of the
+maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me," and so on. In due course
+of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething, measles,
+hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me--the mamma's letters
+became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put upon by
+calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I was
+frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found out
+there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my
+natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered
+each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth "in articulo mortis,"
+and five times did he miraculously revive.
+
+In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred
+the First; M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be
+paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called "debts of
+honour;" ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every
+cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out
+lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any distress
+single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she was
+pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on--fighting the battle
+of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any human
+being I have ever known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.
+
+
+Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and Renovation
+which I won on the fête-night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart
+companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of
+intimate acquaintance?
+
+I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly
+when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding
+deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a
+relieved life--Freedom excused himself, as for the present impoverished
+and disabled to assist; and Renovation never spoke; he had died in the
+night suddenly.
+
+I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture
+might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive
+hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of jealousy.
+After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back captive to
+the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew.
+
+Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he
+purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour bring him? or must I
+again assay that corroding pain of long attent--that rude agony of
+rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once
+uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the
+violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her
+barrier!
+
+It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders
+and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long
+walk into the country to take their goûter, or afternoon meal, at some
+farm-house. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere
+the _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last chance,
+as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or cable.
+
+There was some joiners' work to do in the first classe, some bench or
+desk to repair; holidays were often turned to account for the
+performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the
+rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn
+to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my
+own intent, I heard the workmen coming.
+
+Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it
+would take two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying
+on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle hand,
+I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one
+"ouvrier." I noted, too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary
+leisure to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and not
+sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, coming to
+inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He
+advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little
+thrill--a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I
+turned, I stood in the supposed master-artisan's presence: looking
+towards the door-way, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes
+printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.
+
+Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the
+suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls
+prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, perfect from Fruition's
+mint.
+
+M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel--a
+surtout, guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant
+departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run
+before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and
+benign: he came in with eagerness; he was close to me in one second; he
+was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus brightened
+him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If
+this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced,
+unnatural distance. I loved him well--too well not to smite out of my
+path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind
+farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes,
+would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it
+would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it--I
+would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.
+
+The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what
+he had said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my
+hand two minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first,
+last, only time--and then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting,
+then the wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
+him--across which, haply, he would not glance, to remember me.
+
+He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet; he
+looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips expressed
+something almost like the wordless language of a mother who finds a
+child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn
+out by want. A check supervened.
+
+"Paul, Paul!" said a woman's hurried voice behind, "Paul, come into the
+salon; I have yet a great many things to say to you--conversation for
+the whole day--and so has Victor; and Josef is here. Come Paul, come to
+your friends."
+
+Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable
+instinct, pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M.
+Emanuel.
+
+"Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like
+a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I
+thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to
+feel what defied suppression, I cried--
+
+"My heart will break!"
+
+What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another
+fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the
+whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep
+sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet
+with relief--I wept.
+
+"Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it
+will pass," said the calm Madame Beck.
+
+To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being
+left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply,
+harshly, and briefly--"Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music
+strange, strong, but life-giving.
+
+"Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial
+muscles all quivering as he spoke.
+
+"But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly
+rejoined her kinsman--
+
+"Sortez d'ici!"
+
+"I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she
+threatened pertinaciously.
+
+"Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his
+highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!"
+
+He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what
+I had yet felt.
+
+"What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of
+men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive,
+injudicious, inconsistent--a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in
+the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."
+
+"You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but
+you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less
+fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face,
+and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends;
+in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of
+sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what
+I see; it _must_ have and give solace. _Leave me!_"
+
+This time, in the "_leave me_" there was an intonation so bitter and so
+imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one
+moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him
+dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was
+opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick
+rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement;
+it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his
+hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the
+room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second.
+
+The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to
+wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to
+time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more
+myself--re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless,
+not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death.
+
+"It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he.
+
+"It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said. "All these weary days
+I have not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the
+possibility, growing to certainty, that you would depart without saying
+farewell!"
+
+"Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not know me?
+Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_ have proof that I
+can be a firm friend? Without clear proof this hand will not lie still
+in mine, it will not trust my shoulder as a safe stay? Good. The proof
+is ready. I come to justify myself."
+
+"Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, Monsieur; I can listen
+now."
+
+"Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance into
+the town. I came on purpose to fetch you."
+
+Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the
+semblance of an objection, I re-tied my bonnet: I was ready.
+
+The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit
+down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I
+was tired, but looked, and drew his own conclusions.
+
+"All these weary days," said he, repeating my words, with a gentle,
+kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips,
+and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled,
+as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might _write_ his
+language, I _spoke_ and always should speak it imperfectly and
+hesitatingly. "'All these weary days' I have not for one hour forgotten
+you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves the sole
+faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living truth to
+myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any quarter;
+but----look at me."
+
+I lifted my happy eyes: they _were_ happy now, or they would have been
+no interpreters of my heart.
+
+"Well," said he, after some seconds' scrutiny, "there is no denying
+that signature: Constancy wrote it: her pen is of iron. Was the record
+painful?"
+
+"Severely painful," I said, with truth. "Withdraw her hand, Monsieur; I
+can bear its inscribing force no more."
+
+"Elle est toute pâle," said he, speaking to himself; "cette figure-là
+me fait mal."
+
+"Ah! I am not pleasant to look at----?"
+
+I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never remember
+the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the degree of
+my outward deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment with special
+force.
+
+A great softness passed upon his countenance; his violet eyes grew
+suffused and glistening under their deep Spanish lashes: he started up;
+"Let us walk on."
+
+"Do I displease your eyes _much_?" I took courage to urge: the point
+had its vital import for me.
+
+He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer; an answer which
+silenced, subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew
+what I was for _him_; and what I might be for the rest of the world, I
+ceased painfully to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress on an
+opinion about appearance? I fear it might be; I fear it was; but in
+that case I must avow no light share of weakness. I must own great fear
+of displeasing--a strong wish moderately to please M. Paul.
+
+Whither we rambled, I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed short;
+the path was pleasant, the day lovely. M. Emanuel talked of his
+voyage--he thought of staying away three years. On his return from
+Guadaloupe, he looked forward to release from liabilities and a clear
+course; and what did I purpose doing in the interval of his absence? he
+asked. I had talked once, he reminded me, of trying to be independent
+and keeping a little school of my own: had I dropped the idea?
+
+"Indeed, I had not: I was doing my best to save what would enable me to
+put it in practice."
+
+"He did not like leaving me in the Rue Fossette; he feared I should
+miss him there too much--I should feel desolate--I should grow sad--?"
+
+This was certain; but I promised to do my best to endure.
+
+"Still," said he, speaking low, "there is another objection to your
+present residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes: it would
+not be well to have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of
+letters; and in the Rue Fossette--in short, our Catholic discipline in
+certain matters--though justifiable and expedient--might possibly,
+under peculiar circumstances, become liable to misapplication--perhaps
+abuse."
+
+"But if you write," said I, "I _must_ have your letters; and I _will_
+have them: ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not keep them from
+me. I am a Protestant: I will not bear that kind of discipline:
+Monsieur, I _will not_."
+
+"Doucement--doucement," rejoined he; "we will contrive a plan; we have
+our resources: soyez tranquille."
+
+So speaking, he paused.
+
+We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of
+a clean Faubourg, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It
+was before the white door-step of a very neat abode that M. Paul had
+halted.
+
+"I call here," said he.
+
+He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and
+entered at once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No servant
+appeared. The vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly and
+tastefully painted; its vista closed in a French window with vines
+trained about the panes, tendrils, and green leaves kissing the glass.
+Silence reigned in this dwelling.
+
+Opening an inner door, M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon--very
+tiny, but I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like a
+blush; its floor was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its
+centre; its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth;
+there was a little couch, a little chiffonnière, the half-open,
+crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on the shelves; there was
+a French clock, a lamp; there were ornaments in biscuit china; the
+recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand,
+bearing three green flower-pots, each filled with a fine plant glowing
+in bloom; in one corner appeared a guéridon with a marble top, and upon
+it a work-box, and a glass filled with violets in water. The lattice of
+this room was open; the outer air breathing through, gave freshness,
+the sweet violets lent fragrance.
+
+"Pretty, pretty place!" said I. M. Paul smiled to see me so pleased.
+
+"Must we sit down here and wait?" I asked in a whisper, half awed by
+the deep pervading hush.
+
+"We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell," he
+replied.
+
+"Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes, I dare," said he, quietly.
+
+He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and
+oven, with few but bright brasses, two chairs and a table. A small
+cupboard held a diminutive but commodious set of earthenware.
+
+"There is a coffee service of china in the salon," said M. Paul, as I
+looked at the six green and white dinner-plates; the four dishes, the
+cups and jugs to match.
+
+Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse
+of two pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms; finally, I was once more led
+below, and we halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than
+had yet been opened.
+
+Producing a second key, M. Emanuel adjusted it to the lock of this
+door. He opened, put me in before him.
+
+"Voici!" he cried.
+
+I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though
+bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards
+were carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks, with
+an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher's chair
+and table; behind them a tableau. On the walls hung two maps; in the
+windows flowered a few hardy plants; in short, here was a miniature
+classe--complete, neat, pleasant.
+
+"It is a school then?" said I. "Who keeps it? I never heard of an
+establishment in this faubourg."
+
+"Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for
+distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?" asked he, taking from his
+surtout-pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into my
+hand. I looked, I read--printed in fair characters:--
+
+"Externat de demoiselles. Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice,
+Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel?
+
+Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to
+memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and
+amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and
+whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun.
+
+I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes
+succeeding this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my
+earliest year of life: and yet the first thing distinct to me is the
+consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over
+again:--
+
+"Did you do this, M. Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did
+you get these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is
+there another Lucy Snowe? Tell me: say something."
+
+But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down-look,
+his attitude, are visible to me now.
+
+"How is it? I must know all--_all_," I cried.
+
+The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and I
+had fastened thereon, oblivious of all else.
+
+"Ah! you said I had forgotten you all these weary days," said he. "Poor
+old Emanuel! These are the thanks he gets for trudging about three
+mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-maker to
+charwoman. Lucy and Lucy's cot, the sole thoughts in his head!"
+
+I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his cuff,
+and then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his foresight, his
+goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that overpowered me
+by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his sleepless interest
+which broke on me like a light from heaven; it was his--I will dare to
+say it--his fond, tender look, which now shook me indescribably. In the
+midst of all I forced myself to look at the practical.
+
+"The trouble!" I cried, "and the cost! Had you money, M. Paul?"
+
+"Plenty of money!" said he heartily. "The disposal of my large teaching
+connection put me in possession of a handsome sum with part of it I
+determined to give myself the richest treat that I _have_ known or
+_shall_ know. I like this. I have reckoned on this hour day and night
+lately. I would not come near you, because I would not forestall it.
+Reserve is neither my virtue nor my vice. If I had put myself into your
+power, and you had begun with your questions of look and lip--Where
+have you been, M. Paul? What have you been doing? What is your
+mystery?--my solitary first and last secret would presently have
+unravelled itself in your lap. Now," he pursued, "you shall live here
+and have a school; you shall employ yourself while I am away; you shall
+think of me sometimes; you shall mind your health and happiness for my
+sake, and when I come back--"
+
+There he left a blank.
+
+I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and willingly.
+"I will be your faithful steward," I said; "I trust at your coming the
+account will be ready. Monsieur, monsieur, you are _too_ good!"
+
+In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression: they
+could not get it; speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice,
+dissolved or shivered in the effort. He watched me, still; he gently
+raised his hand to stroke my hair; it touched my lips in passing; I
+pressed it close, I paid it tribute. He was my king; royal for me had
+been that hand's bounty; to offer homage was both a joy and a duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded
+the quiet faubourg. M. Paul claimed my hospitality; occupied and afoot
+since morning, he needed refreshment; he said I should offer him
+chocolate in my pretty gold and white china service. He went out and
+ordered what was needful from the restaurant; he placed the small
+guéridon and two chairs in the balcony outside the French window under
+the screening vines. With what shy joy I accepted my part as hostess,
+arranged the salver, served the benefactor-guest.
+
+This balcony was in the rear of the house, the gardens of the faubourg
+were round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and
+fresh. Above the poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses,
+looked up a moon so lovely and so halcyon, the heart trembled under her
+smile; a star shone subject beside her, with the unemulous ray of pure
+love. In a large garden near us, a jet rose from a well, and a pale
+statue leaned over the play of waters.
+
+M. Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed
+harmonious with the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in
+which light breeze, fountain and foliage intoned their lulling vesper:
+
+Happy hour--stay one moment! droop those plumes, rest those wings;
+incline to mine that brow of Heaven! White Angel! let thy light linger;
+leave its reflection on succeeding clouds; bequeath its cheer to that
+time which needs a ray in retrospect!
+
+Our meal was simple: the chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh
+summer fruit, cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves formed
+the whole: but it was what we both liked better than a feast, and I
+took a delight inexpressible in tending M. Paul. I asked him whether
+his friends, Père Silas and Madame Beck, knew what he had done--whether
+they had seen my house?
+
+"Mon amie," said he, "none knows what I have done save you and myself:
+the pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To
+speak truth, there has been to me in this matter a refinement of
+enjoyment I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides" (smiling)
+"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often
+has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!
+How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the
+secret of Polichinelle!"
+
+This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps
+on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted,
+dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had
+it.
+
+Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my
+landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these particulars
+in writing; he had foreseen and prepared all things.
+
+The house was not M. Paul's--that I guessed: he was hardly the man to
+become a proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence
+of the saving faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a
+treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the
+Basse-Ville--a man of substance, M. Paul said; he startled me by
+adding: "a friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most
+respectful regard for you." And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the
+landlord was none other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and
+kind-hearted bookseller, who had so kindly found me a seat that
+eventful night in the park. It seems M. Miret was, in his station,
+rich, as well as much respected, and possessed several houses in this
+faubourg; the rent was moderate, scarce half of what it would have been
+for a house of equal size nearer the centre of Villette.
+
+"And then," observed M. Paul, "should fortune not favour you, though I
+think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good hands;
+M. Miret will not be extortionate: the first year's rent you have
+already in your savings; afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and
+herself. But now, what will you do for pupils?"
+
+"I must distribute my prospectuses."
+
+"Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday.
+Should you object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the
+Demoiselles Miret? They are at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would
+become me indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to
+number aristocrats in my little day-school; I care not if they never
+come. I shall be proud to receive M. Miret's daughters."
+
+"Besides these," pursued he, "another pupil offers, who will come daily
+to take lessons in English; and as she is rich, she will pay
+handsomely. I mean my god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur."
+
+What is in a name?--what in three words? Till this moment I had
+listened with living joy--I had answered with gleeful quickness; a name
+froze me; three words struck me mute. The effect could not be hidden,
+and indeed I scarce tried to hide it.
+
+"What now?" said M. Paul.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Your countenance changes: your colour and your very eyes
+fade. Nothing! You must be ill; you have some suffering; tell me what."
+
+I had nothing to tell.
+
+He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued
+silent and icy. He tried to win a word; he entreated with perseverance,
+he waited with patience.
+
+"Justine Marie is a good girl," said he, "docile and amiable; not
+quick--but you will like her."
+
+"I think not. I think she must not come here."
+
+Such was my speech.
+
+"Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But, in truth, there _is_
+something. Again you are pale as that statue. Rely on Paul Carlos; tell
+him the grief."
+
+His chair touched mine; his hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards
+him.
+
+"Do you know Marie Justine?" said he again.
+
+The name re-pronounced by his lips overcame me unaccountably. It did
+not prostrate--no, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat
+through my veins--recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and nights
+of heart-sickness. Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely as he
+had long twined his life in mine--far as had progressed, and near as
+was achieved our minds' and affections' assimilation--the very
+suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be heard only
+with a fermenting excitement, an impetuous throe, a disdainful resolve,
+an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could hide the
+flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry.
+
+"I want to tell you something," I said: "I want to tell you all."
+
+"Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is
+your friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!"
+
+I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I
+narrated; fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back
+to the night in the park; I mentioned the medicated draught--why it was
+given--its goading effect--how it had torn rest from under my head,
+shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a vivid yet
+solemn fancy--a summer-night solitude on turf, under trees, near a
+deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene realized; the crowd, the masques,
+the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar, the bells
+sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I had
+recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched himself: how
+I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history, in
+brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful, literal,
+ardent, bitter.
+
+Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed he
+spurred me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half
+done, he held both my hands, he consulted my eyes with a most piercing
+glance: there was something in his face which tended neither to calm
+nor to put me down; he forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own
+system of repression when I most challenged its exercise. I think I
+deserved strong reproof; but when have we our deserts? I merited
+severity; he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed imperious and
+unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof; he smiled,
+betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now that
+my nature had such a mood: he gathered me near his heart. I was full of
+faults; he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost mutiny,
+he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed my ear:--
+
+"Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on
+earth."
+
+We walked back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight--such moonlight as fell
+on Eden--shining through the shades of the Great Garden, and haply
+gilding a path glorious for a step divine--a Presence nameless. Once in
+their lives some men and women go back to these first fresh days of our
+great Sire and Mother--taste that grand morning's dew--bathe in its
+sunrise.
+
+In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had
+always been regarded with the affection proper to a daughter--how, with
+M. Paul's consent, she had been affianced for months to one Heinrich
+Mühler, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be married in the
+course of a year. Some of M. Emanuel's relations and connections would,
+indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with a view to securing
+her fortune in the family; but to himself the scheme was repugnant, and
+the idea totally inadmissible.
+
+We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean Baptiste's clock tolled nine. At
+this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my
+side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my
+destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed.
+How different the look--how far otherwise the fate!
+
+He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its
+beam like a banner. Once--unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and
+strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the
+manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living
+by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by
+heart--I preferred him before all humanity.
+
+We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted: the
+next day--he sailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain
+thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
+anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
+the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as it
+went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing him
+draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil--I, the
+prostrate votary--felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.
+
+Strange to say--strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life's
+experience--that anticipatory craunch proved all--yes--nearly _all_ the
+torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot, drew on lofty,
+loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow sweeping the sky, at
+noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or felt. I looked up.
+Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the votary still lived.
+
+M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
+years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
+school; I worked--I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
+property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account. Pupils
+came--burghers at first--a higher class ere long. About the middle of
+the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an additional
+hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter containing
+that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir of my dear
+and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the
+money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the
+matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after his
+kinswoman's death--naming or recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett had
+given him my address. How far his conscience had been sinned against, I
+never inquired. I asked no questions, but took the cash and made it
+useful.
+
+With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine. I
+would not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left,
+and where he expected again to find me. My externat became a
+pensionnat; that also prospered.
+
+The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any
+endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a
+wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart. The spring which moved my
+energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. At parting, I had
+been left a legacy; such a thought for the present, such a hope for the
+future, such a motive for a persevering, a laborious, an enterprising,
+a patient and a brave course--I _could_ not flag. Few things shook me
+now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate, or depress me: most
+things pleased--mere trifles had a charm.
+
+Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly
+on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied
+bounteous fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not suffered
+to fear penury; I was not tried with suspense. By every vessel he
+wrote; he wrote as he gave and as he loved, in full-handed,
+full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked to write; he did not
+abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and
+paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was
+faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was no
+sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never dropped
+her slippery oil on his lips--never proffered, by his pen, her coward
+feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor an
+excuse--neither a scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were real
+food that nourished, living water that refreshed.
+
+And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so
+remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable
+and noble, could be otherwise than grateful to the death.
+
+Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is made
+the facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not tease
+nor tempt. He said:--
+
+"Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism
+in you. I own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I
+cannot receive myself, but it is the sole creed for 'Lucy.'"
+
+All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself make
+him a real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false--artless, and not
+cunning--a freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had rendered him
+ductile in a priest's hands, his affection, his devotedness, his
+sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes sometimes, made him
+abandon justice to himself to do the work of craft, and serve the ends
+of selfishness; but these are faults so rare to find, so costly to
+their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether they will not one day be
+reckoned amongst the jewels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel's return is fixed. It is
+Autumn; he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school
+flourishes, my house is ready: I have made him a little library, filled
+its shelves with the books he left in my care: I have cultivated out of
+love for him (I was naturally no florist) the plants he preferred, and
+some of them are yet in bloom. I thought I loved him when he went away;
+I love him now in another degree: he is more my own.
+
+The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
+but--he is coming.
+
+Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind
+takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming.
+
+The skies hang full and dark--a wrack sails from the west; the clouds
+cast themselves into strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there
+rise resplendent mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his
+state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle
+at its thickest--so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know
+some signs of the sky; I have noted them ever since childhood. God
+watch that sail! Oh! guard it!
+
+The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--"keening" at every
+window! It will rise--it will swell--it shrieks out long: wander as I
+may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The
+advancing hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers
+hear and fear a wild south-west storm. That storm roared frenzied, for
+seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks:
+it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full of sustenance. Not
+till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work,
+would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder--the tremor of whose
+plumes was storm.
+
+Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting
+shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered
+till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun
+returned, his light was night to some!
+
+Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind
+heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the
+delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of
+rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of
+return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.
+
+Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Père Silas;
+Madame Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died. Farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9182-8.txt or 9182-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/8/9182/
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/9182-8.zip b/old/9182-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..47fc971
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9182-8.zip
diff --git a/old/9182.txt b/old/9182.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a92e9d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9182.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21718 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Villette
+
+Author: Charlotte Bronte
+
+Posting Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #9182]
+Release Date: October, 2005
+First Posted: September 12, 2003
+[Last updated: March 2, 2016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+BY
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       I.  BRETTON
+      II.  PAULINA
+     III.  THE PLAYMATES
+      IV.  MISS MARCHMONT
+       V.  TURNING A NEW LEAF
+      VI.  LONDON
+     VII.  VILLETTE
+    VIII.  MADAME BECK
+      IX.  ISIDORE
+       X.  DR. JOHN
+      XI.  THE PORTRESS'S CABINET
+     XII.  THE CASKET
+    XIII.  A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON
+     XIV.  THE FETE
+      XV.  THE LONG VACATION
+     XVI.  AULD LANG SYNE
+    XVII.  LA TERRASSE
+   XVIII.  WE QUARREL
+     XIX.  THE CLEOPATRA
+      XX.  THE CONCERT
+     XXI.  REACTION
+    XXII.  THE LETTER
+   XXIII.  VASHTI
+    XXIV.  M. DE BASSOMPIERRE
+     XXV.  THE LITTLE COUNTESS
+    XXVI.  A BURIAL
+   XXVII.  THE HOTEL CRECY
+  XXVIII.  THE WATCHGUARD
+    XXIX.  MONSIEUR'S FETE
+     XXX.  M. PAUL
+    XXXI.  THE DRYAD
+   XXXII.  THE FIRST LETTER
+  XXXIII.  M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE
+   XXXIV.  MALEVOLA
+    XXXV.  FRATERNITY
+   XXXVI.  THE APPLE OF DISCORD
+  XXXVII.  SUNSHINE
+ XXXVIII.  CLOUD
+   XXXIX.  OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
+      XL.  THE HAPPY PAIR
+     XLI.  FAUBOURG CLOTILDE
+    XLII.  FINIS
+
+
+
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRETTON.
+
+
+My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of
+Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for generations,
+and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace--Bretton of Bretton:
+whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a
+personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his
+neighbourhood, I know not.
+
+When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I
+liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The
+large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide
+windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street,
+where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide--so quiet was its
+atmosphere, so clean its pavement--these things pleased me well.
+
+One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of,
+and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton,
+who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her
+husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and
+handsome woman.
+
+She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall,
+well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the
+clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair
+of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that
+she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were
+blue--though, even in boyhood, very piercing--and the colour of his
+long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as the sun
+shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the lines of his
+mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her stature (or the
+promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), and, what was
+better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and
+equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor.
+
+In the autumn of the year ---- I was staying at Bretton; my godmother
+having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that
+time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw
+events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the
+faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad
+to change scene and society.
+
+Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with
+tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river
+through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian
+and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on each
+bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The charm
+of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked
+peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came
+I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had still held
+aloof.
+
+One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused
+Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from
+home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication:
+to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass.
+
+The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my
+bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in its
+shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and
+in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood
+chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
+
+"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer
+was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other
+visitors."
+
+On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was
+told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and
+distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was
+added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere
+long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear.
+Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a
+giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed
+and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union
+proved, that separation at last ensued--separation by mutual consent,
+not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having
+over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died
+after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very
+sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden
+communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded but
+that some over-severity on his part--some deficiency in patience and
+indulgence--had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this
+idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted
+on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had
+offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope," added my
+godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her mamma; as
+silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was weak enough
+to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home _is_ a sensible man in his way,
+though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his
+life in a laboratory trying experiments--a thing his butterfly wife
+could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed" confessed my
+godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
+
+In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late
+husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a
+maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French
+and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France, of whom
+more than one wrote _de_ before his name, and called himself noble.
+
+That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet the
+coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat
+alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being
+absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country.
+My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a
+wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind sounded angry and
+restless.
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for
+her journey! I wish she were safe here."
+
+A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner
+was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk
+and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and
+at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his
+arms.
+
+"Is that the child?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but
+it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
+
+"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the
+drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker,
+extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious
+haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared made
+a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy
+and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms. "Give it
+to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put it away."
+This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you
+are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
+
+The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared
+exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure,
+light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she
+looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky curls,
+increased, I thought, the resemblance.
+
+Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's
+hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze,
+but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a
+caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was
+rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger
+smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
+
+"Missy."
+
+"But besides Missy?"
+
+"Polly, papa calls her."
+
+"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
+
+"Not _always_; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She shook
+her head expressively.
+
+"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
+
+"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
+
+Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a
+movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she
+said--"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
+
+She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool, she
+carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated
+herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even a
+peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the child
+her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did take
+notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee, her
+head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of
+pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I
+heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without
+shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff
+testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was quite
+as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded--"May the
+bell be rung for Harriet!"
+
+I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
+
+"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must
+ask where my bed is."
+
+Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
+
+"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
+
+"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's room,"
+designating me.
+
+Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some
+minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
+
+"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she
+passed me mute.
+
+"Good-night, Polly," I said.
+
+"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was
+the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard
+Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her
+answer--"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the
+staircase.
+
+On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She
+had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a
+sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested quietly
+on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I abstained
+from speaking to her for some time, but just before extinguishing the
+light, I recommended her to lie down.
+
+"By and by," was the answer.
+
+"But you will take cold, Missy."
+
+She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side,
+and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she pleased.
+Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still
+wept,--wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
+
+On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold!
+there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with
+pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so
+as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as
+she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she
+was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons,
+strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered
+with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she
+smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a
+corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became
+still. I half rose, and advanced my head to see how she was occupied.
+On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that she
+was praying.
+
+Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
+
+"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do not
+feel neat. Make me neat!"
+
+"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
+
+"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking _the girl_" (meaning me,
+who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to learn, against the
+time you leave me."
+
+"Do you want me to go?"
+
+"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
+Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
+
+"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
+
+"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
+
+"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress you."
+
+"On no account."
+
+"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave prettily
+to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
+
+"She shall dress me on no account."
+
+"Comical little thing!"
+
+"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the
+line will be crooked."
+
+"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
+
+"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
+
+"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
+
+"Come, then."
+
+They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
+
+"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these people."
+
+"Be a good child, Missy."
+
+"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and
+moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
+
+I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet
+within bounds.
+
+"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said,
+"Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet
+temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her
+full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs.
+Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread
+filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not
+eating.
+
+"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to
+me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not
+slept."
+
+I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
+
+"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon
+settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+PAULINA.
+
+
+Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a
+fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful:
+she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to
+comfort--to tranquillity even--than she presented, it was scarcely
+possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could
+have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of
+adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more
+legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She
+seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of
+that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever,
+opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in
+her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
+
+And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure,
+white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and
+praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast--some precocious
+fanatic or untimely saint--I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but
+they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that
+child's mind must have been.
+
+I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low:
+sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up
+unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden,
+"Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd nature;
+betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the most
+unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
+
+What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued
+unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden turn.
+
+One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a
+corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying
+her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many
+ladies should go down the street in a given time. She had sat
+listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when--my eye being fixed
+on hers--I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling transfiguration.
+These sudden, dangerous natures--_sensitive_ as they are called--offer
+many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured
+from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed and heavy gaze
+swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow
+cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance
+vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense
+expectancy. "It _is_!" were her words.
+
+Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the
+room. How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might
+be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which
+would be impetuous enough. I--watching calmly from the window--saw her,
+in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she had an
+antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was on the
+point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that the child
+was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw her caught
+up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the wondering
+stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and now,
+covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house
+whence he had seen her issue.
+
+I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but
+he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
+
+His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton.
+She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered,
+surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory;
+and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,--"I could not
+help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without
+seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
+
+"But you will unsettle her."
+
+"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
+
+This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her
+gently on the ground before him.
+
+"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and
+gazed up into his face.
+
+It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it
+was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not
+foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all
+occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or
+ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever
+felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own
+will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
+
+Mr. Home was a stern-featured--perhaps I should rather say, a
+hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were
+marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but
+there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated
+countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his
+physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid
+his hand on the child's uplifted head. She said--"Kiss Polly."
+
+He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I
+might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she
+seemed to have got what she wanted--_all_ she wanted, and to be in a
+trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature
+like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled
+from his, as the cup from the flagon.
+
+Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might
+secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his
+little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying on
+a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a
+pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me."
+
+She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs.
+Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her
+hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature,
+and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to
+talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened
+the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and
+closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or to feel
+her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him,
+and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour
+following, I suppose both were satisfied.
+
+During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual,
+full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the
+chairs.
+
+"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
+Bretton: _I_ must hand his tea."
+
+She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
+
+"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
+
+And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the
+sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home;
+papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
+
+Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they
+were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had
+to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the
+bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her
+insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand
+that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly
+speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like
+other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and
+even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
+
+"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That
+lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and,
+for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
+
+This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening. I
+knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.
+Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated
+round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should
+rather say, broke it up--for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and
+then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided.
+He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took no
+notice for a time.
+
+His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he
+turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed
+himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say
+_child_ I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term--a term
+suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in
+a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a
+good-sized doll--perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon
+was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands
+a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at
+which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed
+almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric
+with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the
+perverse weapon--swerving from her control--inflicted a deeper stab
+than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
+
+Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen.
+I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious
+disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe
+the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved
+light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and
+destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A
+spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
+
+"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence
+for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room
+relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew
+of timidity---"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to
+whom I have not been introduced."
+
+"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the
+least ceremonious: Miss Home _I_ should certainly have said, in
+venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
+
+"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter yourself
+that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
+
+"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance,
+"might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems
+willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham
+Bretton."
+
+She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately
+put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her
+perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you
+do?"
+
+"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued
+with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
+
+"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and
+she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could
+not be done without some climbing and straining--a sacrifice of decorum
+not to be thought of--and being utterly disdainful of aid in the
+presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair
+for a low stool: towards that low stool Graham drew in his chair.
+
+"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to
+you a convenient place of abode?"
+
+"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
+
+"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
+I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
+a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
+Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
+
+"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your
+mother's."
+
+"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you
+shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
+
+"Are _you_ going to live here now?"
+
+"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I think you queer."
+
+"My face, ma'am?"
+
+"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
+
+"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so
+do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his
+mane with a sort of triumph--tawny he himself well knew that it was,
+and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer
+than is your ladyship."
+
+"You call me queer?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
+
+"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since;
+but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I
+was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
+
+"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
+
+"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before
+papa soon, I daresay."
+
+She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating
+whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he
+caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised
+aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the
+glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect
+of the action were too much.
+
+"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and
+when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were
+to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that
+mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
+
+So saying, she departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PLAYMATES.
+
+
+Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed on
+to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent,
+sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton's chat, which was just
+of the proper sort for a man in his morbid mood--not over-sympathetic,
+yet not too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of the
+motherly--she was sufficiently his senior to be permitted this touch.
+
+As to Paulina, the child was at once happy and mute, busy and watchful.
+Her father frequently lifted her to his knee; she would sit there till
+she felt or fancied he grew restless; then it was--"Papa, put me down;
+I shall tire you with my weight."
+
+And the mighty burden slid to the rug, and establishing itself on
+carpet or stool just at "papa's" feet, the white work-box and the
+scarlet-speckled handkerchief came into play. This handkerchief, it
+seems, was intended as a keepsake for "papa," and must be finished
+before his departure; consequently the demand on the sempstress's
+industry (she accomplished about a score of stitches in half-an-hour)
+was stringent.
+
+The evening, by restoring Graham to the maternal roof (his days were
+passed at school), brought us an accession of animation--a quality not
+diminished by the nature of the scenes pretty sure to be enacted
+between him and Miss Paulina.
+
+A distant and haughty demeanour had been the result of the indignity
+put upon her the first evening of his arrival: her usual answer, when
+he addressed her, was--"I can't attend to you; I have other things to
+think about." Being implored to state _what_ things:
+
+"Business."
+
+Graham would endeavour to seduce her attention by opening his desk and
+displaying its multifarious contents: seals, bright sticks of wax,
+pen-knives, with a miscellany of engravings--some of them gaily
+coloured--which he had amassed from time to time. Nor was this powerful
+temptation wholly unavailing: her eyes, furtively raised from her work,
+cast many a peep towards the writing-table, rich in scattered pictures.
+An etching of a child playing with a Blenheim spaniel happened to
+flutter to the floor.
+
+"Pretty little dog!" said she, delighted.
+
+Graham prudently took no notice. Ere long, stealing from her corner,
+she approached to examine the treasure more closely. The dog's great
+eyes and long ears, and the child's hat and feathers, were irresistible.
+
+"Nice picture!" was her favourable criticism.
+
+"Well--you may have it," said Graham.
+
+She seemed to hesitate. The wish to possess was strong, but to accept
+would be a compromise of dignity. No. She put it down and turned away.
+
+"You won't have it, then, Polly?"
+
+"I would rather not, thank you."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I will do with the picture if you refuse it?"
+
+She half turned to listen.
+
+"Cut it into strips for lighting the taper."
+
+"No!"
+
+"But I shall."
+
+"Please--don't."
+
+Graham waxed inexorable on hearing the pleading tone; he took the
+scissors from his mother's work-basket.
+
+"Here goes!" said he, making a menacing flourish. "Right through Fido's
+head, and splitting little Harry's nose."
+
+"No! _No!_ NO!"
+
+"Then come to me. Come quickly, or it is done."
+
+She hesitated, lingered, but complied.
+
+"Now, will you have it?" he asked, as she stood before him.
+
+"Please."
+
+"But I shall want payment."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A kiss."
+
+"Give the picture first into my hand."
+
+Polly, as she said this, looked rather faithless in her turn. Graham
+gave it. She absconded a debtor, darted to her father, and took refuge
+on his knee. Graham rose in mimic wrath and followed. She buried her
+face in Mr. Home's waistcoat.
+
+"Papa--papa--send him away!"
+
+"I'll not be sent away," said Graham.
+
+With face still averted, she held out her hand to keep him off.
+
+"Then, I shall kiss the hand," said he; but that moment it became a
+miniature fist, and dealt him payment in a small coin that was not
+kisses.
+
+Graham--not failing in his way to be as wily as his little
+playmate--retreated apparently quite discomfited; he flung himself on a
+sofa, and resting his head against the cushion, lay like one in pain.
+Polly, finding him silent, presently peeped at him. His eyes and face
+were covered with his hands. She turned on her father's knee, and gazed
+at her foe anxiously and long. Graham groaned.
+
+"Papa, what is the matter?" she whispered.
+
+"You had better ask him, Polly."
+
+"Is he hurt?" (groan second.)
+
+"He makes a noise as if he were," said Mr. Home.
+
+"Mother," suggested Graham, feebly, "I think you had better send for
+the doctor. Oh my eye!" (renewed silence, broken only by sighs from
+Graham.)
+
+"If I were to become blind----?" suggested this last.
+
+His chastiser could not bear the suggestion. She was beside him
+directly.
+
+"Let me see your eye: I did not mean to touch it, only your mouth; and
+I did not think I hit so _very_ hard."
+
+Silence answered her. Her features worked,--"I am sorry; I am sorry!"
+
+Then succeeded emotion, faltering; weeping.
+
+"Have done trying that child, Graham," said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"It is all nonsense, my pet," cried Mr. Home.
+
+And Graham once more snatched her aloft, and she again punished him;
+and while she pulled his lion's locks, termed him--"The naughtiest,
+rudest, worst, untruest person that ever was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the morning of Mr. Home's departure, he and his daughter had some
+conversation in a window-recess by themselves; I heard part of it.
+
+"Couldn't I pack my box and go with you, papa?" she whispered earnestly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Should I be a trouble to you?"
+
+"Yes, Polly."
+
+"Because I am little?"
+
+"Because you are little and tender. It is only great, strong people
+that should travel. But don't look sad, my little girl; it breaks my
+heart. Papa, will soon come back to his Polly."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I am not sad, scarcely at all."
+
+"Polly would be sorry to give papa pain; would she not?"
+
+"Sorrier than sorry."
+
+"Then Polly must be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards.
+She must look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy meanwhile.
+Can she do this?"
+
+"She will try."
+
+"I see she will. Farewell, then. It is time to go."
+
+"_Now_?--just _now_?
+
+"Just now."
+
+She held up quivering lips. Her father sobbed, but she, I remarked, did
+not. Having put her down, he shook hands with the rest present, and
+departed.
+
+When the street-door closed, she dropped on her knees at a chair with a
+cry--"Papa!"
+
+It was low and long; a sort of "Why hast thou forsaken me?" During an
+ensuing space of some minutes, I perceived she endured agony. She went
+through, in that brief interval of her infant life, emotions such as
+some never feel; it was in her constitution: she would have more of
+such instants if she lived. Nobody spoke. Mrs. Bretton, being a mother,
+shed a tear or two. Graham, who was writing, lifted up his eyes and
+gazed at her. I, Lucy Snowe, was calm.
+
+The little creature, thus left unharassed, did for herself what none
+other could do--contended with an intolerable feeling; and, ere long,
+in some degree, repressed it. That day she would accept solace from
+none; nor the next day: she grew more passive afterwards.
+
+On the third evening, as she sat on the floor, worn and quiet, Graham,
+coming in, took her up gently, without a word. She did not resist: she
+rather nestled in his arms, as if weary. When he sat down, she laid her
+head against him; in a few minutes she slept; he carried her upstairs
+to bed. I was not surprised that, the next morning, the first thing she
+demanded was, "Where is Mr. Graham?"
+
+It happened that Graham was not coming to the breakfast-table; he had
+some exercises to write for that morning's class, and had requested his
+mother to send a cup of tea into the study. Polly volunteered to carry
+it: she must be busy about something, look after somebody. The cup was
+entrusted to her; for, if restless, she was also careful. As the study
+was opposite the breakfast-room, the doors facing across the passage,
+my eye followed her.
+
+"What are you doing?" she asked, pausing on the threshold.
+
+"Writing," said Graham.
+
+"Why don't you come to take breakfast with your mamma?"
+
+"Too busy."
+
+"Do you want any breakfast?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"There, then."
+
+And she deposited the cup on the carpet, like a jailor putting a
+prisoner's pitcher of water through his cell-door, and retreated.
+Presently she returned.
+
+"What will you have besides tea--what to eat?"
+
+"Anything good. Bring me something particularly nice; that's a kind
+little woman."
+
+She came back to Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Please, ma'am, send your boy something good."
+
+"You shall choose for him, Polly; what shall my boy have?"
+
+She selected a portion of whatever was best on the table; and, ere
+long, came back with a whispered request for some marmalade, which was
+not there. Having got it, however, (for Mrs. Bretton refused the pair
+nothing), Graham was shortly after heard lauding her to the skies;
+promising that, when he had a house of his own, she should be his
+housekeeper, and perhaps--if she showed any culinary genius--his cook;
+and, as she did not return, and I went to look after her, I found
+Graham and her breakfasting _tete-a-tete_--she standing at his elbow,
+and sharing his fare: excepting the marmalade, which she delicately
+refused to touch, lest, I suppose, it should appear that she had
+procured it as much on her own account as his. She constantly evinced
+these nice perceptions and delicate instincts.
+
+The league of acquaintanceship thus struck up was not hastily
+dissolved; on the contrary, it appeared that time and circumstances
+served rather to cement than loosen it. Ill-assimilated as the two were
+in age, sex, pursuits, &c., they somehow found a great deal to say to
+each other. As to Paulina, I observed that her little character never
+properly came out, except with young Bretton. As she got settled, and
+accustomed to the house, she proved tractable enough with Mrs. Bretton;
+but she would sit on a stool at that lady's feet all day long, learning
+her task, or sewing, or drawing figures with a pencil on a slate, and
+never kindling once to originality, or showing a single gleam of the
+peculiarities of her nature. I ceased to watch her under such
+circumstances: she was not interesting. But the moment Graham's knock
+sounded of an evening, a change occurred; she was instantly at the head
+of the staircase. Usually her welcome was a reprimand or a threat.
+
+"You have not wiped your shoes properly on the mat. I shall tell your
+mamma."
+
+"Little busybody! Are you there?"
+
+"Yes--and you can't reach me: I am higher up than you" (peeping between
+the rails of the banister; she could not look over them).
+
+"Polly!"
+
+"My dear boy!" (such was one of her terms for him, adopted in imitation
+of his mother.)
+
+"I am fit to faint with fatigue," declared Graham, leaning against the
+passage-wall in seeming exhaustion. "Dr. Digby" (the headmaster) "has
+quite knocked me up with overwork. Just come down and help me to carry
+up my books."
+
+"Ah! you're cunning!"
+
+"Not at all, Polly--it is positive fact. I'm as weak as a rush. Come
+down."
+
+"Your eyes are quiet like the cat's, but you'll spring."
+
+"Spring? Nothing of the kind: it isn't in me. Come down."
+
+"Perhaps I may--if you'll promise not to touch--not to snatch me up,
+and not to whirl me round."
+
+"I? I couldn't do it!" (sinking into a chair.)
+
+"Then put the books down on the first step, and go three yards off"
+
+This being done, she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from the
+feeble Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new and
+spasmodic life: the game of romps was sure to be exacted. Sometimes she
+would be angry; sometimes the matter was allowed to pass smoothly, and
+we could hear her say as she led him up-stairs: "Now, my dear boy, come
+and take your tea--I am sure you must want something."
+
+It was sufficiently comical to observe her as she sat beside Graham,
+while he took that meal. In his absence she was a still personage, but
+with him the most officious, fidgety little body possible. I often
+wished she would mind herself and be tranquil; but no--herself was
+forgotten in him: he could not be sufficiently well waited on, nor
+carefully enough looked after; he was more than the Grand Turk in her
+estimation. She would gradually assemble the various plates before him,
+and, when one would suppose all he could possibly desire was within his
+reach, she would find out something else: "Ma'am," she would whisper to
+Mrs. Bretton,--"perhaps your son would like a little cake--sweet cake,
+you know--there is some in there" (pointing to the sideboard cupboard).
+Mrs. Bretton, as a rule, disapproved of sweet cake at tea, but still
+the request was urged,--"One little piece--only for him--as he goes to
+school: girls--such as me and Miss Snowe--don't need treats, but _he_
+would like it."
+
+Graham did like it very well, and almost always got it. To do him
+justice, he would have shared his prize with her to whom he owed it;
+but that was never allowed: to insist, was to ruffle her for the
+evening. To stand by his knee, and monopolize his talk and notice, was
+the reward she wanted--not a share of the cake.
+
+With curious readiness did she adapt herself to such themes as
+interested him. One would have thought the child had no mind or life of
+her own, but must necessarily live, move, and have her being in
+another: now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to Graham,
+and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence. She
+learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a trice: she got by heart
+their characters as given from his lips: a single description of an
+individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused identities:
+she would talk with him the whole evening about people she had never
+seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect, manners, and
+dispositions. Some she learned to mimic: an under-master, who was an
+aversion of young Bretton's, had, it seems, some peculiarities, which
+she caught up in a moment from Graham's representation, and rehearsed
+for his amusement; this, however, Mrs. Bretton disapproved and forbade.
+
+The pair seldom quarrelled; yet once a rupture occurred, in which her
+feelings received a severe shock.
+
+One day Graham, on the occasion of his birthday, had some friends--lads
+of his own age--to dine with him. Paulina took much interest in the
+coming of these friends; she had frequently heard of them; they were
+amongst those of whom Graham oftenest spoke. After dinner, the young
+gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, where they soon
+became very merry and made a good deal of noise. Chancing to pass
+through the hall, I found Paulina sitting alone on the lowest step of
+the staircase, her eyes fixed on the glossy panels of the dining-room
+door, where the reflection of the hall-lamp was shining; her little
+brow knit in anxious, meditation.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Polly?"
+
+"Nothing particular; only I wish that door was clear glass--that I
+might see through it. The boys seem very cheerful, and I want to go to
+them: I want to be with Graham, and watch his friends."
+
+"What hinders you from going?"
+
+"I feel afraid: but may I try, do you think? May I knock at the door,
+and ask to be let in?"
+
+I thought perhaps they might not object to have her as a playmate, and
+therefore encouraged the attempt.
+
+She knocked--too faintly at first to be heard, but on a second essay
+the door unclosed; Graham's head appeared; he looked in high spirits,
+but impatient.
+
+"What do you want, you little monkey?"
+
+"To come to you."
+
+"Do you indeed? As if I would be troubled with you! Away to mamma and
+Mistress Snowe, and tell them to put you to bed." The auburn head and
+bright flushed face vanished,--the door shut peremptorily. She was
+stunned.
+
+"Why does he speak so? He never spoke so before," she said in
+consternation. "What have I done?"
+
+"Nothing, Polly; but Graham is busy with his school-friends."
+
+"And he likes them better than me! He turns me away now they are here!"
+
+I had some thoughts of consoling her, and of improving the occasion by
+inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a
+tolerable stock ready for application. She stopped me, however, by
+putting her fingers in her ears at the first words I uttered, and then
+lying down on the mat with her face against the flags; nor could either
+Warren or the cook root her from that position: she was allowed to lie,
+therefore, till she chose to rise of her own accord.
+
+Graham forgot his impatience the same evening, and would have accosted
+her as usual when his friends were gone, but she wrenched herself from
+his hand; her eye quite flashed; she would not bid him good-night; she
+would not look in his face. The next day he treated her with
+indifference, and she grew like a bit of marble. The day after, he
+teased her to know what was the matter; her lips would not unclose. Of
+course he could not feel real anger on his side: the match was too
+unequal in every way; he tried soothing and coaxing. "Why was she so
+angry? What had he done?" By-and-by tears answered him; he petted her,
+and they were friends. But she was one on whom such incidents were not
+lost: I remarked that never after this rebuff did she seek him, or
+follow him, or in any way solicit his notice. I told her once to carry
+a book or some other article to Graham when he was shut up in his study.
+
+"I shall wait till he comes out," said she, proudly; "I don't choose to
+give him the trouble of rising to open the door."
+
+Young Bretton had a favourite pony on which he often rode out; from the
+window she always watched his departure and return. It was her ambition
+to be permitted to have a ride round the courtyard on this pony; but
+far be it from her to ask such a favour. One day she descended to the
+yard to watch him dismount; as she leaned against the gate, the longing
+wish for the indulgence of a ride glittered in her eye.
+
+"Come, Polly, will you have a canter?" asked Graham, half carelessly.
+
+I suppose she thought he was _too_ careless.
+
+"No, thank you," said she, turning away with the utmost coolness.
+
+"You'd better," pursued he. "You will like it, I am sure."
+
+"Don't think I should care a fig about it," was the response.
+
+"That is not true. You told Lucy Snowe you longed to have a ride."
+
+"Lucy Snowe is a _tatter_-box," I heard her say (her imperfect
+articulation was the least precocious thing she had about her); and
+with this; she walked into the house.
+
+Graham, coming in soon after, observed to his mother,--"Mamma, I
+believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of
+oddities; but I should be dull without her: she amuses me a great deal
+more than you or Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Miss Snowe," said Paulina to me (she had now got into the habit of
+occasionally chatting with me when we were alone in our room at night),
+"do you know on what day in the week I like Graham best?"
+
+"How can I possibly know anything so strange? Is there one day out of
+the seven when he is otherwise than on the other six?"
+
+"To be sure! Can't you see? Don't you know? I find him the most
+excellent on a Sunday; then we have him the whole day, and he is quiet,
+and, in the evening, _so_ kind."
+
+This observation was not altogether groundless: going to church, &c.,
+kept Graham quiet on the Sunday, and the evening he generally dedicated
+to a serene, though rather indolent sort of enjoyment by the parlour
+fireside. He would take possession of the couch, and then he would call
+Polly.
+
+Graham was a boy not quite as other boys are; all his delight did not
+lie in action: he was capable of some intervals of contemplation; he
+could take a pleasure too in reading, nor was his selection of books
+wholly indiscriminate: there were glimmerings of characteristic
+preference, and even of instinctive taste in the choice. He rarely, it
+is true, remarked on what he read, but I have seen him sit and think of
+it.
+
+Polly, being near him, kneeling on a little cushion or the carpet, a
+conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I
+caught a snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some
+influence better and finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe
+Graham at such times into no ungentle mood.
+
+"Have you learned any hymns this week, Polly?"
+
+"I have learned a very pretty one, four verses long. Shall I say it?"
+
+"Speak nicely, then: don't be in a hurry."
+
+The hymn being rehearsed, or rather half-chanted, in a little singing
+voice, Graham would take exceptions at the manner, and proceed to give
+a lesson in recitation. She was quick in learning, apt in imitating;
+and, besides, her pleasure was to please Graham: she proved a ready
+scholar. To the hymn would succeed some reading--perhaps a chapter in
+the Bible; correction was seldom required here, for the child could
+read any simple narrative chapter very well; and, when the subject was
+such as she could understand and take an interest in, her expression
+and emphasis were something remarkable. Joseph cast into the pit; the
+calling of Samuel; Daniel in the lions' den;--these were favourite
+passages: of the first especially she seemed perfectly to feel the
+pathos.
+
+"Poor Jacob!" she would sometimes say, with quivering lips. "How he
+loved his son Joseph! As much," she once added--"as much, Graham, as I
+love you: if you were to die" (and she re-opened the book, sought the
+verse, and read), "I should refuse to be comforted, and go down into
+the grave to you mourning."
+
+With these words she gathered Graham in her little arms, drawing his
+long-tressed head towards her. The action, I remember, struck me as
+strangely rash; exciting the feeling one might experience on seeing an
+animal dangerous by nature, and but half-tamed by art, too heedlessly
+fondled. Not that I feared Graham would hurt, or very roughly check
+her; but I thought she ran risk of incurring such a careless, impatient
+repulse, as would be worse almost to her than a blow. On the whole,
+however, these demonstrations were borne passively: sometimes even a
+sort of complacent wonder at her earnest partiality would smile not
+unkindly in his eyes. Once he said:--"You like me almost as well as if
+you were my little sister, Polly."
+
+"Oh! I _do_ like you," said she; "I _do_ like you very much."
+
+I was not long allowed the amusement of this study of character. She
+had scarcely been at Bretton two months, when a letter came from Mr.
+Home, signifying that he was now settled amongst his maternal kinsfolk
+on the Continent; that, as England was become wholly distasteful to
+him, he had no thoughts of returning hither, perhaps, for years; and
+that he wished his little girl to join him immediately.
+
+"I wonder how she will take this news?" said Mrs. Bretton, when she had
+read the letter. _I_ wondered, too, and I took upon myself to
+communicate it.
+
+Repairing to the drawing-room--in which calm and decorated apartment
+she was fond of being alone, and where she could be implicitly trusted,
+for she fingered nothing, or rather soiled nothing she fingered--I
+found her seated, like a little Odalisque, on a couch, half shaded by
+the drooping draperies of the window near. She seemed happy; all her
+appliances for occupation were about her; the white wood workbox, a
+shred or two of muslin, an end or two of ribbon collected for
+conversion into doll-millinery. The doll, duly night-capped and
+night-gowned, lay in its cradle; she was rocking it to sleep, with an
+air of the most perfect faith in its possession of sentient and
+somnolent faculties; her eyes, at the same time, being engaged with a
+picture-book, which lay open on her lap.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said she in a whisper, "this is a wonderful book.
+Candace" (the doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed
+complexion gave it much of an Ethiopian aspect)--"Candace is asleep
+now, and I may tell you about it; only we must both speak low, lest she
+should waken. This book was given me by Graham; it tells about distant
+countries, a long, long way from England, which no traveller can reach
+without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild men live in these
+countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from ours: indeed,
+some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of being cool, you
+know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a picture of thousands
+gathered in a desolate place--a plain, spread with sand--round a man in
+black,--a good, _good_ Englishman--a missionary, who is preaching to
+them under a palm-tree." (She showed a little coloured cut to that
+effect.) "And here are pictures" (she went on) "more stranger" (grammar
+was occasionally forgotten) "than that. There is the wonderful Great
+Wall of China; here is a Chinese lady, with a foot littler than mine.
+There is a wild horse of Tartary; and here, most strange of all--is a
+land of ice and snow, without green fields, woods, or gardens. In this
+land, they found some mammoth bones: there are no mammoths now. You
+don't know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me. A
+mighty, goblin creature, as high as this room, and as long as the hall;
+but not a fierce, flesh-eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I
+met one in a forest, it would not kill me, unless I came quite in its
+way; when it would trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread
+on a grasshopper in a hayfield without knowing it."
+
+Thus she rambled on.
+
+"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
+
+"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps in twenty years,
+when I am grown a woman, as tall as Mrs. Bretton, I may travel with
+Graham. We intend going to Switzerland, and climbing Mount Blanck; and
+some day we shall sail over to South America, and walk to the top of
+Kim-kim-borazo."
+
+"But how would you like to travel now, if your papa was with you?"
+
+Her reply--not given till after a pause--evinced one of those
+unexpected turns of temper peculiar to her.
+
+"Where is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "Why do you
+mention papa? What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be happy,
+and not think about him so much; and there it will be all to do over
+again!"
+
+Her lip trembled. I hastened to disclose the fact of a letter having
+been received, and to mention the directions given that she and Harriet
+should immediately rejoin this dear papa. "Now, Polly, are you not
+glad?" I added.
+
+She made no answer. She dropped her book and ceased to rock her doll;
+she gazed at me with gravity and earnestness.
+
+"Shall not you like to go to papa?"
+
+"Of course," she said at last in that trenchant manner she usually
+employed in speaking to me; and which was quite different from that she
+used with Mrs. Bretton, and different again from the one dedicated to
+Graham. I wished to ascertain more of what she thought but no: she
+would converse no more. Hastening to Mrs. Bretton, she questioned her,
+and received the confirmation of my news. The weight and importance of
+these tidings kept her perfectly serious the whole day. In the evening,
+at the moment Graham's entrance was heard below, I found her at my
+side. She began to arrange a locket-ribbon about my neck, she displaced
+and replaced the comb in my hair; while thus busied, Graham entered.
+
+"Tell him by-and-by," she whispered; "tell him I am going."
+
+In the course of tea-time I made the desired communication. Graham, it
+chanced, was at that time greatly preoccupied about some school-prize,
+for which he was competing. The news had to be told twice before it
+took proper hold of his attention, and even then he dwelt on it but
+momently.
+
+"Polly going? What a pity! Dear little Mousie, I shall be sorry to lose
+her: she must come to us again, mamma."
+
+And hastily swallowing his tea, he took a candle and a small table to
+himself and his books, and was soon buried in study.
+
+"Little Mousie" crept to his side, and lay down on the carpet at his
+feet, her face to the floor; mute and motionless she kept that post and
+position till bed-time. Once I saw Graham--wholly unconscious of her
+proximity--push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or two.
+A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face, to
+which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot. When
+summoned by her nurse she rose and departed very obediently, having bid
+us all a subdued good-night.
+
+I will not say that I dreaded going to bed, an hour later; yet I
+certainly went with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that
+child in no peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but
+fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like a
+white bird on the outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost
+her; she was not to be managed like another child. She, however,
+accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the
+dressing-table, she turned to me with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_
+sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!"
+
+I asked what ailed her.
+
+"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
+
+"Shall I call Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I well
+knew that if she had heard Mrs. Bretton's foot approach, she would have
+nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes. Whilst lavishing her
+eccentricities regardlessly before me--for whom she professed scarcely
+the semblance of affection--she never showed my godmother one glimpse
+of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but a docile, somewhat
+quaint little maiden. I examined her; her cheek was crimson; her
+dilated eye was both troubled and glowing, and painfully restless: in
+this state it was obvious she must not be left till morning. I guessed
+how the case stood.
+
+"Would you like to bid Graham good-night again?" I asked. "He is not
+gone to his room yet."
+
+She at once stretched out her little arms to be lifted. Folding a shawl
+round her, I carried her back to the drawing-room. Graham was just
+coming out.
+
+"She cannot sleep without seeing and speaking to you once more," I
+said. "She does not like the thought of leaving you."
+
+"I've spoilt her," said he, taking her from me with good humour, and
+kissing her little hot face and burning lips. "Polly, you care for me
+more than for papa, now--"
+
+"I _do_ care for you, but you care nothing for me," was her whisper.
+
+She was assured to the contrary, again kissed, restored to me, and I
+carried her away; but, alas! not soothed.
+
+When I thought she could listen to me, I said--"Paulina, you should not
+grieve that Graham does not care for you so much as you care for him.
+It must be so."
+
+Her lifted and questioning eyes asked why.
+
+"Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only
+six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise."
+
+"But I love him so much; he _should_ love me a little."
+
+"He does. He is fond of you. You are his favourite."
+
+"Am I Graham's favourite?"
+
+"Yes, more than any little child I know."
+
+The assurance soothed her; she smiled in her anguish.
+
+"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or
+else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over."
+
+"All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be good,
+Lucy Snowe."
+
+I put her to bed.
+
+"Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself. I
+assured her that he would; that as yet he was by no means alienated;
+that she had only to be careful for the future.
+
+"There is no future," said she: "I am going. Shall I ever--ever--see
+him again, after I leave England?"
+
+I returned an encouraging response. The candle being extinguished, a
+still half-hour elapsed. I thought her asleep, when the little white
+shape once more lifted itself in the crib, and the small voice
+asked--"Do you like Graham, Miss Snowe?"
+
+"Like him! Yes, a little."
+
+"Only a little! Do you like him as I do?"
+
+"I think not. No: not as you do."
+
+"Do you like him much?"
+
+"I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so
+very much: he is full of faults."
+
+"Is he?"
+
+"All boys are."
+
+"More than girls?"
+
+"Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anybody perfect; and
+as to likes and dislikes, we should be friendly to all, and worship
+none."
+
+"Are you a wise person?"
+
+"I mean to try to be so. Go to sleep."
+
+"I _cannot_ go to sleep. Have you no pain just here" (laying her elfish
+hand on her elfish breast,) "when you think _you_ shall have to leave
+Graham; for _your_ home is not here?"
+
+"Surely, Polly," said I, "you should not feel so much pain when you are
+very soon going to rejoin your father. Have you forgotten him? Do you
+no longer wish to be his little companion?"
+
+Dead silence succeeded this question.
+
+"Child, lie down and sleep," I urged.
+
+"My bed is cold," said she. "I can't warm it."
+
+I saw the little thing shiver. "Come to me," I said, wishing, yet
+scarcely hoping, that she would comply: for she was a most strange,
+capricious, little creature, and especially whimsical with me. She
+came, however, instantly, like a small ghost gliding over the carpet. I
+took her in. She was chill: I warmed her in my arms. She trembled
+nervously; I soothed her. Thus tranquillized and cherished she at last
+slumbered.
+
+"A very unique child," thought I, as I viewed her sleeping countenance
+by the fitful moonlight, and cautiously and softly wiped her glittering
+eyelids and her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. "How will she get
+through this world, or battle with this life? How will she bear the
+shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which books, and
+my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?"
+
+She departed the next day; trembling like a leaf when she took leave,
+but exercising self-command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MISS MARCHMONT.
+
+
+On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina's
+departure--little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never
+more to tread its calm old streets--I betook myself home, having been
+absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to
+return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no
+harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying
+nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight
+years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still
+as glass--the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to
+heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great
+many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that
+fashion; why not I with the rest?
+
+Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a
+cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes
+indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I
+must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck
+at last. I too well remember a time--a long time--of cold, of danger,
+of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the
+rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure
+on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour
+nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared;
+we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy
+tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In
+fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished.
+
+As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles.
+Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost
+sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way
+of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes
+for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for
+her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock
+undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original
+amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a
+profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were
+understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of
+dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I
+was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion
+were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands
+besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood,
+sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me
+some task I could undertake.
+
+Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome
+residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,
+and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her
+drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss
+Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being
+very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a
+furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long
+affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a
+maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was
+about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for
+me, with the idea that I might supply this person's place. She made the
+proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.
+
+"It will not be an easy life;" said she candidly, "for I require a good
+deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,
+contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear
+tolerable."
+
+I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued inwardly;
+but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live here, in
+this close room, the watcher of suffering--sometimes, perhaps, the butt
+of temper--through all that was to come of my youth; while all that was
+gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully! My heart sunk one
+moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself to _realise_ evils,
+I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_, and consequently to exaggerate
+them.
+
+"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
+observed.
+
+"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out creature."
+
+So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,
+hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The
+blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life's
+sources.
+
+"What else have you in view--anything?"
+
+"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."
+
+"So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and
+if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be
+left open to you for three months."
+
+This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was
+speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the
+necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time
+she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed between us. I,
+for my part, had learned from the manner in which she bore this attack,
+that she was a firm, patient woman (patient under physical pain, though
+sometimes perhaps excitable under long mental canker); and she, from
+the good-will with which I succoured her, discovered that she could
+influence my sympathies (such as they were). She sent for me the next
+day; for five or six successive days she claimed my company. Closer
+acquaintance, while it developed both faults and eccentricities,
+opened, at the same time, a view of a character I could respect. Stern
+and even morose as she sometimes was, I could wait on her and sit
+beside her with that calm which always blesses us when we are sensible
+that our manners, presence, contact, please and soothe the persons we
+serve. Even when she scolded me--which she did, now and then, very
+tartly--it was in such a way as did not humiliate, and left no sting;
+it was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter, than a
+harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture, indeed, she could not,
+though she could occasionally storm. Moreover, a vein of reason ever
+ran through her passion: she was logical even when fierce. Ere long a
+growing sense of attachment began to present the thought of staying
+with her as companion in quite a new light; in another week I had
+agreed to remain.
+
+Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my
+mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty--her pain, my
+suffering--her relief, my hope--her anger, my punishment--her regard,
+my reward. I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an
+ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick
+chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became
+narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I
+demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than the
+tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the
+originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues, I
+will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her
+feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these things I
+clung to her.
+
+For these things I would have crawled on with her for twenty years, if
+for twenty years longer her life of endurance had been protracted. But
+another decree was written. It seemed I must be stimulated into action.
+I must be goaded, driven, stung, forced to energy. My little morsel of
+human affection, which I prized as if it were a solid pearl, must melt
+in my fingers and slip thence like a dissolving hailstone. My small
+adopted duty must be snatched from my easily contented conscience. I
+had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies
+by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains. Fate would
+not so be pacified; nor would Providence sanction this shrinking sloth
+and cowardly indolence.
+
+One February night--I remember it well--there came a voice near Miss
+Marchmont's house, heard by every inmate, but translated, perhaps, only
+by one. After a calm winter, storms were ushering in the spring. I had
+put Miss Marchmont to bed; I sat at the fireside sewing. The wind was
+wailing at the windows; it had wailed all day; but, as night deepened,
+it took a new tone--an accent keen, piercing, almost articulate to the
+ear; a plaint, piteous and disconsolate to the nerves, trilled in every
+gust.
+
+"Oh, hush! hush!" I said in my disturbed mind, dropping my work, and
+making a vain effort to stop my ears against that subtle, searching
+cry. I had heard that very voice ere this, and compulsory observation
+had forced on me a theory as to what it boded. Three times in the
+course of my life, events had taught me that these strange accents in
+the storm--this restless, hopeless cry--denote a coming state of the
+atmosphere unpropitious to life. Epidemic diseases, I believed, were
+often heralded by a gasping, sobbing, tormented, long-lamenting east
+wind. Hence, I inferred, arose the legend of the Banshee. I fancied,
+too, I had noticed--but was not philosopher enough to know whether
+there was any connection between the circumstances--that we often at
+the same time hear of disturbed volcanic action in distant parts of the
+world; of rivers suddenly rushing above their banks; and of strange
+high tides flowing furiously in on low sea-coasts. "Our globe," I had
+said to myself, "seems at such periods torn and disordered; the feeble
+amongst us wither in her distempered breath, rushing hot from steaming
+volcanoes."
+
+I listened and trembled; Miss Marchmont slept.
+
+About midnight, the storm in one half-hour fell to a dead calm. The
+fire, which had been burning dead, glowed up vividly. I felt the air
+change, and become keen. Raising blind and curtain, I looked out, and
+saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost.
+
+Turning away, the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake,
+lifting her head from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
+earnestness.
+
+"Is it a fine night?" she asked.
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"I thought so," she said; "for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I
+feel young to-night," she continued: "young, light-hearted, and happy.
+What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to
+enjoy health? It would be a miracle!"
+
+"And these are not the days of miracles," I thought to myself, and
+wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation to
+the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and personages,
+with singular vividness.
+
+"I love Memory to-night," she said: "I prize her as my best friend. She
+is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my heart,
+in warm and beautiful life, realities--not mere empty ideas, but what
+were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed, dissolved,
+mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours, the thoughts,
+the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life--its only
+love--almost its only affection; for I am not a particularly good
+woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and
+concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its single
+self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are all the
+unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While I loved,
+and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious
+year I can recall--how bright it comes back to me! What a living
+spring--what a warm, glad summer--what soft moonlight, silvering the
+autumn evenings--what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and
+frost-hoar fields of that year's winter! Through that year my heart
+lived with Frank's heart. O my noble Frank--my faithful Frank--my
+_good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard in all things so
+much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered as
+I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a
+far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him:
+it was such a love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than
+it gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me now ask, just at this
+moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let me reflect why it was
+taken from me? For what crime was I condemned, after twelve months of
+bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?
+
+"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_ see
+the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I never
+tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at this
+moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank. I never
+believed it till now."
+
+"He is dead, then?" I inquired in a low voice.
+
+"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and
+decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would
+come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see that
+moment--I see the snow twilight stealing through the window over which
+the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up the
+white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing on my
+silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a glass. I
+see the moon of a calm winter night, float full, clear, and cold, over
+the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my grounds. I
+wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. The
+flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet; the moon was
+mounting high, but she was still visible from the lattice; the clock
+neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but once or twice he had
+been delayed so long.
+
+"Would he for once fail me? No--not even for once; and now he was
+coming--and coming fast--to atone for lost time. 'Frank! you furious
+rider,' I said inwardly, listening gladly, yet anxiously, to his
+approaching gallop, 'you shall be rebuked for this: I will tell you it
+is _my_ neck you are putting in peril; for whatever is yours is, in a
+dearer and tenderer sense, mine.' There he was: I saw him; but I think
+tears were in my eyes, my sight was so confused. I saw the horse; I
+heard it stamp--I saw at least a mass; I heard a clamour. _Was_ it a
+horse? or what heavy, dragging thing was it, crossing, strangely dark,
+the lawn. How could I name that thing in the moonlight before me? or
+how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul?
+
+"I could only run out. A great animal--truly, Frank's black
+horse--stood trembling, panting, snorting before the door; a man held
+it, Frank, as I thought.
+
+"'What is the matter?' I demanded. Thomas, my own servant, answered by
+saying sharply, 'Go into the house, madam.' And then calling to another
+servant, who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by some
+instinct, 'Ruth, take missis into the house directly.' But I was
+kneeling down in the snow, beside something that lay there--something
+that I had seen dragged along the ground--something that sighed, that
+groaned on my breast, as I lifted and drew it to me. He was not dead;
+he was not quite unconscious. I had him carried in; I refused to be
+ordered about and thrust from him. I was quite collected enough, not
+only to be my own mistress but the mistress of others. They had begun
+by trying to treat me like a child, as they always do with people
+struck by God's hand; but I gave place to none except the surgeon; and
+when he had done what he could, I took my dying Frank to myself. He had
+strength to fold me in his arms; he had power to speak my name; he
+heard me as I prayed over him very softly; he felt me as I tenderly and
+fondly comforted him.
+
+"'Maria,' he said, 'I am dying in Paradise.' He spent his last breath
+in faithful words for me. When the dawn of Christmas morning broke, my
+Frank was with God.
+
+"And that," she went on, "happened thirty years ago. I have suffered
+since. I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft,
+amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil
+spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a
+woe-struck and selfish woman."
+
+"You have done much good," I said; for she was noted for her liberal
+almsgiving.
+
+"I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage
+affliction. What of that? It cost me no effort or pang to give. But I
+think from this day I am about to enter a better frame of mind, to
+prepare myself for reunion with Frank. You see I still think of Frank
+more than of God; and unless it be counted that in thus loving the
+creature so much, so long, and so exclusively, I have not at least
+blasphemed the Creator, small is my chance of salvation. What do you
+think, Lucy, of these things? Be my chaplain, and tell me."
+
+This question I could not answer: I had no words. It seemed as if she
+thought I _had_ answered it.
+
+"Very right, my child. We should acknowledge God merciful, but not
+always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it
+be, and try to render happy that of others. Should we not? Well,
+to-morrow I will begin by trying to make you happy. I will endeavour to
+do something for you, Lucy: something that will benefit you when I am
+dead. My head aches now with talking too much; still I am happy. Go to
+bed. The clock strikes two. How late you sit up; or rather how late I,
+in my selfishness, keep you up. But go now; have no more anxiety for
+me; I feel I shall rest well."
+
+She composed herself as if to slumber. I, too, retired to my crib in a
+closet within her room. The night passed in quietness; quietly her doom
+must at last have come: peacefully and painlessly: in the morning she
+was found without life, nearly cold, but all calm and undisturbed. Her
+previous excitement of spirits and change of mood had been the prelude
+of a fit; one stroke sufficed to sever the thread of an existence so
+long fretted by affliction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TURNING A NEW LEAF.
+
+
+My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a
+new place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--shaken
+in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin,
+haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like an
+overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt, however, I
+was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time to
+benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, after
+the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, an
+avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who,
+indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a direct
+contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessed
+to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteen
+pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similar
+condition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regarded
+as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however,
+at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, of
+which the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure
+from my present abode, while with another I was not provided.
+
+In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consult
+an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grand
+mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours with her; she
+comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, I
+left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay before me; it was a
+clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my poverty, and my
+perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youth
+that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light and not
+feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonely
+walk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village nor
+farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence of
+moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim
+path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of that
+which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--the Aurora
+Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise than through
+my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in energy with the
+keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent to my
+mind; my mind was made strong to receive it.
+
+"Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence."
+
+"Where?" was the query.
+
+I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that
+flat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I had
+never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London.
+
+The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the
+housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan.
+
+Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more
+of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did
+not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid
+manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood
+of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve
+with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with an
+excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as a
+dreamer and zealot.
+
+The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she
+prepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window
+and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it
+danced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed, was
+its mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I took
+it on my knee.
+
+Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and I
+had been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady
+of sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower
+class than mine.
+
+I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young
+Mrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the
+good-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and
+maternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change others
+even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was changed too,
+though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to recall myself
+to her memory; why should I? She came for her son to accompany her in a
+walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an infant. I only
+mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse, Mrs. Leigh spoke
+French (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly bad
+accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I found
+the woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered volubly in French
+too. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked that
+her young lady had brought that foreign nurse home with her two years
+ago, on her return from a Continental excursion; that she was treated
+almost as well as a governess, and had nothing to do but walk out with
+the baby and chatter French with Master Charles; "and," added Mrs.
+Barrett, "she says there are many Englishwomen in foreign families as
+well placed as she."
+
+I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives
+store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their
+prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my
+old friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn
+in the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former days.
+
+In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than
+the reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My
+means would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and
+also to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it
+as a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, rather
+than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking
+all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil;
+whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever.
+
+Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by:
+my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies
+now, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About
+nine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London.
+
+My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate
+reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I
+had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a
+dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which
+the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of
+clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence of
+more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.
+
+When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others
+waiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never before
+heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I managed
+to understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself and trunk
+safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address. How
+difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In London for
+the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with travelling;
+confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished with either
+experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to act obliged.
+
+Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense,
+however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and
+it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she
+spasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter:
+considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she was
+hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously called
+for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being wholly
+overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young
+lady, when she appeared.
+
+I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and
+smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how they
+had all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its
+mincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce
+attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and
+the circumstances; I shall gain good."
+
+Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and
+subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking,
+black-coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere
+long. I believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a little
+while they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state between
+patronage and politeness.
+
+I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself
+by a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by
+the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible
+oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a
+ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was I
+doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What
+prospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did I
+come? Whither should I go? What should I do?
+
+I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark
+interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not
+regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it. A strong, vague
+persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I
+_could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in
+time open--predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed them
+so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say
+my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and
+lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At
+first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the
+twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: "I lie in the shadow
+of St. Paul's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LONDON.
+
+
+The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and opened
+my curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above my head,
+above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I saw a
+solemn, orbed mass, dark blue and dim--THE DOME. While I looked, my
+inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose;
+I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last
+about to taste life. In that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah's
+gourd.
+
+"I did well to come," I said, proceeding to dress with speed and care.
+"I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but
+a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his
+faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?"
+
+Being dressed, I went down; not travel-worn and exhausted, but tidy and
+refreshed. When the waiter came in with my breakfast, I managed to
+accost him sedately, yet cheerfully; we had ten minutes' discourse, in
+the course of which we became usefully known to each other.
+
+He was a grey-haired, elderly man; and, it seemed, had lived in his
+present place twenty years. Having ascertained this, I was sure he must
+remember my two uncles, Charles and Wilmot, who, fifteen, years ago,
+were frequent visitors here. I mentioned their names; he recalled them
+perfectly, and with respect. Having intimated my connection, my
+position in his eyes was henceforth clear, and on a right footing. He
+said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke truth, because
+Mrs. Barrett was accustomed to say the same thing. A ready and obliging
+courtesy now replaced his former uncomfortably doubtful manner;
+henceforth I need no longer be at a loss for a civil answer to a
+sensible question.
+
+The street on which my little sitting-room window looked was narrow,
+perfectly quiet, and not dirty: the few passengers were just such as
+one sees in provincial towns: here was nothing formidable; I felt sure
+I might venture out alone.
+
+Having breakfasted, out I went. Elation and pleasure were in my heart:
+to walk alone in London seemed of itself an adventure. Presently I
+found myself in Paternoster Row--classic ground this. I entered a
+bookseller's shop, kept by one Jones: I bought a little book--a piece
+of extravagance I could ill afford; but I thought I would one day give
+or send it to Mrs. Barrett. Mr. Jones, a dried-in man of business,
+stood behind his desk: he seemed one of the greatest, and I one of the
+happiest of beings.
+
+Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself
+before St. Paul's, I went in; I mounted to the dome: I saw thence
+London, with its river, and its bridges, and its churches; I saw
+antique Westminster, and the green Temple Gardens, with sun upon them,
+and a glad, blue sky, of early spring above; and between them and it,
+not too dense, a cloud of haze.
+
+Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still
+ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got--I know not how--I got into
+the heart of city life. I saw and felt London at last: I got into the
+Strand; I went up Cornhill; I mixed with the life passing along; I
+dared the perils of crossings. To do this, and to do it utterly alone,
+gave me, perhaps an irrational, but a real pleasure. Since those days,
+I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the
+city far better. The city seems so much more in earnest: its business,
+its rush, its roar, are such serious things, sights, and sounds. The
+city is getting its living--the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At
+the West End you may be amused, but in the city you are deeply excited.
+
+Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy
+hunger), I returned, about two o'clock, to my dark, old, and quiet inn.
+I dined on two dishes--a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed
+excellent: how much better than the small, dainty messes Miss
+Marchmont's cook used to send up to my kind, dead mistress and me, and
+to the discussion of which we could not bring half an appetite between
+us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an hour (the
+room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two
+hours.
+
+My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now
+such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and
+daring--perhaps desperate--line of action. I had nothing to lose.
+Unutterable loathing of a desolate existence past, forbade return. If I
+failed in what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would
+suffer? If I died far away from--home, I was going to say, but I had no
+home--from England, then, who would weep?
+
+I might suffer; I was inured to suffering: death itself had not, I
+thought, those terrors for me which it has for the softly reared. I
+had, ere this, looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye.
+Prepared, then, for any consequences, I formed a project.
+
+That same evening I obtained from my friend, the waiter, information
+respecting, the sailing of vessels for a certain continental port,
+Boue-Marine. No time, I found, was to be lost: that very night I must
+take my berth. I might, indeed, have waited till the morning before
+going on board, but would not run the risk of being too late.
+
+"Better take your berth at once, ma'am," counselled the waiter. I
+agreed with him, and having discharged my bill, and acknowledged my
+friend's services at a rate which I now know was princely, and which in
+his eyes must have seemed absurd--and indeed, while pocketing the cash,
+he smiled a faint smile which intimated his opinion of the donor's
+_savoir-faire_--he proceeded to call a coach. To the driver he also
+recommended me, giving at the same time an injunction about taking me,
+I think, to the wharf, and not leaving me to the watermen; which that
+functionary promised to observe, but failed in keeping his promise: on
+the contrary, he offered me up as an oblation, served me as a dripping
+roast, making me alight in the midst of a throng of watermen.
+
+This was an uncomfortable crisis. It was a dark night. The coachman
+instantly drove off as soon as he had got his fare: the watermen
+commenced a struggle for me and my trunk. Their oaths I hear at this
+moment: they shook my philosophy more than did the night, or the
+isolation, or the strangeness of the scene. One laid hands on my trunk.
+I looked on and waited quietly; but when another laid hands on me, I
+spoke up, shook off his touch, stepped at once into a boat, desired
+austerely that the trunk should be placed beside me--"Just
+there,"--which was instantly done; for the owner of the boat I had
+chosen became now an ally: I was rowed off.
+
+Black was the river as a torrent of ink; lights glanced on it from the
+piles of building round, ships rocked on its bosom. They rowed me up to
+several vessels; I read by lantern-light their names painted in great
+white letters on a dark ground. "The Ocean," "The Phoenix," "The
+Consort," "The Dolphin," were passed in turns; but "The Vivid" was my
+ship, and it seemed she lay further down.
+
+Down the sable flood we glided, I thought of the Styx, and of Charon
+rowing some solitary soul to the Land of Shades. Amidst the strange
+scene, with a chilly wind blowing in my face and midnight clouds
+dropping rain above my head; with two rude rowers for companions, whose
+insane oaths still tortured my ear, I asked myself if I was wretched or
+terrified. I was neither. Often in my life have I been far more so
+under comparatively safe circumstances. "How is this?" said I.
+"Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and
+apprehensive?" I could not tell how it was.
+
+"THE VIVID" started out, white and glaring, from the black night at
+last.--"Here you are!" said the waterman, and instantly demanded six
+shillings.
+
+"You ask too much," I said. He drew off from the vessel and swore he
+would not embark me till I paid it. A young man, the steward as I found
+afterwards, was looking over the ship's side; he grinned a smile in
+anticipation of the coming contest; to disappoint him, I paid the
+money. Three times that afternoon I had given crowns where I should
+have given shillings; but I consoled myself with the reflection, "It is
+the price of experience."
+
+"They've cheated you!" said the steward exultingly when I got on board.
+I answered phlegmatically that "I knew it," and went below.
+
+A stout, handsome, and showy woman was in the ladies' cabin. I asked to
+be shown my berth; she looked hard at me, muttered something about its
+being unusual for passengers to come on board at that hour, and seemed
+disposed to be less than civil. What a face she had--so comely--so
+insolent and so selfish!
+
+"Now that I am on board, I shall certainly stay here," was my answer.
+"I will trouble you to show me my berth."
+
+She complied, but sullenly. I took off my bonnet, arranged my things,
+and lay down. Some difficulties had been passed through; a sort of
+victory was won: my homeless, anchorless, unsupported mind had again
+leisure for a brief repose. Till the "Vivid" arrived in harbour, no
+further action would be required of me; but then.... Oh! I could not
+look forward. Harassed, exhausted, I lay in a half-trance.
+
+The stewardess talked all night; not to me but to the young steward,
+her son and her very picture. He passed in and out of the cabin
+continually: they disputed, they quarrelled, they made it up again
+twenty times in the course of the night. She professed to be writing a
+letter home--she said to her father; she read passages of it aloud,
+heeding me no more than a stock--perhaps she believed me asleep.
+Several of these passages appeared to comprise family secrets, and bore
+special reference to one "Charlotte," a younger sister who, from the
+bearing of the epistle, seemed to be on the brink of perpetrating a
+romantic and imprudent match; loud was the protest of this elder lady
+against the distasteful union. The dutiful son laughed his mother's
+correspondence to scorn. She defended it, and raved at him. They were a
+strange pair. She might be thirty-nine or forty, and was buxom and
+blooming as a girl of twenty. Hard, loud, vain and vulgar, her mind and
+body alike seemed brazen and imperishable. I should think, from her
+childhood, she must have lived in public stations; and in her youth
+might very likely have been a barmaid.
+
+Towards morning her discourse ran on a new theme: "the Watsons," a
+certain expected family-party of passengers, known to her, it appeared,
+and by her much esteemed on account of the handsome profit realized in
+their fees. She said, "It was as good as a little fortune to her
+whenever this family crossed."
+
+At dawn all were astir, and by sunrise the passengers came on board.
+Boisterous was the welcome given by the stewardess to the "Watsons,"
+and great was the bustle made in their honour. They were four in
+number, two males and two females. Besides them, there was but one
+other passenger--a young lady, whom a gentlemanly, though
+languid-looking man escorted. The two groups offered a marked contrast.
+The Watsons were doubtless rich people, for they had the confidence of
+conscious wealth in their bearing; the women--youthful both of them,
+and one perfectly handsome, as far as physical beauty went--were
+dressed richly, gaily, and absurdly out of character for the
+circumstances. Their bonnets with bright flowers, their velvet cloaks
+and silk dresses, seemed better suited for park or promenade than for a
+damp packet deck. The men were of low stature, plain, fat, and vulgar;
+the oldest, plainest, greasiest, broadest, I soon found was the
+husband--the bridegroom I suppose, for she was very young--of the
+beautiful girl. Deep was my amazement at this discovery; and deeper
+still when I perceived that, instead of being desperately wretched in
+such a union, she was gay even to giddiness. "Her laughter," I
+reflected, "must be the mere frenzy of despair." And even while this
+thought was crossing my mind, as I stood leaning quiet and solitary
+against the ship's side, she came tripping up to me, an utter stranger,
+with a camp-stool in her hand, and smiling a smile of which the levity
+puzzled and startled me, though it showed a perfect set of perfect
+teeth, she offered me the accommodation of this piece of furniture. I
+declined it of course, with all the courtesy I could put into my
+manner; she danced off heedless and lightsome. She must have been
+good-natured; but what had made her marry that individual, who was at
+least as much like an oil-barrel as a man?
+
+The other lady passenger, with the gentleman-companion, was quite a
+girl, pretty and fair: her simple print dress, untrimmed straw-bonnet
+and large shawl, gracefully worn, formed a costume plain to quakerism:
+yet, for her, becoming enough. Before the gentleman quitted her, I
+observed him throwing a glance of scrutiny over all the passengers, as
+if to ascertain in what company his charge would be left. With a most
+dissatisfied air did his eye turn from the ladies with the gay flowers;
+he looked at me, and then he spoke to his daughter, niece, or whatever
+she was: she also glanced in my direction, and slightly curled her
+short, pretty lip. It might be myself, or it might be my homely
+mourning habit, that elicited this mark of contempt; more likely, both.
+A bell rang; her father (I afterwards knew that it was her father)
+kissed her, and returned to land. The packet sailed.
+
+Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to
+travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of
+English parents and guardians. As for the "jeunes Meess," by some their
+intrepidity is pronounced masculine and "inconvenant," others regard
+them as the passive victims of an educational and theological system
+which wantonly dispenses with proper "surveillance." Whether this
+particular young lady was of the sort that can the most safely be left
+unwatched, I do not know: or, rather did not _then_ know; but it soon
+appeared that the dignity of solitude was not to her taste. She paced
+the deck once or twice backwards and forwards; she looked with a little
+sour air of disdain at the flaunting silks and velvets, and the bears
+which thereon danced attendance, and eventually she approached me and
+spoke.
+
+"Are you fond of a sea-voyage?" was her question.
+
+I explained that my _fondness_ for a sea-voyage had yet to undergo the
+test of experience; I had never made one.
+
+"Oh, how charming!" cried she. "I quite envy you the novelty: first
+impressions, you know, are so pleasant. Now I have made so many, I
+quite forget the first: I am quite _blasee_ about the sea and all that."
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+"Why do you laugh at me?" she inquired, with a frank testiness that
+pleased me better than her other talk.
+
+"Because you are so young to be _blasee_ about anything."
+
+"I am seventeen" (a little piqued).
+
+"You hardly look sixteen. Do you like travelling alone?"
+
+"Bah! I care nothing about it. I have crossed the Channel ten times,
+alone; but then I take care never to be long alone: I always make
+friends."
+
+"You will scarcely make many friends this voyage, I think" (glancing at
+the Watson-group, who were now laughing and making a great deal of
+noise on deck).
+
+"Not of those odious men and women," said she: "such people should be
+steerage passengers. Are you going to school?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have not the least idea--beyond, at least, the port of Boue-Marine."
+
+She stared, then carelessly ran on:
+
+"I am going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been at
+in my life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing--nothing in
+the world--I assure you; except that I play and dance beautifully,--and
+French and German of course I know, to speak; but I can't read or write
+them very well. Do you know they wanted me to translate a page of an
+easy German book into English the other day, and I couldn't do it. Papa
+was so mortified: he says it looks as if M. de Bassompierre--my
+godpapa, who pays all my school-bills--had thrown away all his money.
+And then, in matters of information--in history, geography, arithmetic,
+and so on, I am quite a baby; and I write English so badly--such
+spelling and grammar, they tell me. Into the bargain I have quite
+forgotten my religion; they call me a Protestant, you know, but really
+I am not sure whether I am one or not: I don't well know the difference
+between Romanism and Protestantism. However, I don't in the least care
+for that. I was a Lutheran once at Bonn--dear Bonn!--charming
+Bonn!--where there were so many handsome students. Every nice girl in
+our school had an admirer; they knew our hours for walking out, and
+almost always passed us on the promenade: 'Schoenes Maedchen,' we used to
+hear them say. I was excessively happy at Bonn!"
+
+"And where are you now?" I inquired.
+
+"Oh! at--_chose_," said she.
+
+Now, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe (such was this young person's name) only
+substituted this word "_chose_" in temporary oblivion of the real name.
+It was a habit she had: "_chose_" came in at every turn in her
+conversation--the convenient substitute for any missing word in any
+language she might chance at the time to be speaking. French girls
+often do the like; from them she had caught the custom. "_Chose_,"
+however, I found in this instance, stood for Villette--the great
+capital of the great kingdom of Labassecour.
+
+"Do you like Villette?" I asked.
+
+"Pretty well. The natives, you know, are intensely stupid and vulgar;
+but there are some nice English families."
+
+"Are you in a school?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A good one?"
+
+"Oh, no! horrid: but I go out every Sunday, and care nothing about the
+_maitresses_ or the _professeurs_, or the _eleves_, and send lessons
+_au diable_ (one daren't say that in English, you know, but it sounds
+quite right in French); and thus I get on charmingly.... You are
+laughing at me again?"
+
+"No--I am only smiling at my own thoughts."
+
+"What are they?" (Without waiting for an answer)--"Now, _do_ tell me
+where you are going."
+
+"Where Fate may lead me. My business is to earn a living where I can
+find it."
+
+"To earn!" (in consternation) "are you poor, then?"
+
+"As poor as Job."
+
+(After a pause)--"Bah! how unpleasant! But _I_ know what it is to be
+poor: they are poor enough at home--papa and mamma, and all of them.
+Papa is called Captain Fanshawe; he is an officer on half-pay, but
+well-descended, and some of our connections are great enough; but my
+uncle and godpapa De Bassompierre, who lives in France, is the only one
+that helps us: he educates us girls. I have five sisters and three
+brothers. By-and-by we are to marry--rather elderly gentlemen, I
+suppose, with cash: papa and mamma manage that. My sister Augusta is
+married now to a man much older-looking than papa. Augusta is very
+beautiful--not in my style--but dark; her husband, Mr. Davies, had the
+yellow fever in India, and he is still the colour of a guinea; but then
+he is rich, and Augusta has her carriage and establishment, and we all
+think she has done perfectly well. Now, this is better than 'earning a
+living,' as you say. By the way, are you clever?"
+
+"No--not at all."
+
+"You can play, sing, speak three or four languages?"
+
+"By no means."
+
+"Still I think you are clever" (a pause and a yawn).
+
+"Shall you be sea-sick?"
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"Oh, immensely! as soon as ever we get in sight of the sea: I begin,
+indeed, to feel it already. I shall go below; and won't I order about
+that fat odious stewardess! Heureusement je sais faire aller mon monde."
+
+Down she went.
+
+It was not long before the other passengers followed her: throughout
+the afternoon I remained on deck alone. When I recall the tranquil, and
+even happy mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at the
+same time, the position in which I was placed; its hazardous--some
+would have said its hopeless--character; I feel that, as--
+
+  Stone walls do not a prison make,
+  Nor iron bars--a cage,
+
+so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so
+long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long,
+especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her
+star.
+
+I was not sick till long after we passed Margate, and deep was the
+pleasure I drank in with the sea-breeze; divine the delight I drew from
+the heaving Channel waves, from the sea-birds on their ridges, from the
+white sails on their dark distance, from the quiet yet beclouded sky,
+overhanging all. In my reverie, methought I saw the continent of
+Europe, like a wide dream-land, far away. Sunshine lay on it, making
+the long coast one line of gold; tiniest tracery of clustered town and
+snow-gleaming tower, of woods deep massed, of heights serrated, of
+smooth pasturage and veiny stream, embossed the metal-bright prospect.
+For background, spread a sky, solemn and dark blue, and--grand with
+imperial promise, soft with tints of enchantment--strode from north to
+south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope.
+
+Cancel the whole of that, if you please, reader--or rather let it
+stand, and draw thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy--
+
+  Day-dreams are delusions of the demon.
+
+Becoming excessively sick, I faltered down into the cabin.
+
+Miss Fanshawe's berth chanced to be next mine; and, I am sorry to say,
+she tormented me with an unsparing selfishness during the whole time of
+our mutual distress. Nothing could exceed her impatience and
+fretfulness. The Watsons, who were very sick too, and on whom the
+stewardess attended with shameless partiality, were stoics compared
+with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra
+Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of
+beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in adversity,
+like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman for his
+wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all sunshine.
+Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly requested her
+"to hold her tongue." The rebuff did her good, and it was observable
+that she liked me no worse for it.
+
+As dark night drew on, the sea roughened: larger waves swayed strong
+against the vessel's side. It was strange to reflect that blackness and
+water were round us, and to feel the ship ploughing straight on her
+pathless way, despite noise, billow, and rising gale. Articles of
+furniture began to fall about, and it became needful to lash them to
+their places; the passengers grew sicker than ever; Miss Fanshawe
+declared, with groans, that she must die.
+
+"Not just yet, honey," said the stewardess. "We're just in port."
+Accordingly, in another quarter of an hour, a calm fell upon us all;
+and about midnight the voyage ended.
+
+I was sorry: yes, I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my
+difficulties--my stringent difficulties--recommenced. When I went on
+deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me for
+my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign sea-port
+town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like unnumbered
+threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the Watsons; a whole
+family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss Fanshawe; I--but I
+dared not for one moment dwell on a comparison of positions.
+
+Yet where should I go? I must go somewhere. Necessity dare not be nice.
+As I gave the stewardess her fee--and she seemed surprised at receiving
+a coin of more value than, from such a quarter, her coarse calculations
+had probably reckoned on--I said, "Be kind enough to direct me to some
+quiet, respectable inn, where I can go for the night."
+
+She not only gave me the required direction, but called a
+commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and--_not_ my trunk, for
+that was gone to the custom-house.
+
+I followed this man along a rudely-paved street, lit now by a fitful
+gleam of moonlight; he brought me to the inn. I offered him sixpence,
+which he refused to take; supposing it not enough, I changed it for a
+shilling; but this also he declined, speaking rather sharply, in a
+language to me unknown. A waiter, coming forward into the lamp-lit
+inn-passage, reminded me, in broken English, that my money was foreign
+money, not current here. I gave him a sovereign to change. This little
+matter settled, I asked for a bedroom; supper I could not take: I was
+still sea-sick and unnerved, and trembling all over. How deeply glad I
+was when the door of a very small chamber at length closed on me and my
+exhaustion. Again I might rest: though the cloud of doubt would be as
+thick to-morrow as ever; the necessity for exertion more urgent, the
+peril (of destitution) nearer, the conflict (for existence) more severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+VILLETTE.
+
+
+I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed:
+physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt
+and clear.
+
+Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: I said, "Come in,"
+expecting the chambermaid, whereas a rough man walked in and said,--
+
+"Gif me your keys, Meess."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Gif!" said he impatiently; and as he half-snatched them from my hand,
+he added, "All right! haf your tronc soon."
+
+Fortunately it did turn out all right: he was from the custom-house.
+Where to go to get some breakfast I could not tell; but I proceeded,
+not without hesitation, to descend.
+
+I now observed, what I had not noticed in my extreme weariness last
+night, viz. that this inn was, in fact, a large hotel; and as I slowly
+descended the broad staircase, halting on each step (for I was in
+wonderfully little haste to get down), I gazed at the high ceiling
+above me, at the painted walls around, at the wide windows which filled
+the house with light, at the veined marble I trod (for the steps were
+all of marble, though uncarpeted and not very clean), and contrasting
+all this with the dimensions of the closet assigned to me as a chamber,
+with the extreme modesty of its appointments, I fell into a
+philosophizing mood.
+
+Much I marvelled at the sagacity evinced by waiters and chamber-maids
+in proportioning the accommodation to the guest. How could inn-servants
+and ship-stewardesses everywhere tell at a glance that I, for instance,
+was an individual of no social significance, and little burdened by
+cash? They _did_ know it evidently: I saw quite well that they all, in
+a moment's calculation, estimated me at about the same fractional
+value. The fact seemed to me curious and pregnant: I would not disguise
+from myself what it indicated, yet managed to keep up my spirits pretty
+well under its pressure.
+
+Having at last landed in a great hall, full of skylight glare, I made
+my way somehow to what proved to be the coffee-room. It cannot be
+denied that on entering this room I trembled somewhat; felt uncertain,
+solitary, wretched; wished to Heaven I knew whether I was doing right
+or wrong; felt convinced that it was the last, but could not help
+myself. Acting in the spirit and with the calm of a fatalist, I sat
+down at a small table, to which a waiter presently brought me some
+breakfast; and I partook of that meal in a frame of mind not greatly
+calculated to favour digestion. There were many other people
+breakfasting at other tables in the room; I should have felt rather
+more happy if amongst them all I could have seen any women; however,
+there was not one--all present were men. But nobody seemed to think I
+was doing anything strange; one or two gentlemen glanced at me
+occasionally, but none stared obtrusively: I suppose if there was
+anything eccentric in the business, they accounted for it by this word
+"Anglaise!"
+
+Breakfast over, I must again move--in what direction? "Go to Villette,"
+said an inward voice; prompted doubtless by the recollection of this
+slight sentence uttered carelessly and at random by Miss Fanshawe, as
+she bid me good-by: "I wish you would come to Madame Beck's; she has
+some marmots whom you might look after; she wants an English
+gouvernante, or was wanting one two months ago."
+
+Who Madame Beck was, where she lived, I knew not; I had asked, but the
+question passed unheard: Miss Fanshawe, hurried away by her friends,
+left it unanswered. I presumed Villette to be her residence--to
+Villette I would go. The distance was forty miles. I knew I was
+catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found
+myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. Having inquired about the means
+of travelling to Villette, and secured a seat in the diligence, I
+departed on the strength of this outline--this shadow of a project.
+Before you pronounce on the rashness of the proceeding, reader, look
+back to the point whence I started; consider the desert I had left,
+note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot
+lose and may win.
+
+Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess
+something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present
+pleasure: that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I enjoyed
+that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it
+rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route along which our
+journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid green snakes,
+beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level fields, tilled
+like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was monotonously gray; the
+atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst all these deadening
+influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in sunshine.
+These feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but
+ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a
+tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in
+my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never
+stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down
+to bound ravenous from his ambush.
+
+I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I
+might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw
+round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow
+progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense
+rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by
+the time we gained its suburbs.
+
+I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much
+I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry
+Chaussee, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty
+surface. At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers
+alighted. My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter enough,
+but important to me. Understanding that it was best not to be
+importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly
+the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim
+and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle
+in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which
+piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one, I saw
+these removed, lowered, and seized on.
+
+I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had
+tied on the direction-card with a piece of green ribbon, that I might
+know it at a glance: not a fringe or fragment of green was perceptible.
+Every package was removed; every tin-case and brown-paper parcel; the
+oilcloth cover was lifted; I saw with distinct vision that not an
+umbrella, cloak, cane, hat-box or band-box remained.
+
+And my portmanteau, with my few clothes and little pocket-book
+enclasping the remnant of my fifteen pounds, where were they?
+
+I ask this question now, but I could not ask it then. I could say
+nothing whatever; not possessing a phrase of _speaking_ French: and it
+was French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around
+me. _What_ should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my hand
+on his arm, pointed to a trunk, thence to the  diligence-roof, and
+tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized
+the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle.
+
+"Let that alone--will you?" said a voice in good English; then, in
+correction, "Qu'est-ce que vous faites donc? Cette malle est a moi."
+
+But I had heard the Fatherland accents; they rejoiced my heart; I
+turned: "Sir," said I, appealing to the stranger, without, in my
+distress, noticing what he was like, "I cannot speak French. May I
+entreat you to ask this man what he has done with my trunk?"
+
+Without discriminating, for the moment, what sort of face it was to
+which my eyes were raised and on which they were fixed, I felt in its
+expression half-surprise at my appeal and half-doubt of the wisdom of
+interference.
+
+"_Do_ ask him; I would do as much for you," said I.
+
+I don't know whether he smiled, but he said in a gentlemanly tone--that
+is to say, a tone not hard nor terrifying,--"What sort of trunk was
+yours?"
+
+I described it, including in my description the green ribbon. And
+forthwith he took the conductor under hand, and I felt, through all the
+storm of French which followed, that he raked him fore and aft.
+Presently he returned to me.
+
+"The fellow avers he was overloaded, and confesses that he removed your
+trunk after you saw it put on, and has left it behind at Boue-Marine
+with other parcels; he has promised, however, to forward it to-morrow;
+the day after, therefore, you will find it safe at this bureau."
+
+"Thank you," said I: but my heart sank.
+
+Meantime what should I do? Perhaps this English gentleman saw the
+failure of courage in my face; he inquired kindly, "Have you any
+friends in this city?"
+
+"No, and I don't know where to go."
+
+There was a little pause, in the course of which, as he turned more
+fully to the light of a lamp above him, I saw that he was a young,
+distinguished, and handsome man; he might be a lord, for anything I
+knew: nature had made him good enough for a prince, I thought. His face
+was very pleasant; he looked high but not arrogant, manly but not
+overbearing. I was turning away, in the deep consciousness of all
+absence of claim to look for further help from such a one as he.
+
+"Was all your money in your trunk?" he asked, stopping me.
+
+How thankful was I to be able to answer with truth--"No. I have enough
+in my purse" (for I had near twenty francs) "to keep me at a quiet inn
+till the day after to-morrow; but I am quite a stranger in Villette,
+and don't know the streets and the inns."
+
+"I can give you the address of such an inn as you want," said he; "and
+it is not far off: with my direction you will easily find it."
+
+He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few words and gave it to
+me. I _did_ think him kind; and as to distrusting him, or his advice,
+or his address, I should almost as soon have thought of distrusting the
+Bible. There was goodness in his countenance, and honour in his bright
+eyes.
+
+"Your shortest way will be to follow the Boulevard and cross the park,"
+he continued; "but it is too late and too dark for a woman to go
+through the park alone; I will step with you thus far."
+
+He moved on, and I followed him, through the darkness and the small
+soaking rain. The Boulevard was all deserted, its path miry, the water
+dripping from its trees; the park was black as midnight. In the double
+gloom of trees and fog, I could not see my guide; I could only follow
+his tread. Not the least fear had I: I believe I would have followed
+that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end.
+
+"Now," said he, when the park was traversed, "you will go along this
+broad street till you come to steps; two lamps will show you where they
+are: these steps you will descend: a narrower street lies below;
+following that, at the bottom you will find your inn. They speak
+English there, so your difficulties are now pretty well over.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, sir," said I: "accept my sincerest thanks." And we parted.
+
+The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not
+unbenignant to the friendless--the sound in my ear of his voice, which
+spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the
+youthful and fair--were a sort of cordial to me long after. He was a
+true young English gentleman.
+
+On I went, hurrying fast through a magnificent street and square, with
+the grandest houses round, and amidst them the huge outline of more
+than one overbearing pile; which might be palace or church--I could not
+tell. Just as I passed a portico, two mustachioed men came suddenly
+from behind the pillars; they were smoking cigars: their dress implied
+pretensions to the rank of gentlemen, but, poor things! they were very
+plebeian in soul. They spoke with insolence, and, fast as I walked,
+they kept pace with me a long way. At last I met a sort of patrol, and
+my dreaded hunters were turned from the pursuit; but they had driven me
+beyond my reckoning: when I could collect my faculties, I no longer
+knew where I was; the staircase I must long since have passed. Puzzled,
+out of breath, all my pulses throbbing in inevitable agitation, I knew
+not where to turn. It was terrible to think of again encountering those
+bearded, sneering simpletons; yet the ground must be retraced, and the
+steps sought out.
+
+I came at last to an old and worn flight, and, taking it for granted
+that this must be the one indicated, I descended them. The street into
+which they led was indeed narrow, but it contained no inn. On I
+wandered. In a very quiet and comparatively clean and well-paved
+street, I saw a light burning over the door of a rather large house,
+loftier by a story than those round it. _This_ might be the inn at
+last. I hastened on: my knees now trembled under me: I was getting
+quite exhausted.
+
+No inn was this. A brass-plate embellished the great porte-cochere:
+"Pensionnat de Demoiselles" was the inscription; and beneath, a name,
+"Madame Beck."
+
+I started. About a hundred thoughts volleyed through my mind in a
+moment. Yet I planned nothing, and considered nothing: I had not time.
+Providence said, "Stop here; this is _your_ inn." Fate took me in her
+strong hand; mastered my will; directed my actions: I rang the
+door-bell.
+
+While I waited, I would not reflect. I fixedly looked at the
+street-stones, where the door-lamp shone, and counted them and noted
+their shapes, and the glitter of wet on their angles. I rang again.
+They opened at last. A bonne in a smart cap stood before me.
+
+"May I see Madame Beck?" I inquired.
+
+I believe if I had spoken French she would not have admitted me; but,
+as I spoke English, she concluded I was a foreign teacher come on
+business connected with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour,
+she let me in, without a word of reluctance, or a moment of hesitation.
+
+The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain
+stove, unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on
+the mantel-piece struck nine o'clock.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How
+I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door--a
+great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf
+move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white
+doors were closed and motionless.
+
+"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
+unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.
+
+No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a
+motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a
+clean, trim nightcap.
+
+I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell
+to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck it
+was--she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with
+the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor
+approach)--Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech when
+she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away
+volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood
+me, but as I did not at all understand her--though we made together an
+awful clamour (anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not
+hitherto heard or imagined)--we achieved little progress. She rang, ere
+long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who had
+been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect
+adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse
+was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the
+speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she
+translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on
+extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn
+my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading;
+how I would be a child's-nurse, or a lady's-maid, and would not refuse
+even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and,
+questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear:
+
+"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
+"sont-elles donc intrepides ces femmes la!"
+
+She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me--not pityingly, not
+with interest: never a gleam of sympathy, or a shade of compassion,
+crossed her countenance during the interview. I felt she was not one to
+be led an inch by her feelings: grave and considerate, she gazed,
+consulting her judgment and studying my narrative. A bell rang.
+
+"Voila pour la priere du soir!" said she, and rose. Through her
+interpreter, she desired me to depart now, and come back on the morrow;
+but this did not suit me: I could not bear to return to the perils of
+darkness and the street. With energy, yet with a collected and
+controlled manner, I said, addressing herself personally, and not the
+maitresse: "Be assured, madame, that by instantly securing my services,
+your interests will be served and not injured: you will find me one who
+will wish to give, in her labour, a full equivalent for her wages; and
+if you hire me, it will be better that I should stay here this night:
+having no acquaintance in Villette, and not possessing the language of
+the country, how can I secure a lodging?"
+
+"It is true," said she; "but at least you can give a reference?"
+
+"None."
+
+She inquired after my luggage: I told her when it would arrive. She
+mused. At that moment a man's step was heard in the vestibule, hastily
+proceeding to the outer door. (I shall go on with this part of my tale
+as if I had understood all that passed; for though it was then scarce
+intelligible to me, I heard it translated afterwards).
+
+"Who goes out now?" demanded Madame Beck, listening to the tread.
+
+"M. Paul," replied the teacher. "He came this evening to give a reading
+to the first class."
+
+"The very man I should at this moment most wish to see. Call him."
+
+The teacher ran to the salon door. M. Paul was summoned. He entered: a
+small, dark and spare man, in spectacles.
+
+"Mon cousin," began Madame, "I want your opinion. We know your skill in
+physiognomy; use it now. Read that countenance."
+
+The little man fixed on me his spectacles: A resolute compression of
+the lips, and gathering of the brow, seemed to say that he meant to see
+through me, and that a veil would be no veil for him.
+
+"I read it," he pronounced.
+
+"Et qu'en dites vous?"
+
+"Mais--bien des choses," was the oracular answer.
+
+"Bad or good?"
+
+"Of each kind, without doubt," pursued the diviner.
+
+"May one trust her word?"
+
+"Are you negotiating a matter of importance?"
+
+"She wishes me to engage her as bonne or gouvernante; tells a tale full
+of integrity, but gives no reference."
+
+"She is a stranger?"
+
+"An Englishwoman, as one may see."
+
+"She speaks French?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"She understands it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"One may then speak plainly in her presence?"
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+He gazed steadily. "Do you need her services?"
+
+"I could do with them. You know I am disgusted with Madame Svini."
+
+Still he scrutinized. The judgment, when it at last came, was as
+indefinite as what had gone before it.
+
+"Engage her. If good predominates in that nature, the action will bring
+its own reward; if evil--eh bien! ma cousine, ce sera toujours une
+bonne oeuvre." And with a bow and a "bon soir," this vague arbiter of
+my destiny vanished.
+
+And Madame did engage me that very night--by God's blessing I was
+spared the necessity of passing forth again into the lonesome, dreary,
+hostile street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MADAME BECK.
+
+
+Being delivered into the charge of the maitresse, I was led through a
+long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very
+strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking--neither fireplace
+nor oven; I did not understand that the great black furnace which
+filled one corner, was an efficient substitute for these. Surely pride
+was not already beginning its whispers in my heart; yet I felt a sense
+of relief when, instead of being left in the kitchen, as I half
+anticipated, I was led forward to a small inner room termed a
+"cabinet." A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my
+supper: to wit--some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid,
+but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know
+not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and
+butter, and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was grateful.
+
+After the "priere du soir," Madame herself came to have another look at
+me. She desired me to follow her up-stairs. Through a series of the
+queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been
+nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and through
+the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale,
+against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils--she conducted me to
+an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny beds. A
+heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend
+matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate: a
+perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the
+circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous
+essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.
+
+Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to
+waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad
+striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast
+asleep. To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of
+matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's
+elbow.
+
+Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she
+neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise,
+ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the
+woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to
+be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a
+night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the
+entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was
+discernible through the aperture.
+
+My devotions that night were all thanksgiving. Strangely had I been led
+since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for. Scarcely could I
+believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left London,
+under no other guardianship than that which protects the
+passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of hope.
+
+I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke. All was
+hushed, but a white figure stood in the room--Madame in her
+night-dress. Moving without perceptible sound, she visited the three
+children in the three beds; she approached me: I feigned sleep, and she
+studied me long. A small pantomime ensued, curious enough. I daresay
+she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of my bed, gazing at my face.
+She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly raised my cap, and
+turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked at my hand
+lying on the bedclothes. This done, she turned to the chair where my
+clothes lay: it was at the foot of the bed. Hearing her touch and lift
+them, I opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt curious to see
+how far her taste for research would lead her. It led her a good way:
+every article did she inspect. I divined her motive for this
+proceeding, viz. the wish to form from the garments a judgment
+respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, &c. The end was
+not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable. In my dress was
+a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out: she counted the money in my
+purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused its
+contents, and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of Miss
+Marchmont's grey hair. To a bunch of three keys, being those of my
+trunk, desk, and work-box, she accorded special attention: with these,
+indeed, she withdrew a moment to her own room. I softly rose in my bed
+and followed her with my eye: these keys, reader, were not brought back
+till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining room the impress of
+their wards in wax. All being thus done decently and in order, my
+property was returned to its place, my clothes were carefully refolded.
+Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from this scrutiny? Were
+they favourable or otherwise? Vain question. Madame's face of stone
+(for of stone in its present night aspect it looked: it had been human,
+and, as I said before, motherly, in the salon) betrayed no response.
+
+Her duty done--I felt that in her eyes this business was a duty--she
+rose, noiseless as a shadow: she moved towards her own chamber; at the
+door, she turned, fixing her eye on the heroine of the bottle, who
+still slept and loudly snored. Mrs. Svini (I presume this was Mrs.
+Svini, Anglice or Hibernice, Sweeny)--Mrs. Sweeny's doom was in Madame
+Beck's eye--an immutable purpose that eye spoke: Madame's visitations
+for shortcomings might be slow, but they were sure. All this was very
+un-English: truly I was in a foreign land.
+
+The morrow made me further acquainted with Mrs. Sweeny. It seems she
+had introduced herself to her present employer as an English lady in
+reduced circumstances: a native, indeed, of Middlesex, professing to
+speak the English tongue with the purest metropolitan accent.
+Madame--reliant on her own infallible expedients for finding out the
+truth in time--had a singular intrepidity in hiring service off-hand
+(as indeed seemed abundantly proved in my own case). She received Mrs.
+Sweeny as nursery-governess to her three children. I need hardly
+explain to the reader that this lady was in effect a native of Ireland;
+her station I do not pretend to fix: she boldly declared that she had
+"had the bringing-up of the son and daughter of a marquis." I think
+myself, she might possibly have been a hanger-on, nurse, fosterer, or
+washerwoman, in some Irish family: she spoke a smothered tongue,
+curiously overlaid with mincing cockney inflections. By some means or
+other she had acquired, and now held in possession, a wardrobe of
+rather suspicious splendour--gowns of stiff and costly silk, fitting
+her indifferently, and apparently made for other proportions than those
+they now adorned; caps with real lace borders, and--the chief item in
+the inventory, the spell by which she struck a certain awe through the
+household, quelling the otherwise scornfully disposed teachers and
+servants, and, so long as her broad shoulders _wore_ the folds of that
+majestic drapery, even influencing Madame herself--_a real Indian
+shawl_--"un veritable cachemire," as Madame Beck said, with unmixed
+reverence and amaze. I feel quite sure that without this "cachemire"
+she would not have kept her footing in the pensionnat for two days: by
+virtue of it, and it only, she maintained the same a month.
+
+But when Mrs. Sweeny knew that I was come to fill her shoes, then it
+was that she declared herself--then did she rise on Madame Beck in her
+full power--then come down on me with her concentrated weight. Madame
+bore this revelation and visitation so well, so stoically, that I for
+very shame could not support it otherwise than with composure. For one
+little moment Madame Beck absented herself from the room; ten minutes
+after, an agent of the police stood in the midst of us. Mrs. Sweeny and
+her effects were removed. Madame's brow had not been ruffled during the
+scene--her lips had not dropped one sharply-accented word.
+
+This brisk little affair of the dismissal was all settled before
+breakfast: order to march given, policeman called, mutineer expelled;
+"chambre d'enfans" fumigated and cleansed, windows thrown open, and
+every trace of the accomplished Mrs. Sweeny--even to the fine essence
+and spiritual fragrance which gave token so subtle and so fatal of the
+head and front of her offending--was annihilated from the Rue Fossette:
+all this, I say, was done between the moment of Madame Beck's issuing
+like Aurora from her chamber, and that in which she coolly sat down to
+pour out her first cup of coffee.
+
+About noon, I was summoned to dress Madame. (It appeared my place was
+to be a hybrid between gouvernante and lady's-maid.) Till noon, she
+haunted the house in her wrapping-gown, shawl, and soundless slippers.
+How would the lady-chief of an English school approve this custom?
+
+The dressing of her hair puzzled me; she had plenty of it: auburn,
+unmixed with grey: though she was forty years old. Seeing my
+embarrassment, she said, "You have not been a femme-de-chambre in your
+own country?" And taking the brush from my hand, and setting me aside,
+not ungently or disrespectfully, she arranged it herself. In performing
+other offices of the toilet, she half-directed, half-aided me, without
+the least display of temper or impatience. N.B.--That was the first and
+last time I was required to dress her. Henceforth, on Rosine, the
+portress, devolved that duty.
+
+When attired, Madame Beck appeared a personage of a figure rather short
+and stout, yet still graceful in its own peculiar way; that is, with
+the grace resulting from proportion of parts. Her complexion was fresh
+and sanguine, not too rubicund; her eye, blue and serene; her dark silk
+dress fitted her as a French sempstress alone can make a dress fit; she
+looked well, though a little bourgeoise; as bourgeoise, indeed, she
+was. I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person; and yet her
+face offered contrast, too: its features were by no means such as are
+usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such blended freshness
+and repose: their outline was stern: her forehead was high but narrow;
+it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no expanse; nor did her
+peaceful yet watchful eye ever know the fire which is kindled in the
+heart or the softness which flows thence. Her mouth was hard: it could
+be a little grim; her lips were thin. For sensibility and genius, with
+all their tenderness and temerity, I felt somehow that Madame would be
+the right sort of Minos in petticoats.
+
+In the long run, I found she was something else in petticoats too. Her
+name was Modeste Maria Beck, nee Kint: it ought to have been Ignacia.
+She was a charitable woman, and did a great deal of good. There never
+was a mistress whose rule was milder. I was told that she never once
+remonstrated with the intolerable Mrs. Sweeny, despite her tipsiness,
+disorder, and general neglect; yet Mrs. Sweeny had to go the moment her
+departure became convenient. I was told, too, that neither masters nor
+teachers were found fault with in that establishment; yet both masters
+and teachers were often changed: they vanished and others filled their
+places, none could well explain how.
+
+The establishment was both a pensionnat and an externat: the externes
+or day-pupils exceeded one hundred in number; the boarders were about a
+score. Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she ruled
+all these, together with four teachers, eight masters, six servants,
+and three children, managing at the same time to perfection the pupils'
+parents and friends; and that without apparent effort; without bustle,
+fatigue, fever, or any symptom of undue, excitement: occupied she
+always was--busy, rarely. It is true that Madame had her own system for
+managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a very pretty
+system it was: the reader has seen a specimen of it, in that small
+affair of turning my pocket inside out, and reading my private
+memoranda. "Surveillance," "espionage,"--these were her watchwords.
+
+Still, Madame knew what honesty was, and liked it--that is, when it did
+not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest.
+She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les Anglaises," she
+would have the women of no other country about her own children, if she
+could help it.
+
+Often in the evening, after she had been plotting and counter-plotting,
+spying and receiving the reports of spies all day, she would come up to
+my room--a trace of real weariness on her brow--and she would sit down
+and listen while the children said their little prayers to me in
+English: the Lord's Prayer, and the hymn beginning "Gentle Jesus,"
+these little Catholics were permitted to repeat at my knee; and, when I
+had put them to bed, she would talk to me (I soon gained enough French
+to be able to understand, and even answer her) about England and
+Englishwomen, and the reasons for what she was pleased to term their
+superior intelligence, and more real and reliable probity. Very good
+sense she often showed; very sound opinions she often broached: she
+seemed to know that keeping girls in distrustful restraint, in blind
+ignorance, and under a surveillance that left them no moment and no
+corner for retirement, was not the best way to make them grow up honest
+and modest women; but she averred that ruinous consequences would ensue
+if any other method were tried with continental children: they were so
+accustomed to restraint, that relaxation, however guarded, would be
+misunderstood and fatally presumed on. She was sick, she would declare,
+of the means she had to use, but use them she must; and after
+discoursing, often with dignity and delicacy, to me, she would move
+away on her "souliers de silence," and glide ghost-like through the
+house, watching and spying everywhere, peering through every keyhole,
+listening behind every door.
+
+After all, Madame's system was not bad--let me do her justice. Nothing
+could be better than all her arrangements for the physical well-being
+of her scholars. No minds were overtasked: the lessons were well
+distributed and made incomparably easy to the learner; there was a
+liberty of amusement, and a provision for exercise which kept the girls
+healthy; the food was abundant and good: neither pale nor puny faces
+were anywhere to be seen in the Rue Fossette. She never grudged a
+holiday; she allowed plenty of time for sleeping, dressing, washing,
+eating; her method in all these matters was easy, liberal, salutary,
+and rational: many an austere English school-mistress would do vastly
+well to imitate her--and I believe many would be glad to do so, if
+exacting English parents would let them.
+
+As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of
+spies: she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while
+she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty
+occasion--flinging this sort from her like refuse rind, after the
+orange has been duly squeezed--I have known her fastidious in seeking
+pure metal for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless
+instrument was found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk
+and cotton-wool. Yet, woe be to that man or woman who relied on her one
+inch beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy:
+interest was the master-key of Madame's nature--the mainspring of her
+motives--the alpha and omega of her life. I have seen her _feelings_
+appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the
+appellants. None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed
+her purpose by that means. On the contrary, to attempt to touch her
+heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a
+secret foe. It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it
+reminded her where she was impotent and dead. Never was the distinction
+between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her. While devoid
+of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational benevolence: she would
+give in the readiest manner to people she had never seen--rather,
+however, to classes than to individuals. "Pour les pauvres," she opened
+her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as a rule, she kept it
+closed. In philanthropic schemes for the benefit of society at large
+she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her: no force or
+mass of suffering concentrated in one heart had power to pierce hers.
+Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung
+from her eyes one tear.
+
+I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman. That
+school offered her for her powers too limited a sphere; she ought to
+have swayed a nation: she should have been the leader of a turbulent
+legislative assembly. Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated
+her nerves, exhausted her patience, or over-reached her astuteness. In
+her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first
+minister and a superintendent of police. Wise, firm, faithless; secret,
+crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and
+insensate--withal perfectly decorous--what more could be desired?
+
+The sensible reader will not suppose that I gained all the knowledge
+here condensed for his benefit in one month, or in one half-year. No!
+what I saw at first was the thriving outside of a large and flourishing
+educational establishment. Here was a great house, full of healthy,
+lively girls, all well-dressed and many of them handsome, gaining
+knowledge by a marvellously easy method, without painful exertion or
+useless waste of spirits; not, perhaps, making very rapid progress in
+anything; taking it easy, but still always employed, and never
+oppressed. Here was a corps of teachers and masters, more stringently
+tasked, as all the real head-labour was to be done by them, in order to
+save the pupils, yet having their duties so arranged that they relieved
+each other in quick succession whenever the work was severe: here, in
+short, was a foreign school; of which the life, movement, and variety
+made it a complete and most charming contrast to many English
+institutions of the same kind.
+
+Behind the house was a large garden, and, in summer, the pupils almost
+lived out of doors amongst the rose-bushes and the fruit-trees. Under
+the vast and vine-draped berceau, Madame would take her seat on summer
+afternoons, and send for the classes, in turns, to sit round her and
+sew and read. Meantime, masters came and went, delivering short and
+lively lectures, rather than lessons, and the pupils made notes of
+their instructions, or did _not_ make them--just as inclination
+prompted; secure that, in case of neglect, they could copy the notes of
+their companions. Besides the regular monthly _jours de sortie_, the
+Catholic fete-days brought a succession of holidays all the year round;
+and sometimes on a bright summer morning, or soft summer evening; the
+boarders were taken out for a long walk into the country, regaled with
+_gaufres_ and _vin blanc_, or new milk and _pain bis_, or _pistolets au
+beurre_ (rolls) and coffee. All this seemed very pleasant, and Madame
+appeared goodness itself; and the teachers not so bad but they might be
+worse; and the pupils, perhaps, a little noisy and rough, but types of
+health and glee.
+
+Thus did the view appear, seen through the enchantment of distance; but
+there came a time when distance was to melt for me--when I was to be
+called down from my watch-tower of the nursery, whence I had hitherto
+made my observations, and was to be compelled into closer intercourse
+with this little world of the Rue Fossette.
+
+I was one day sitting up-stairs, as usual, hearing the children their
+English lessons, and at the same time turning a silk dress for Madame,
+when she came sauntering into the room with that absorbed air and brow
+of hard thought she sometimes wore, and which made her look so little
+genial. Dropping into a seat opposite mine, she remained some minutes
+silent. Desiree, the eldest girl, was reading to me some little essay
+of Mrs. Barbauld's, and I was making her translate currently from
+English to French as she proceeded, by way of ascertaining that she
+comprehended what she read: Madame listened.
+
+Presently, without preface or prelude, she said, almost in the tone of
+one making an accusation, "Meess, in England you were a governess?"
+
+"No, Madame," said I smiling, "you are mistaken."
+
+"Is this your first essay at teaching--this attempt with my children?"
+
+I assured her it was. Again she became silent; but looking up, as I
+took a pin from the cushion, I found myself an object of study: she
+held me under her eye; she seemed turning me round in her
+thoughts--measuring my fitness for a purpose, weighing my value in a
+plan. Madame had, ere this, scrutinized all I had, and I believe she
+esteemed herself cognizant of much that I was; but from that day, for
+the space of about a fortnight, she tried me by new tests. She listened
+at the nursery door when I was shut in with the children; she followed
+me at a cautious distance when I walked out with them, stealing within
+ear-shot whenever the trees of park or boulevard afforded a sufficient
+screen: a strict preliminary process having thus been observed, she
+made a move forward.
+
+One morning, coming on me abruptly, and with the semblance of hurry,
+she said she found herself placed in a little dilemma. Mr. Wilson, the
+English master, had failed to come at his hour, she feared he was ill;
+the pupils were waiting in classe; there was no one to give a lesson;
+should I, for once, object to giving a short dictation exercise, just
+that the pupils might not have it to say they had missed their English
+lesson?
+
+"In classe, Madame?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, in classe: in the second division."
+
+"Where there are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and with
+my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a snail
+into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a
+pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have
+let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical
+ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the
+hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's frocks. Not that
+true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had
+neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to
+me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from
+intimate trial: the negation of severe suffering was the nearest
+approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two
+lives--the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the
+former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys
+of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily
+bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter.
+
+"Come," said Madame, as I stooped more busily than ever over the
+cutting-out of a child's pinafore, "leave that work."
+
+"But Fifine wants it, Madame."
+
+"Fifine must want it, then, for I want _you_."
+
+And as Madame Beck did really want and was resolved to have me--as she
+had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his
+shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition--as,
+too, _she_ did not lack resolution and practical activity, whether _I_
+lacked them or not--she, without more ado, made me relinquish thimble
+and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was conducted
+down-stairs. When we reached the carre, a large square hall between the
+dwelling-house and the pensionnat, she paused, dropped my hand, faced,
+and scrutinized me. I was flushed, and tremulous from head to foot:
+tell it not in Gath, I believe I was crying. In fact, the difficulties
+before me were far from being wholly imaginary; some of them were real
+enough; and not the least substantial lay in my want of mastery over
+the medium through which I should be obliged to teach. I had, indeed,
+studied French closely since my arrival in Villette; learning its
+practice by day, and its theory in every leisure moment at night, to as
+late an hour as the rule of the house would allow candle-light; but I
+was far from yet being able to trust my powers of correct oral
+expression.
+
+"Dites donc," said Madame sternly, "vous sentez vous reellement trop
+faible?"
+
+I might have said "Yes," and gone back to nursery obscurity, and there,
+perhaps, mouldered for the rest of my life; but looking up at Madame, I
+saw in her countenance a something that made me think twice ere I
+decided. At that instant she did not wear a woman's aspect, but rather
+a man's. Power of a particular kind strongly limned itself in all her
+traits, and that power was not my kind of power: neither sympathy, nor
+congeniality, nor submission, were the emotions it awakened. I
+stood--not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It seemed as if a
+challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I suddenly
+felt all the dishonour of my diffidence--all the pusillanimity of my
+slackness to aspire.
+
+"Will you," she said, "go backward or forward?" indicating with her
+hand, first, the small door of communication with the dwelling-house,
+and then the great double portals of the classes or schoolrooms.
+
+"En avant," I said.
+
+"But," pursued she, cooling as I warmed, and continuing the hard look,
+from very antipathy to which I drew strength and determination, "can
+you face the classes, or are you over-excited?"
+
+She sneered slightly in saying this: nervous excitability was not much
+to Madame's taste.
+
+"I am no more excited than this stone," I said, tapping the flag with
+my toe: "or than you," I added, returning her look.
+
+"Bon! But let me tell you these are not quiet, decorous, English girls
+you are going to encounter. Ce sont des Labassecouriennes, rondes,
+franches, brusques, et tant soit peu rebelles."
+
+I said: "I know; and I know, too, that though I have studied French
+hard since I came here, yet I still speak it with far too much
+hesitation--too little accuracy to be able to command their respect I
+shall make blunders that will lay me open to the scorn of the most
+ignorant. Still I mean to give the lesson."
+
+"They always throw over timid teachers," said she.
+
+"I know that too, Madame; I have heard how they rebelled against and
+persecuted Miss Turner"--a poor friendless English teacher, whom Madame
+had employed, and lightly discarded; and to whose piteous history I was
+no stranger.
+
+"C'est vrai," said she, coolly. "Miss Turner had no more command over
+them than a servant from the kitchen would have had. She was weak and
+wavering; she had neither tact nor intelligence, decision nor dignity.
+Miss Turner would not do for these girls at all."
+
+I made no reply, but advanced to the closed schoolroom door.
+
+"You will not expect aid from me, or from any one," said Madame. "That
+would at once set you down as incompetent for your office."
+
+I opened the door, let her pass with courtesy, and followed her. There
+were three schoolrooms, all large. That dedicated to the second
+division, where I was to figure, was considerably the largest, and
+accommodated an assemblage more numerous, more turbulent, and
+infinitely more unmanageable than the other two. In after days, when I
+knew the ground better, I used to think sometimes (if such a comparison
+may be permitted), that the quiet, polished, tame first division was to
+the robust, riotous, demonstrative second division, what the English
+House of Lords is to the House of Commons.
+
+The first glance informed me that many of the pupils were more than
+girls--quite young women; I knew that some of them were of noble family
+(as nobility goes in Labassecour), and I was well convinced that not
+one amongst them was ignorant of my position in Madame's household. As
+I mounted the estrade (a low platform, raised a step above the
+flooring), where stood the teacher's chair and desk, I beheld opposite
+to me a row of eyes and brows that threatened stormy weather--eyes full
+of an insolent light, and brows hard and unblushing as marble. The
+continental "female" is quite a different being to the insular "female"
+of the same age and class: I never saw such eyes and brows in England.
+Madame Beck introduced me in one cool phrase, sailed from the room, and
+left me alone in my glory.
+
+I shall never forget that first lesson, nor all the under-current of
+life and character it opened up to me. Then first did I begin rightly
+to see the wide difference that lies between the novelist's and poet's
+ideal "jeune fille" and the said "jeune fille" as she really is.
+
+It seems that three titled belles in the first row had sat down
+predetermined that a _bonne d'enfants_ should not give them lessons in
+English. They knew they had succeeded in expelling obnoxious teachers
+before now; they knew that Madame would at any time throw overboard a
+professeur or maitresse who became unpopular with the school--that she
+never assisted a weak official to retain his place--that if he had not
+strength to fight, or tact to win his way, down he went: looking at
+"Miss Snowe," they promised themselves an easy victory.
+
+Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angelique opened the campaign by
+a series of titterings and whisperings; these soon swelled into murmurs
+and short laughs, which the remoter benches caught up and echoed more
+loudly. This growing revolt of sixty against one, soon became
+oppressive enough; my command of French being so limited, and exercised
+under such cruel constraint.
+
+Could I but have spoken in my own tongue, I felt as if I might have
+gained a hearing; for, in the first place, though I knew I looked a
+poor creature, and in many respects actually was so, yet nature had
+given me a voice that could make itself heard, if lifted in excitement
+or deepened by emotion. In the second place, while I had no flow, only
+a hesitating trickle of language, in ordinary circumstances, yet--under
+stimulus such as was now rife through the mutinous mass--I could, in
+English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their proceedings
+as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with some
+sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the ringleaders,
+and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less knavish
+followers, it seemed to me that one might possibly get command over
+this wild herd, and bring them into training, at least. All I could now
+do was to walk up to Blanche--Mademoiselle de Melcy, a young
+baronne--the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious--stand
+before her desk, take from under her hand her exercise-book, remount
+the estrade, deliberately read the composition, which I found very
+stupid, and, as deliberately, and in the face of the whole school, tear
+the blotted page in two.
+
+This action availed to draw attention and check noise. One girl alone,
+quite in the background, persevered in the riot with undiminished
+energy. I looked at her attentively. She had a pale face, hair like
+night, broad strong eyebrows, decided features, and a dark, mutinous,
+sinister eye: I noted that she sat close by a little door, which door,
+I was well aware, opened into a small closet where books were kept. She
+was standing up for the purpose of conducting her clamour with freer
+energies. I measured her stature and calculated her strength. She seemed
+both tall and wiry; but, so the conflict were brief and the attack
+unexpected, I thought I might manage her.
+
+Advancing up the room, looking as cool and careless as I possibly
+could, in short, _ayant l'air de rien_, I slightly pushed the door and
+found it was ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had turned on
+her. In another instant she occupied the closet, the door was shut, and
+the key in my pocket.
+
+It so happened that this girl, Dolores by name, and a Catalonian by
+race, was the sort of character at once dreaded and hated by all her
+associates; the act of summary justice above noted proved popular:
+there was not one present but, in her heart, liked to see it done. They
+were stilled for a moment; then a smile--not a laugh--passed from desk
+to desk: then--when I had gravely and tranquilly returned to the
+estrade, courteously requested silence, and commenced a dictation as if
+nothing at all had happened--the pens travelled peacefully over the
+pages, and the remainder of the lesson passed in order and industry.
+
+"C'est bien," said Madame Beck, when I came out of class, hot and a
+little exhausted. "Ca ira."
+
+She had been listening and peeping through a spy-hole the whole time.
+
+From that day I ceased to be nursery governess, and became English
+teacher. Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of me
+she had extracted from Mr. Wilson, at half the expense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ISIDORE.
+
+
+My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching
+others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It was
+pleasant. I felt I was getting, on; not lying the stagnant prey of
+mould and rust, but polishing my faculties and whetting them to a keen
+edge with constant use. Experience of a certain kind lay before me, on
+no narrow scale. Villette is a cosmopolitan city, and in this school
+were girls of almost every European nation, and likewise of very varied
+rank in life. Equality is much practised in Labassecour; though not
+republican in form, it is nearly so in substance, and at the desks of
+Madame Beck's establishment the young countess and the young bourgeoise
+sat side by side. Nor could you always by outward indications decide
+which was noble and which plebeian; except that, indeed, the latter had
+often franker and more courteous manners, while the former bore away
+the bell for a delicately-balanced combination of insolence and deceit.
+In the former there was often quick French blood mixed with the
+marsh-phlegm: I regret to say that the effect of this vivacious fluid
+chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with which flattery and fiction
+ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and livelier, but quite
+heartless and insincere.
+
+To do all parties justice, the honest aboriginal Labassecouriennes had
+an hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as
+could deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions,
+they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether
+untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck's
+house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above being
+ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it: to invent might not be
+precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of faults. "J'ai menti
+plusieurs fois," formed an item of every girl's and woman's monthly
+confession: the priest heard unshocked, and absolved unreluctant. If
+they had missed going to mass, or read a chapter of a novel, that was
+another thing: these were crimes whereof rebuke and penance were the
+unfailing weed.
+
+While yet but half-conscious of this state of things, and unlearned in
+its results, I got on in my new sphere very well. After the first few
+difficult lessons, given amidst peril and on the edge of a moral
+volcano that rumbled under my feet and sent sparks and hot fumes into
+my eyes, the eruptive spirit seemed to subside, as far as I was
+concerned. My mind was a good deal bent on success: I could not bear
+the thought of being baffled by mere undisciplined disaffection and
+wanton indocility, in this first attempt to get on in life. Many hours
+of the night I used to lie awake, thinking what plan I had best adopt
+to get a reliable hold on these mutineers, to bring this stiff-necked
+tribe under permanent influence. In, the first place, I saw plainly
+that aid in no shape was to be expected from Madame: her righteous plan
+was to maintain an unbroken popularity with the pupils, at any and
+every cost of justice or comfort to the teachers. For a teacher to seek
+her alliance in any crisis of insubordination was equivalent to
+securing her own expulsion. In intercourse with her pupils, Madame only
+took to herself what was pleasant, amiable, and recommendatory; rigidly
+requiring of her lieutenants sufficiency for every annoying crisis,
+where to act with adequate promptitude was to be unpopular. Thus, I
+must look only to myself.
+
+Imprimis--it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not
+to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very
+patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them; a very rare
+flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental application
+they could not, or would not, bear: heavy demand on the memory, the
+reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an English girl
+of not more than average capacity and docility would quietly take a
+theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and mastery, a
+Labassecourienne would laugh in your face, and throw it back to you
+with the phrase,--"Dieu, que c'est difficile! Je n'en veux pas. Cela
+m'ennuie trop."
+
+A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once,
+without hesitation, contest, or expostulation--proceed with even
+exaggerated care to smoothe every difficulty, to reduce it to the level
+of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and lay on
+the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the sting,
+perhaps wince a little under it; but they bore no malice against this
+sort of attack, provided the sneer was not _sour_, but _hearty_, and
+that it held well up to them, in a clear, light, and bold type, so that
+she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They
+would riot for three additional lines to a lesson; but I never knew
+them rebel against a wound given to their self-respect: the little they
+had of that quality was trained to be crushed, and it rather liked the
+pressure of a firm heel than otherwise.
+
+By degrees, as I acquired fluency and freedom in their language, and
+could make such application of its more nervous idioms as suited their
+case, the elder and more intelligent girls began rather to like me in
+their way: I noticed that whenever a pupil had been roused to feel in
+her soul the stirring of worthy emulation, or the quickening of honest
+shame, from that date she was won. If I could but once make their
+(usually large) ears burn under their thick glossy hair, all was
+comparatively well. By-and-by bouquets began to be laid on my desk in
+the morning; by way of acknowledgment for this little foreign
+attention, I used sometimes to walk with a select few during
+recreation. In the course of conversation it befel once or twice that I
+made an unpremeditated attempt to rectify some of their singularly
+distorted notions of principle; especially I expressed my ideas of the
+evil and baseness of a lie. In an unguarded moment, I chanced to say
+that, of the two errors; I considered falsehood worse than an
+occasional lapse in church-attendance. The poor girls were tutored to
+report in Catholic ears whatever the Protestant teacher said. An
+edifying consequence ensued. Something--an unseen, an indefinite, a
+nameless--something stole between myself and these my best pupils: the
+bouquets continued to be offered, but conversation thenceforth became
+impracticable. As I paced the alleys or sat in the berceau, a girl
+never came to my right hand but a teacher, as if by magic, appeared at
+my left. Also, wonderful to relate, Madame's shoes of silence brought
+her continually to my back, as quick, as noiseless and unexpected, as
+some wandering zephyr.
+
+The opinion of my Catholic acquaintance concerning my spiritual
+prospects was somewhat naively expressed to me on one occasion. A
+pensionnaire, to whom I had rendered some little service, exclaimed one
+day as she sat beside me: "Mademoiselle, what a pity you are a
+Protestant!"
+
+"Why, Isabelle?"
+
+"Parceque, quand vous serez morte--vous brulerez tout de suite dans
+l'Enfer."
+
+"Croyez-vous?"
+
+"Certainement que j'y crois: tout le monde le sait; et d'ailleurs le
+pretre me l'a dit."
+
+Isabelle was an odd, blunt little creature. She added, _sotto voce_:
+"Pour assurer votre salut la-haut, on ferait bien de vous bruler toute
+vive ici-bas."
+
+I laughed, as, indeed, it was impossible to do otherwise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Has the reader forgotten Miss Ginevra Fanshawe? If so, I must be
+allowed to re-introduce that young lady as a thriving pupil of Madame
+Beck's; for such she was. On her arrival in the Rue Fossette, two or
+three days after my sudden settlement there, she encountered me with
+very little surprise. She must have had good blood in her veins, for
+never was any duchess more perfectly, radically, unaffectedly
+_nonchalante_ than she: a weak, transient amaze was all she knew of the
+sensation of wonder. Most of her other faculties seemed to be in the
+same flimsy condition: her liking and disliking, her love and hate,
+were mere cobweb and gossamer; but she had one thing about her that
+seemed strong and durable enough, and that was--her selfishness.
+
+She was not proud; and--_bonne d'enfants_ as I was--she would forthwith
+have made of me a sort of friend and confidant. She teased me with a
+thousand vapid complaints about school-quarrels and household economy:
+the cookery was not to her taste; the people about her, teachers and
+pupils, she held to be despicable, because they were foreigners. I bore
+with her abuse of the Friday's salt fish and hard eggs--with her
+invective against the soup, the bread, the coffee--with some patience
+for a time; but at last, wearied by iteration, I turned crusty, and put
+her to rights: a thing I ought to have done in the very beginning, for
+a salutary setting down always agreed with her.
+
+Much longer had I to endure her demands on me in the way of work. Her
+wardrobe, so far as concerned articles of external wear, was well and
+elegantly supplied; but there were other habiliments not so carefully
+provided: what she had, needed frequent repair. She hated
+needle-drudgery herself, and she would bring her hose, &c. to me in
+heaps, to be mended. A compliance of some weeks threatening to result
+in the establishment of an intolerable bore--I at last distinctly told
+her she must make up her mind to mend her own garments. She cried on
+receiving this information, and accused me of having ceased to be her
+friend; but I held by my decision, and let the hysterics pass as they
+could.
+
+Notwithstanding these foibles, and various others needless to
+mention--but by no means of a refined or elevating character--how
+pretty she was! How charming she looked, when she came down on a sunny
+Sunday morning, well-dressed and well-humoured, robed in pale lilac
+silk, and with her fair long curls reposing on her white shoulders.
+Sunday was a holiday which she always passed with friends resident in
+town; and amongst these friends she speedily gave me to understand was
+one who would fain become something more. By glimpses and hints it was
+shown me, and by the general buoyancy of her look and manner it was ere
+long proved, that ardent admiration--perhaps genuine love--was at her
+command. She called her suitor "Isidore:" this, however, she intimated
+was not his real name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize
+him--his own, she hinted, not being "very pretty." Once, when she had
+been bragging about the vehemence of "Isidore's" attachment, I asked if
+she loved him in return.
+
+"Comme cela," said she: "he is handsome, and he loves me to
+distraction, so that I am well amused. Ca suffit."
+
+Finding that she carried the thing on longer than, from her very fickle
+tastes, I had anticipated, I one day took it upon me to make serious
+inquiries as to whether the gentleman was such as her parents, and
+especially her uncle--on whom, it appeared, she was dependent--would be
+likely to approve. She allowed that this was very doubtful, as she did
+not believe "Isidore" had much money.
+
+"Do you encourage him?" I asked.
+
+"Furieusement sometimes," said she.
+
+"Without being certain that you will be permitted to marry him?"
+
+"Oh, how dowdyish you are! I don't want to be married. I am too young."
+
+"But if he loves you as much as you say, and yet it comes to nothing in
+the end, he will be made miserable."
+
+"Of course he will break his heart. I should be shocked and,
+disappointed if he didn't."
+
+"I wonder whether this M. Isidore is a fool?" said I.
+
+"He is, about me; but he is wise in other things, a ce qu'on dit. Mrs.
+Cholmondeley considers him extremely clever: she says he will push his
+way by his talents; all I know is, that he does little more than sigh
+in my presence, and that I can wind him round my little finger."
+
+Wishing to get a more definite idea of this love-stricken M. Isidore;
+whose position seemed to me of the least secure, I requested her to
+favour me with a personal description; but she could not describe: she
+had neither words nor the power of putting them together so as to make
+graphic phrases. She even seemed not properly to have noticed him:
+nothing of his looks, of the changes in his countenance, had touched
+her heart or dwelt in her memory--that he was "beau, mais plutot bel
+homme que joli garcon," was all she could assert. My patience would
+often have failed, and my interest flagged, in listening to her, but
+for one thing. All the hints she dropped, all the details she gave,
+went unconsciously to prove, to my thinking, that M. Isidore's homage
+was offered with great delicacy and respect. I informed her very
+plainly that I believed him much too good for her, and intimated with
+equal plainness my impression that she was but a vain coquette. She
+laughed, shook her curls from her eyes, and danced away as if I had
+paid her a compliment.
+
+Miss Ginevra's school-studies were little better than nominal; there
+were but three things she practised in earnest, viz. music, singing,
+and dancing; also embroidering the fine cambric handkerchiefs which she
+could not afford to buy ready worked: such mere trifles as lessons in
+history, geography, grammar, and arithmetic, she left undone, or got
+others to do for her. Very much of her time was spent in visiting.
+Madame, aware that her stay at school was now limited to a certain
+period, which would not be extended whether she made progress or not,
+allowed her great licence in this particular. Mrs. Cholmondeley--her
+_chaperon_--a gay, fashionable lady, invited her whenever she had
+company at her own house, and sometimes took her to evening-parties at
+the houses of her acquaintance. Ginevra perfectly approved this mode of
+procedure: it had but one inconvenience; she was obliged to be well
+dressed, and she had not money to buy variety of dresses. All her
+thoughts turned on this difficulty; her whole soul was occupied with
+expedients for effecting its solution. It was wonderful to witness the
+activity of her otherwise indolent mind on this point, and to see the
+much-daring intrepidity to which she was spurred by a sense of
+necessity, and the wish to shine.
+
+She begged boldly of Mrs. Cholmondeley--boldly, I say: not with an air
+of reluctant shame, but in this strain:--
+
+"My darling Mrs. C., I have nothing in the world fit to wear for your
+party next week; you _must_ give me a book-muslin dress, and then a
+_ceinture bleu celeste_: _do_--there's an angel! will you?"
+
+The "darling Mrs. C." yielded at first; but finding that applications
+increased as they were complied with, she was soon obliged, like all
+Miss Fanshawe's friends, to oppose resistance to encroachment. After a
+while I heard no more of Mrs. Cholmondeley's presents; but still,
+visiting went on, and the absolutely necessary dresses continued to be
+supplied: also many little expensive _etcetera_--gloves, bouquets, even
+trinkets. These things, contrary to her custom, and even nature--for
+she was not secretive--were most sedulously kept out of sight for a
+time; but one evening, when she was going to a large party for which
+particular care and elegance of costume were demanded, she could not
+resist coming to my chamber to show herself in all her splendour.
+
+Beautiful she looked: so young, so fresh, and with a delicacy of skin
+and flexibility of shape altogether English, and not found in the list
+of continental female charms. Her dress was new, costly, and perfect. I
+saw at a glance that it lacked none of those finishing details which
+cost so much, and give to the general effect such an air of tasteful
+completeness.
+
+I viewed her from top to toe. She turned airily round that I might
+survey her on all sides. Conscious of her charms, she was in her best
+humour: her rather small blue eyes sparkled gleefully. She was going to
+bestow on me a kiss, in her school-girl fashion of showing her delights
+but I said, "Steady! Let us be Steady, and know what we are about, and
+find out the meaning of our magnificence"--and so put her off at arm's
+length, to undergo cooler inspection.
+
+"Shall I do?" was her question.
+
+"Do?" said I. "There are different ways of doing; and, by my word, I
+don't understand yours."
+
+"But how do I look?"
+
+"You look well dressed."
+
+She thought the praise not warm enough, and proceeded to direct
+attention to the various decorative points of her attire. "Look at this
+_parure_," said she. "The brooch, the ear-rings, the bracelets: no one
+in the school has such a set--not Madame herself."
+
+"I see them all." (Pause.) "Did M. de Bassompierre give you those
+jewels?"
+
+"My uncle knows nothing about them."
+
+"Were they presents from Mrs. Cholmondeley?"
+
+"Not they, indeed. Mrs. Cholmondeley is a mean, stingy creature; she
+never gives me anything now."
+
+I did not choose to ask any further questions, but turned abruptly away.
+
+"Now, old Crusty--old Diogenes" (these were her familiar terms for me
+when we disagreed), "what is the matter now?"
+
+"Take yourself away. I have no pleasure in looking at you or your
+_parure_."
+
+For an instant, she seemed taken by surprise.
+
+"What now, Mother Wisdom? I have not got into debt for it--that is, not
+for the jewels, nor the gloves, nor the bouquet. My dress is certainly
+not paid for, but uncle de Bassompierre will pay it in the bill: he
+never notices items, but just looks at the total; and he is so rich,
+one need not care about a few guineas more or less."
+
+"Will you go? I want to shut the door.... Ginevra, people may tell you
+you are very handsome in that ball-attire; but, in _my_ eyes, you will
+never look so pretty as you did in the gingham gown and plain straw
+bonnet you wore when I first saw you."
+
+"Other people have not your puritanical tastes," was her angry reply.
+"And, besides, I see no right you have to sermonize me."
+
+"Certainly! I have little right; and you, perhaps, have still less to
+come flourishing and fluttering into my chamber--a mere jay in borrowed
+plumes. I have not the least respect for your feathers, Miss Fanshawe;
+and especially the peacock's eyes you call a _parure_: very pretty
+things, if you had bought them with money which was your own, and which
+you could well spare, but not at all pretty under present
+circumstances."
+
+"On est la pour Mademoiselle Fanshawe!" was announced by the portress,
+and away she tripped.
+
+This semi-mystery of the _parure_ was not solved till two or three days
+afterwards, when she came to make a voluntary confession.
+
+"You need not be sulky with me," she began, "in the idea that I am
+running somebody, papa or M. de Bassompierre, deeply into debt. I
+assure you nothing remains unpaid for, but the few dresses I have
+lately had: all the rest is settled."
+
+"There," I thought, "lies the mystery; considering that they were not
+given you by Mrs. Cholmondeley, and that your own means are limited to
+a few shillings, of which I know you to be excessively careful."
+
+"Ecoutez!" she went on, drawing near and speaking in her most
+confidential and coaxing tone; for my "sulkiness" was inconvenient to
+her: she liked me to be in a talking and listening mood, even if I only
+talked to chide and listened to rail. "Ecoutez, chere grogneuse! I will
+tell you all how and about it; and you will then see, not only how
+right the whole thing is, but how cleverly managed. In the first place,
+I _must_ go out. Papa himself said that he wished me to see something
+of the world; he particularly remarked to Mrs. Cholmondeley, that,
+though I was a sweet creature enough, I had rather a
+bread-and-butter-eating, school-girl air; of which it was his special
+desire that I should get rid, by an introduction to society here,
+before I make my regular debut in England. Well, then, if I go out, I
+_must_ dress. Mrs. Cholmondeley is turned shabby, and will give nothing
+more; it would be too hard upon uncle to make him pay for _all_ the
+things I need: _that_ you can't deny--_that_ agrees with your own
+preachments. Well, but SOMEBODY who heard me (quite by chance, I assure
+you) complaining to Mrs. Cholmondeley of my distressed circumstances,
+and what straits I was put to for an ornament or two--_somebody_, far
+from grudging one a present, was quite delighted at the idea of being
+permitted to offer some trifle. You should have seen what a _blanc-bec_
+he looked when he first spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and
+positively trembled from fear of a repulse."
+
+"That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M.
+Isidore is the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that
+costly _parure_; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves?"
+
+"You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows how
+to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow Isidore the
+pleasure and honour of expressing his homage by the offer of a trifle."
+
+"It comes to the same thing.... Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain truth,
+I don't very well understand these matters; but I believe you are doing
+very wrong--seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel certain
+that you will be able to marry M. Isidore; your parents and uncle have
+given their consent, and, for your part, you love him entirely?"
+
+"Mais pas du tout!" (she always had recourse to French when about to
+say something specially heartless and perverse). "Je suis sa reine,
+mais il n'est pas mon roi."
+
+"Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and coquetry.
+There is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by the
+good nature and purse of a man to whom you feel absolute indifference.
+You love M. Isidore far more than you think, or will avow."
+
+"No. I danced with a young officer the other night, whom I love a
+thousand times more than he. I often wonder why I feel so very cold to
+Isidore, for everybody says he is handsome, and other ladies admire
+him; but, somehow, he bores me: let me see now how it is...."
+
+And she seemed to make an effort to reflect. In this I encouraged her.
+
+"Yes!" I said, "try to get a clear idea of the state of your mind. To
+me it seems in a great mess--chaotic as a rag-bag."
+
+"It is something in this fashion," she cried out ere long: "the man is
+too romantic and devoted, and he expects something more of me than I
+find it convenient to be. He thinks I am perfect: furnished with all
+sorts of sterling qualities and solid virtues, such as I never had, nor
+intend to have. Now, one can't help, in his presence, rather trying to
+justify his good opinion; and it does so tire one to be goody, and to
+talk sense,--for he really thinks I am sensible. I am far more at my
+ease with you, old lady--you, you dear crosspatch--who take me at my
+lowest, and know me to be coquettish, and ignorant, and flirting, and
+fickle, and silly, and selfish, and all the other sweet things you and
+I have agreed to be a part of my character."
+
+"This is all very well," I said, making a strenuous effort to preserve
+that gravity and severity which ran risk of being shaken by this
+whimsical candour, "but it does not alter that wretched business of the
+presents. Pack them up, Ginevra, like a good, honest girl, and send
+them back."
+
+"Indeed, I won't," said she, stoutly.
+
+"Then you are deceiving M. Isidore. It stands to reason that by
+accepting his presents you give him to understand he will one day
+receive an equivalent, in your regard..."
+
+"But he won't," she interrupted: "he has his equivalent now, in the
+pleasure of seeing me wear them--quite enough for him: he is only
+bourgeois."
+
+This phrase, in its senseless arrogance, quite cured me of the
+temporary weakness which had made me relax my tone and aspect. She
+rattled on:
+
+"My present business is to enjoy youth, and not to think of fettering
+myself, by promise or vow, to this man or that. When first I saw
+Isidore, I believed he would help me to enjoy it I believed he would be
+content with my being a pretty girl; and that we should meet and part
+and flutter about like two butterflies, and be happy. Lo, and behold! I
+find him at times as grave as a judge, and deep-feeling and thoughtful.
+Bah! Les penseurs, les hommes profonds et passionnes ne sont pas a mon
+gout. Le Colonel Alfred de Hamal suits me far better. Va pour les beaux
+fats et les jolis fripons! Vive les joies et les plaisirs! A bas les
+grandes passions et les severes vertus!"
+
+She looked for an answer to this tirade. I gave none.
+
+"J'aime mon beau Colonel," she went on: "je n'aimerai jamais son rival.
+Je ne serai jamais femme de bourgeois, moi!"
+
+I now signified that it was imperatively necessary my apartment should
+be relieved of the honour of her presence: she went away laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+DR JOHN.
+
+
+Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the
+world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no
+deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was solicitous
+about her family, vigilant for their interests and physical well-being;
+but she never seemed to know the wish to take her little children upon
+her lap, to press their rosy lips with her own, to gather them in a
+genial embrace, to shower on them softly the benignant caress, the
+loving word.
+
+I have watched her sometimes sitting in the garden, viewing the little
+bees afar off, as they walked in a distant alley with Trinette, their
+_bonne_; in her mien spoke care and prudence. I know she often pondered
+anxiously what she called "leur avenir;" but if the youngest, a puny
+and delicate but engaging child, chancing to spy her, broke from its
+nurse, and toddling down the walk, came all eager and laughing and
+panting to clasp her knee, Madame would just calmly put out one hand,
+so as to prevent inconvenient concussion from the child's sudden onset:
+"Prends garde, mon enfant!" she would say unmoved, patiently permit it
+to stand near her a few moments, and then, without smile or kiss, or
+endearing syllable, rise and lead it back to Trinette.
+
+Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
+way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel
+poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her, alike
+in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she boasted
+an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes driving her
+_bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal to their attics,
+open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their best caps and soil
+their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity to get at the buffet
+of the salle-a-manger, where she would smash articles of porcelain or
+glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom, where she would plunder the
+preserves, drink the sweet wine, break jars and bottles, and so
+contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on the cook and the
+kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which when she received
+report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless serenity, was:
+
+"Desiree a besoin d'une surveillance toute particuliere." Accordingly
+she kept this promising olive-branch a good deal at her side. Never
+once, I believe, did she tell her faithfully of her faults, explain the
+evil of such habits, and show the results which must thence ensue.
+Surveillance must work the whole cure. It failed of course. Desiree was
+kept in some measure from the servants, but she teased and pillaged her
+mamma instead. Whatever belonging to Madame's work-table or toilet she
+could lay her hands on, she stole and hid. Madame saw all this, but she
+still pretended not to see: she had not rectitude of soul to confront
+the child with her vices. When an article disappeared whose value
+rendered restitution necessary, she would profess to think that Desiree
+had taken it away in play, and beg her to restore it. Desiree was not
+to be so cheated: she had learned to bring falsehood to the aid of
+theft, and would deny having touched the brooch, ring, or scissors.
+Carrying on the hollow system, the mother would calmly assume an air of
+belief, and afterwards ceaselessly watch and dog the child till she
+tracked her: to her hiding-places--some hole in the garden-wall--some
+chink or cranny in garret or out-house. This done, Madame would send
+Desiree out for a walk with her _bonne_, and profit by her absence to
+rob the robber. Desiree proved herself the true daughter of her astute
+parent, by never suffering either her countenance or manner to betray
+the least sign of mortification on discovering the loss.
+
+The second child, Fifine, was said to be like its dead father.
+Certainly, though the mother had given it her healthy frame, her blue
+eye and ruddy cheek, not from her was derived its moral being. It was
+an honest, gleeful little soul: a passionate, warm-tempered, bustling
+creature it was too, and of the sort likely to blunder often into
+perils and difficulties. One day it bethought itself to fall from top
+to bottom of a steep flight of stone steps; and when Madame, hearing
+the noise (she always heard every noise), issued from the
+salle-a-manger and picked it up, she said quietly,--"Cet enfant a un os
+casse."
+
+At first we hoped this was not the case. It was, however, but too true:
+one little plump arm hung powerless.
+
+"Let Meess" (meaning me) "take her," said Madame; "et qu'on aille tout
+de suite chercher un fiacre."
+
+In a _fiacre_ she promptly, but with admirable coolness and
+self-possession, departed to fetch a surgeon.
+
+It appeared she did not find the family-surgeon at home; but that
+mattered not: she sought until she laid her hand on a substitute to her
+mind, and brought him back with her. Meantime I had cut the child's
+sleeve from its arm, undressed and put it to bed.
+
+We none of us, I suppose (by _we_ I mean the bonne, the cook, the
+portress, and myself, all which personages were now gathered in the
+small and heated chamber), looked very scrutinizingly at the new doctor
+when he came into the room. I, at least, was taken up with endeavouring
+to soothe Fifine; whose cries (for she had good lungs) were appalling
+to hear. These cries redoubled in intensity as the stranger approached
+her bed; when he took her up, "Let alone!" she cried passionately, in
+her broken English (for she spoke English as did the other children).
+"I will not you: I will Dr. Pillule!"
+
+"And Dr. Pillule is my very good friend," was the answer, in perfect
+English; "but he is busy at a place three leagues off, and I am come in
+his stead. So now, when we get a little calmer, we must commence
+business; and we will soon have that unlucky little arm bandaged and in
+right order."
+
+Hereupon he called for a glass of _eau sucree_, fed her with some
+teaspoonfuls of the sweet liquid (Fifine was a frank gourmande; anybody
+could win her heart through her palate), promised her more when the
+operation should be over, and promptly went to work. Some assistance
+being needed, he demanded it of the cook, a robust, strong-armed woman;
+but she, the portress, and the nurse instantly fled. I did not like to
+touch that small, tortured limb, but thinking there was no alternative,
+my hand was already extended to do what was requisite. I was
+anticipated; Madame Beck had put out her own hand: hers was steady
+while mine trembled.
+
+"Ca vaudra mieux," said the doctor, turning from me to her.
+
+He showed wisdom in his choice. Mine would have been feigned stoicism,
+forced fortitude. Hers was neither forced nor feigned.
+
+"Merci, Madame; tres bien, fort bien!" said the operator when he had
+finished. "Voila un sang-froid bien opportun, et qui vaut mille elans
+de sensibilite deplacee."
+
+He was pleased with her firmness, she with his compliment. It was
+likely, too, that his whole general appearance, his voice, mien, and
+manner, wrought impressions in his favour. Indeed, when you looked well
+at him, and when a lamp was brought in--for it was evening and now
+waxing dusk--you saw that, unless Madame Beck had been less than woman,
+it could not well be otherwise. This young doctor (he _was_ young) had
+no common aspect. His stature looked imposingly tall in that little
+chamber, and amidst that group of Dutch-made women; his profile was
+clear, fine and expressive: perhaps his eye glanced from face to face
+rather too vividly, too quickly, and too often; but it had a most
+pleasant character, and so had his mouth; his chin was full, cleft,
+Grecian, and perfect. As to his smile, one could not in a hurry make up
+one's mind as to the descriptive epithet it merited; there was
+something in it that pleased, but something too that brought surging up
+into the mind all one's foibles and weak points: all that could lay one
+open to a laugh. Yet Fifine liked this doubtful smile, and thought the
+owner genial: much as he had hurt her, she held out her hand to bid him
+a friendly good-night. He patted the little hand kindly, and then he
+and Madame went down-stairs together; she talking in her highest tide
+of spirits and volubility, he listening with an air of good-natured
+amenity, dashed with that unconscious roguish archness I find it
+difficult to describe.
+
+I noticed that though he spoke French well, he spoke English better; he
+had, too, an English complexion, eyes, and form. I noticed more. As he
+passed me in leaving the room, turning his face in my direction one
+moment--not to address me, but to speak to Madame, yet so standing,
+that I almost necessarily looked up at him--a recollection which had
+been struggling to form in my memory, since the first moment I heard
+his voice, started up perfected. This was the very gentleman to whom I
+had spoken at the bureau; who had helped me in the matter of the trunk;
+who had been my guide through the dark, wet park. Listening, as he
+passed down the long vestibule out into the street, I recognised his
+very tread: it was the same firm and equal stride I had followed under
+the dripping trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was, to be concluded that this young surgeon-physician's first visit
+to the Rue Fossette would be the last. The respectable Dr. Pillule
+being expected home the next day, there appeared no reason why his
+temporary substitute should again represent him; but the Fates had
+written their decree to the contrary.
+
+Dr. Pillule had been summoned to see a rich old hypochondriac at the
+antique university town of Bouquin-Moisi, and upon his prescribing
+change of air and travel as remedies, he was retained to accompany the
+timid patient on a tour of some weeks; it but remained, therefore, for
+the new doctor to continue his attendance at the Rue Fossette.
+
+I often saw him when he came; for Madame would not trust the little
+invalid to Trinette, but required me to spend much of my time in the
+nursery. I think he was skilful. Fifine recovered rapidly under his
+care, yet even her convalescence did not hasten his dismissal. Destiny
+and Madame Beck seemed in league, and both had ruled that he should
+make deliberate acquaintance with the vestibule, the private staircase
+and upper chambers of the Rue Fossette.
+
+No sooner did Fifine emerge from his hands than Desiree declared
+herself ill. That possessed child had a genius for simulation, and
+captivated by the attentions and indulgences of a sick-room, she came
+to the conclusion that an illness would perfectly accommodate her
+tastes, and took her bed accordingly. She acted well, and her mother
+still better; for while the whole case was transparent to Madame Beck
+as the day, she treated it with an astonishingly well-assured air of
+gravity and good faith.
+
+What surprised me was, that Dr. John (so the young Englishman had
+taught Fifine to call him, and we all took from her the habit of
+addressing him by this name, till it became an established custom, and
+he was known by no other in the Rue Fossette)--that Dr. John consented
+tacitly to adopt Madame's tactics, and to fall in with her manoeuvres.
+He betrayed, indeed, a period of comic doubt, cast one or two rapid
+glances from the child to the mother, indulged in an interval of
+self-consultation, but finally resigned himself with a good grace to
+play his part in the farce. Desiree eat like a raven, gambolled day and
+night in her bed, pitched tents with the sheets and blankets, lounged
+like a Turk amidst pillows and bolsters, diverted herself with throwing
+her shoes at her bonne and grimacing at her sisters--over-flowed, in
+short, with unmerited health and evil spirits; only languishing when
+her mamma and the physician paid their diurnal visit. Madame Beck, I
+knew, was glad, at any price, to have her daughter in bed out of the
+way of mischief; but I wondered that Dr. John did not tire of the
+business.
+
+Every day, on this mere pretext of a motive, he gave punctual
+attendance; Madame always received him with the same empressement, the
+same sunshine for himself, the same admirably counterfeited air of
+concern for her child. Dr. John wrote harmless prescriptions for the
+patient, and viewed her mother with a shrewdly sparkling eye. Madame
+caught his rallying looks without resenting them--she had too much good
+sense for that. Supple as the young doctor seemed, one could not
+despise him--this pliant part was evidently not adopted in the design
+to curry favour with his employer: while he liked his office at the
+pensionnat, and lingered strangely about the Rue Fossette, he was
+independent, almost careless in his carriage there; and yet, too, he
+was often thoughtful and preoccupied.
+
+It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing,
+or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly
+help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my
+presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a
+person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is
+given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's
+work, and carpets of no striking pattern. Often, while waiting for
+Madame, he would muse, smile, watch, or listen like a man who thinks
+himself alone. I, meantime, was free to puzzle over his countenance and
+movements, and wonder what could be the meaning of that peculiar
+interest and attachment--all mixed up with doubt and strangeness, and
+inexplicably ruled by some presiding spell--which wedded him to this
+demi-convent, secluded in the built-up core of a capital. He, I
+believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain
+behind them.
+
+Nor would he ever have found this out, but that one day, while he sat
+in the sunshine and I was observing the colouring of his hair,
+whiskers, and complexion--the whole being of such a tone as a strong
+light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was
+driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the "golden
+image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new, sudden,
+and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering strength and
+power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the
+force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I
+only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his notice was
+arrested, and that it had caught my movement in a clear little oval
+mirror fixed in the side of the window recess--by the aid of which
+reflector Madame often secretly spied persons walking in the garden
+below. Though of so gay and sanguine a temperament, he was not without
+a certain nervous sensitiveness which made him ill at ease under a
+direct, inquiring gaze. On surprising me thus, he turned and said, in a
+tone which, though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark
+a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character
+of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain enough to
+fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then be
+some defect. Dare I ask--what?"
+
+I was confounded, as the reader may suppose, yet not with an
+irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of
+incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable
+inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared
+myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not in the
+habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he chose
+and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work I had dropped, and
+kept my head bent over it during the remainder of his stay. There is a
+perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by
+misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known,
+we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest
+man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather
+tickled than vexed at the mistake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.
+
+
+It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
+children, took a fever. Desiree, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
+together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way
+of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and
+Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at
+home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his visits. One or
+two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in other respects
+seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment. "Now, at last,"
+I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent directress will
+never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the pupils."
+
+The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
+venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
+the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
+handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angelique, her
+friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
+mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
+the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
+this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not
+to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
+school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
+parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
+been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
+were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
+ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
+yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
+as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
+her firmness on this occasion.
+
+She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody
+matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
+assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which on
+various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and complete
+success, where severe gravity and serious reasoning would probably have
+failed.
+
+"Ce pauvre Docteur Jean!" she would say, chuckling and rubbing joyously
+her fat little white hands; "ce cher jeune homme! le meilleur creature
+du monde!" and go on to explain how she happened to be employing him
+for her own children, who were so fond of him they would scream
+themselves into fits at the thought of another doctor; how, where she
+had confidence for her own, she thought it natural to repose trust for
+others, and au reste, it was only the most temporary expedient in the
+world; Blanche and Angelique had the migraine; Dr. John had written a
+prescription; voila tout!
+
+The parents' mouths were closed. Blanche and Angelique saved her all
+remaining trouble by chanting loud duets in their physician's praise;
+the other pupils echoed them, unanimously declaring that when they were
+ill they would have Dr. John and nobody else; and Madame laughed, and
+the parents laughed too. The Labassecouriens must have a large organ of
+philoprogenitiveness: at least the indulgence of offspring is carried
+by them to excessive lengths; the law of most households being the
+children's will. Madame now got credit for having acted on this
+occasion in a spirit of motherly partiality: she came off with flying
+colours; people liked her as a directress better than ever.
+
+To this day I never fully understood why she thus risked her interest
+for the sake of Dr. John. What people said, of course I know well: the
+whole house--pupils, teachers, servants included--affirmed that she was
+going to marry him. So they had settled it; difference of age seemed to
+make no obstacle in their eyes: it was to be so.
+
+It must be admitted that appearances did not wholly discountenance this
+idea; Madame seemed so bent on retaining his services, so oblivious of
+her former protege, Pillule. She made, too, such a point of personally
+receiving his visits, and was so unfailingly cheerful, blithe, and
+benignant in her manner to him. Moreover, she paid, about this time,
+marked attention to dress: the morning dishabille, the nightcap and
+shawl, were discarded; Dr. John's early visits always found her with
+auburn braids all nicely arranged, silk dress trimly fitted on, neat
+laced brodequins in lieu of slippers: in short the whole toilette
+complete as a model, and fresh as a flower. I scarcely think, however,
+that her intention in this went further than just to show a very
+handsome man that she was not quite a plain woman; and plain she was
+not. Without beauty of feature or elegance of form, she pleased.
+Without youth and its gay graces, she cheered. One never tired of
+seeing her: she was never monotonous, or insipid, or colourless, or
+flat. Her unfaded hair, her eye with its temperate blue light, her
+cheek with its wholesome fruit-like bloom--these things pleased in
+moderation, but with constancy.
+
+Had she, indeed, floating visions of adopting Dr. John as a husband,
+taking him to her well-furnished home, endowing him with her savings,
+which were said to amount to a moderate competency, and making him
+comfortable for the rest of his life? Did Dr. John suspect her of such
+visions? I have met him coming out of her presence with a mischievous
+half-smile about his lips, and in his eyes a look as of masculine
+vanity elate and tickled. With all his good looks and good-nature, he
+was not perfect; he must have been very imperfect if he roguishly
+encouraged aims he never intended to be successful. But did he not
+intend them to be successful? People said he had no money, that he was
+wholly dependent upon his profession. Madame--though perhaps some
+fourteen years his senior--was yet the sort of woman never to grow old,
+never to wither, never to break down. They certainly were on good
+terms. _He_ perhaps was not in love; but how many people ever _do_
+love, or at least marry for love, in this world. We waited the end.
+
+For what _he_ waited, I do not know, nor for what he watched; but the
+peculiarity of his manner, his expectant, vigilant, absorbed, eager
+look, never wore off: it rather intensified. He had never been quite
+within the compass of my penetration, and I think he ranged farther and
+farther beyond it.
+
+One morning little Georgette had been more feverish and consequently
+more peevish; she was crying, and would not be pacified. I thought a
+particular draught ordered, disagreed with her, and I doubted whether
+it ought to be continued; I waited impatiently for the doctor's coming
+in order to consult him.
+
+The door-bell rang, he was admitted; I felt sure of this, for I heard
+his voice addressing the portress. It was his custom to mount straight
+to the nursery, taking about three degrees of the staircase at once,
+and coming upon us like a cheerful surprise. Five minutes
+elapsed--ten--and I saw and heard nothing of him. What could he be
+doing? Possibly waiting in the corridor below. Little Georgette still
+piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term,
+"Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to
+ascertain why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he
+vanished? Was he with Madame in the _salle-a-manger?_ Impossible: I had
+left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
+listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
+proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser
+drawing-rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the
+portress's cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended
+originally for a boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the
+oratory, a whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson,
+and just then joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it),
+whereof I yet remember these words "fraiche," "brise," and "Venise."
+Under these circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly;
+had it only been to the purpose.
+
+Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
+cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed; a
+man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
+whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
+second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
+with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
+baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.
+
+The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
+believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
+some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
+impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
+sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
+hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
+seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
+him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
+room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
+and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
+grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
+surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to
+have passed?
+
+But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
+out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I
+glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart
+dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing
+save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass
+globe, some flowers in pots, and a broad July sunbeam.
+
+Here was a problem: but I must go up-stairs to ask about the medicine.
+
+Dr. John sat in a chair at Georgette's bedside; Madame stood before
+him; the little patient had been examined and soothed, and now lay
+composed in her crib. Madame Beck, as I entered, was discussing the
+physician's own health, remarking on some real or fancied change in his
+looks, charging him with over-work, and recommending rest and change of
+air. He listened good-naturedly, but with laughing indifference,
+telling her that she was "trop bonne," and that he felt perfectly well.
+Madame appealed to me--Dr. John following her movement with a slow
+glance which seemed to express languid surprise at reference being made
+to a quarter so insignificant.
+
+"What do you think, Miss Lucie?" asked Madame. "Is he not paler and
+thinner?"
+
+It was very seldom that I uttered more than monosyllables in Dr. John's
+presence; he was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to
+remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me. Now, however, I took
+licence to answer in a phrase: and a phrase I purposely made quite
+significant.
+
+"He looks ill at this moment; but perhaps it is owing to some temporary
+cause: Dr. John may have been vexed or harassed." I cannot tell how he
+took this speech, as I never sought his face for information. Georgette
+here began to ask me in her broken English if she might have a glass of
+_eau sucree_. I answered her in English. For the first time, I fancy,
+he noticed that I spoke his language; hitherto he had always taken me
+for a foreigner, addressing me as "Mademoiselle," and giving in French
+the requisite directions about the children's treatment. He seemed on
+the point of making a remark; but thinking better of it, held his
+tongue.
+
+Madame recommenced advising him; he shook his head, laughing, rose and
+bid her good-morning, with courtesy, but still with the regardless air
+of one whom too much unsolicited attention was surfeiting and spoiling.
+
+When he was gone, Madame dropped into the chair he had just left; she
+rested her chin in her hand; all that was animated and amiable vanished
+from her face: she looked stony and stern, almost mortified and morose.
+She sighed; a single, but a deep sigh. A loud bell rang for
+morning-school. She got up; as she passed a dressing-table with a glass
+upon it, she looked at her reflected image. One single white hair
+streaked her nut-brown tresses; she plucked it out with a shudder. In
+the full summer daylight, her face, though it still had the colour,
+could plainly be seen to have lost the texture of youth; and then,
+where were youth's contours? Ah, Madame! wise as you were, even _you_
+knew weakness. Never had I pitied Madame before, but my heart softened
+towards her, when she turned darkly from the glass. A calamity had come
+upon her. That hag Disappointment was greeting her with a grisly
+"All-hail," and her soul rejected the intimacy.
+
+But Rosine! My bewilderment there surpasses description. I embraced
+five opportunities of passing her cabinet that day, with a view to
+contemplating her charms, and finding out the secret of their
+influence. She was pretty, young, and wore a well-made dress. All very
+good points, and, I suppose, amply sufficient to account, in any
+philosophic mind, for any amount of agony and distraction in a young
+man, like Dr. John. Still, I could not help forming half a wish that
+the said doctor were my brother; or at least that he had a sister or a
+mother who would kindly sermonize him. I say _half_ a wish; I broke it,
+and flung it away before it became a whole one, discovering in good
+time its exquisite folly. "Somebody," I argued, "might as well
+sermonize Madame about her young physician: and what good would that
+do?"
+
+I believe Madame sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make
+herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong
+feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably
+pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real
+business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her
+interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense
+which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these
+combined advantages she behaved wisely--she behaved well. Brava! once
+more, Madame Beck. I saw you matched against an Apollyon of a
+predilection; you fought a good fight, and you overcame!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE CASKET.
+
+
+Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden--large,
+considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection
+at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to
+certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone
+around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how
+lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!
+
+There went a tradition that Madame Beck's house had in old days been a
+convent. That in years gone by--how long gone by I cannot tell, but I
+think some centuries--before the city had over-spread this quarter, and
+when it was tilled ground and avenue, and such deep and leafy seclusion
+as ought to embosom a religious house--that something had happened on
+this site which, rousing fear and inflicting horror, had left to the
+place the inheritance of a ghost-story. A vague tale went of a black
+and white nun, sometimes, on some night or nights of the year, seen in
+some part of this vicinage. The ghost must have been built out some
+ages ago, for there were houses all round now; but certain
+convent-relics, in the shape of old and huge fruit-trees, yet
+consecrated the spot; and, at the foot of one--a Methuselah of a
+pear-tree, dead, all but a few boughs which still faithfully renewed
+their perfumed snow in spring, and their honey-sweet pendants in
+autumn--you saw, in scraping away the mossy earth between the
+half-bared roots, a glimpse of slab, smooth, hard, and black. The
+legend went, unconfirmed and unaccredited, but still propagated, that
+this was the portal of a vault, imprisoning deep beneath that ground,
+on whose surface grass grew and flowers bloomed, the bones of a girl
+whom a monkish conclave of the drear middle ages had here buried alive
+for some sin against her vow. Her shadow it was that tremblers had
+feared, through long generations after her poor frame was dust; her
+black robe and white veil that, for timid eyes, moonlight and shade had
+mocked, as they fluctuated in the night-wind through the garden-thicket.
+
+Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its
+charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone;
+on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising
+moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than
+feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the
+gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful
+about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large
+berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a
+smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all
+along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of
+beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured
+spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.
+
+Doubtless at high noon, in the broad, vulgar middle of the day, when
+Madame Beck's large school turned out rampant, and externes and
+pensionnaires were spread abroad, vying with the denizens of the boys'
+college close at hand, in the brazen exercise of their lungs and
+limbs--doubtless _then_ the garden was a trite, trodden-down place
+enough. But at sunset or the hour of _salut_, when the externes were
+gone home, and the boarders quiet at their studies; pleasant was it
+then to stray down the peaceful alleys, and hear the bells of St. Jean
+Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.
+
+I was walking thus one evening, and had been detained farther within
+the verge of twilight than usual, by the still-deepening calm, the
+mellow coolness, the fragrant breathing with which flowers no sunshine
+could win now answered the persuasion of the dew. I saw by a light in
+the oratory window that the Catholic household were then gathered to
+evening prayer--a rite, from attendance on which, I now and then, as a
+Protestant, exempted myself.
+
+"One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay with
+us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your
+presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you;
+enjoy these precious minutes."
+
+The windowless backs of houses built in this garden, and in particular
+the whole of one side, was skirted by the rear of a long line of
+premises--being the boarding-houses of the neighbouring college. This
+rear, however, was all blank stone, with the exception of certain attic
+loopholes high up, opening from the sleeping-rooms of the
+women-servants, and also one casement in a lower story said to mark the
+chamber or study of a master. But, though thus secure, an alley, which
+ran parallel with the very high wall on that side the garden, was
+forbidden to be entered by the pupils. It was called indeed "l'allee
+defendue," and any girl setting foot there would have rendered herself
+liable to as severe a penalty as the mild rules of Madame Beck's
+establishment permitted. Teachers might indeed go there with impunity;
+but as the walk was narrow, and the neglected shrubs were grown very
+thick and close on each side, weaving overhead a roof of branch and
+leaf which the sun's rays penetrated but in rare chequers, this alley
+was seldom entered even during day, and after dusk was carefully
+shunned.
+
+From the first I was tempted to make an exception to this rule of
+avoidance: the seclusion, the very gloom of the walk attracted me. For
+a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by
+degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such
+shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades, certainly
+not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to
+offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my
+identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this strait and
+narrow path. I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grew
+between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past
+autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end. Borrowing of Goton,
+the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seat
+clean. Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely
+or not I don't know; but she _seemed_ sincere.
+
+"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle
+Lucie? Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess?" "Yes," I said, "it is quiet
+and shady."
+
+"C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; and she kindly
+recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, that
+as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble myself
+to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to come
+there, to talk English with me.
+
+On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed
+from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of
+the city. Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the
+city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce
+ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streets
+brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling
+through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolled
+curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped the
+curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to
+festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay
+instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though
+often I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was
+not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only
+reach it--who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere,
+could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no
+hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.
+
+A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her
+through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible
+beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood
+knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curve
+leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field,
+in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside a
+stately spire in this continental capital.
+
+Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I
+spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I _could_ feel.
+About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future--such
+a future as mine--to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I
+studiously held the quick of my nature.
+
+At that time, I well remember whatever could excite--certain accidents
+of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they
+woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
+could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane
+shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to their
+saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was
+roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself, and
+creeping outside the casement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, with
+my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it was
+wild, it was pitch-dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round the
+night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too
+resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and
+full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to
+man--too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced
+by white and blinding bolts.
+
+I did long, achingly, then and for four and twenty hours afterwards,
+for something to fetch me out of my present existence, and lead me
+upwards and onwards. This longing, and all of a similar kind, it was
+necessary to knock on the head; which I did, figuratively, after the
+manner of Jael to Sisera, driving a nail through their temples. Unlike
+Sisera, they did not die: they were but transiently stunned, and at
+intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did the
+temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core.
+
+To-night, I was not so mutinous, nor so miserable. My Sisera lay quiet
+in the tent, slumbering; and if his pain ached through his slumbers,
+something like an angel--the ideal--knelt near, dropping balm on the
+soothed temples, holding before the sealed eyes a magic glass, of which
+the sweet, solemn visions were repeated in dreams, and shedding a
+reflex from her moonlight wings and robe over the transfixed sleeper,
+over the tent threshold, over all the landscape lying without. Jael,
+the stern woman; sat apart, relenting somewhat over her captive; but
+more prone to dwell on the faithful expectation of Heber coming home.
+By which words I mean that the cool peace and dewy sweetness of the
+night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point,
+but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease.
+
+Should not such a mood, so sweet, so tranquil, so unwonted, have been
+the harbinger of good? Alas, no good came of it! I Presently the rude
+Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too
+often is.
+
+Amid the intense stillness of that pile of stone overlooking the walk,
+the trees, the high wall, I heard a sound; a casement [all the windows
+here are casements, opening on hinges] creaked. Ere I had time to look
+up and mark where, in which story, or by whom unclosed, a tree overhead
+shook, as if struck by a missile; some object dropped prone at my feet.
+
+Nine was striking by St. Jean Baptiste's clock; day was fading, but it
+was not dark: the crescent moon aided little, but the deep gilding of
+that point in heaven where the sun beamed last, and the crystalline
+clearness of a wide space above, sustained the summer twilight; even in
+my dark walk I could, by approaching an opening, have managed to read
+print of a small type. Easy was it to see then that the missile was a
+box, a small box of white and coloured ivory; its loose lid opened in
+my hand; violets lay within, violets smothering a closely folded bit of
+pink paper, a note, superscribed, "Pour la robe grise." I wore indeed a
+dress of French grey.
+
+Good. Was this a billet-doux? A thing I had heard of, but hitherto had
+not had the honour of seeing or handling. Was it this sort of commodity
+I held between my finger and thumb at this moment?
+
+Scarcely: I did not dream it for a moment. Suitor or admirer my very
+thoughts had not conceived. All the teachers had dreams of some lover;
+one (but she was naturally of a credulous turn) believed in a future
+husband. All the pupils above fourteen knew of some prospective
+bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
+had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
+which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
+had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
+town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
+were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet with
+some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze assured
+them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that my
+experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and I
+took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me. There was
+not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and did not
+testify to having received an admiring beam from our young doctor's
+blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however humbling it may
+sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue eyes
+were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin.
+So it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often at
+their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but did not trouble
+myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed so certain of
+treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in settled
+conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it ran--I
+translate:--
+
+"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
+scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
+to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
+with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
+secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
+teacher--une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--espece
+de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et
+reveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty in
+allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight
+veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this precious
+effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been
+removed to a master's chamber--that favoured chamber, whose lattice
+overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, am
+admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and
+glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me, though a desert for you!--how I
+feared to behold vacancy, or the dragon aforesaid! How my heart
+palpitated with delight when, through apertures in the envious boughs,
+I at once caught the gleam of your graceful straw-hat, and the waving
+of your grey dress--dress that I should recognise amongst a thousand.
+But why, my angel, will you not look up? Cruel, to deny me one ray of
+those adorable eyes!--how a single glance would have revived me! I
+write this in fiery haste; while the physician examines Gustave, I
+snatch an opportunity to enclose it in a small casket, together with a
+bouquet of flowers, the sweetest that blow--yet less sweet than thee,
+my Peri--my all-charming! ever thine-thou well knowest whom!"
+
+"I wish I did know whom," was my comment; and the wish bore even closer
+reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the
+writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiance of one of the engaged
+pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or
+intended--only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the
+majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college.
+But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue--a
+very confusing one. The straw-hat was an ordinary garden head-screen,
+common to a score besides myself. The grey dress hardly gave more
+definite indication. Madame Beck herself ordinarily wore a grey dress
+just now; another teacher, and three of the pensionnaires, had had grey
+dresses purchased of the same shade and fabric as mine: it was a sort
+of every-day wear which happened at that time to be in vogue.
+
+Meanwhile, as I pondered, I knew I must go in. Lights, moving in the
+dormitory, announced that prayers were over, and the pupils going to
+bed. Another half-hour and all doors would be locked--all lights
+extinguished. The front door yet stood open, to admit into the heated
+house the coolness of the summer night; from the portress's cabinet
+close by shone a lamp, showing the long vestibule with the two-leaved
+drawing-room doors on one side, the great street-door closing the vista.
+
+All at once, quick rang the bell--quick, but not loud--a cautious
+tinkle--a sort of warning metal whisper. Rosine darted from her cabinet
+and ran to open. The person she admitted stood with her two minutes in
+parley: there seemed a demur, a delay. Rosine came to the garden door,
+lamp in hand; she stood on the steps, lifting her lamp, looking round
+vaguely.
+
+"Quel conte!" she cried, with a coquettish laugh. "Personne n'y a ete."
+
+"Let me pass," pleaded a voice I knew: "I ask but five minutes;" and a
+familiar shape, tall and grand (as we of the Rue Fossette all thought
+it), issued from the house, and strode down amongst the beds and walks.
+It was sacrilege--the intrusion of a man into that spot, at that hour;
+but he knew himself privileged, and perhaps he trusted to the friendly
+night. He wandered down the alleys, looking on this side and on
+that--he was lost in the shrubs, trampling flowers and breaking
+branches in his search--he penetrated at last the "forbidden walk."
+There I met him, like some ghost, I suppose.
+
+"Dr. John! it is found."
+
+He did not ask by whom, for with his quick eye he perceived that I held
+it in my hand.
+
+"Do not betray her," he said, looking at me as if I were indeed a
+dragon.
+
+"Were I ever so disposed to treachery, I cannot betray what I do not
+know," was my answer. "Read the note, and you will see how little it
+reveals."
+
+"Perhaps you have read it," I thought to myself; and yet I could not
+believe he wrote it: that could hardly be his style: besides, I was
+fool enough to think there would be a degree of hardship in his calling
+me such names. His own look vindicated him; he grew hot, and coloured
+as he read.
+
+"This is indeed too much: this is cruel, this is humiliating," were the
+words that fell from him.
+
+I thought it _was_ cruel, when I saw his countenance so moved. No
+matter whether he was to blame or not; somebody, it seemed to me, must
+be more to blame.
+
+"What shall you do about it?" he inquired of me. "Shall you tell Madame
+Beck what you have found, and cause a stir--an esclandre?"
+
+I thought I ought to tell, and said so; adding that I did not believe
+there would be either stir or esclandre: Madame was much too prudent to
+make a noise about an affair of that sort connected with her
+establishment.
+
+He stood looking down and meditating. He was both too proud and too
+honourable to entreat my secresy on a point which duty evidently
+commanded me to communicate. I wished to do right, yet loathed to
+grieve or injure him. Just then Rosine glanced out through the open
+door; she could not see us, though between the trees I could plainly
+see her: her dress was grey, like mine. This circumstance, taken in
+connection with prior transactions, suggested to me that perhaps the
+case, however deplorable, was one in which I was under no obligation
+whatever to concern myself. Accordingly, I said,--"If you can assure me
+that none of Madame Beck's pupils are implicated in this business, I
+shall be very happy to stand aloof from all interference. Take the
+casket, the bouquet, and the billet; for my part, I gladly forget the
+whole affair."
+
+"Look there!" he whispered suddenly, as his hand closed on what I
+offered, and at the same time he pointed through the boughs.
+
+I looked. Behold Madame, in shawl, wrapping-gown, and slippers, softly
+descending the steps, and stealing like a cat round the garden: in two
+minutes she would have been upon Dr. John. If _she_ were like a cat,
+however, _he_, quite as much, resembled a leopard: nothing could be
+lighter than his tread when he chose. He watched, and as she turned a
+corner, he took the garden at two noiseless bounds. She reappeared, and
+he was gone. Rosine helped him, instantly interposing the door between
+him and his huntress. I, too, might have got, away, but I preferred to
+meet Madame openly.
+
+Though it was my frequent and well-known custom to spend twilight in
+the garden, yet, never till now, had I remained so late. Full sure was
+I that Madame had missed--was come in search of me, and designed now to
+pounce on the defaulter unawares. I expected a reprimand. No. Madame
+was all goodness. She tendered not even a remonstrance; she testified
+no shade of surprise. With that consummate tact of hers, in which I
+believe she was never surpassed by living thing, she even professed
+merely to have issued forth to taste "la brise du soir."
+
+"Quelle belle nuit!" cried she, looking up at the stars--the moon was
+now gone down behind the broad tower of Jean Baptiste. "Qu'il fait bon?
+que l'air est frais!"
+
+And, instead of sending me in, she detained me to take a few turns with
+her down the principal alley. When at last we both re-entered, she
+leaned affably on my shoulder by way of support in mounting the
+front-door steps; at parting, her cheek was presented to my lips, and
+"Bon soir, my bonne amie; dormez bien!" was her kindly adieu for the
+night.
+
+I caught myself smiling as I lay awake and thoughtful on my
+couch--smiling at Madame. The unction, the suavity of her behaviour
+offered, for one who knew her, a sure token that suspicion of some kind
+was busy in her brain. From some aperture or summit of observation,
+through parted bough or open window, she had doubtless caught a
+glimpse, remote or near, deceptive or instructive, of that night's
+transactions. Finely accomplished as she was in the art of
+surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown
+into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it,
+without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall,
+or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few
+words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I
+thought, the whole conventual ground)--without, I say, that she should
+have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her
+premises. _What_ things, she might by no means see, or at that time be
+able to discover; but a delicious little ravelled plot lay tempting her
+to disentanglement; and in the midst, folded round and round in
+cobwebs, had she not secured "Meess Lucie" clumsily involved, like the
+foolish fly she was?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A SNEEZE OUT OF SEASON.
+
+
+I had occasion to smile--nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the
+space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in the
+last chapter.
+
+Villette owns a climate as variable, though not so humid, as that of
+any English town. A night of high wind followed upon that soft sunset,
+and all the next day was one of dry storm--dark, beclouded, yet
+rainless,--the streets were dim with sand and dust, whirled from the
+boulevards. I know not that even lovely weather would have tempted me
+to spend the evening-time of study and recreation where I had spent it
+yesterday. My alley, and, indeed, all the walks and shrubs in the
+garden, had acquired a new, but not a pleasant interest; their
+seclusion was now become precarious; their calm--insecure. That
+casement which rained billets, had vulgarized the once dear nook it
+overlooked; and elsewhere, the eyes of the flowers had gained vision,
+and the knots in the tree-boles listened like secret ears. Some plants
+there were, indeed, trodden down by Dr. John in his search, and his
+hasty and heedless progress, which I wished to prop up, water, and
+revive; some footmarks, too, he had left on the beds: but these, in
+spite of the strong wind, I found a moment's leisure to efface very
+early in the morning, ere common eyes had discovered them. With a
+pensive sort of content, I sat down to my desk and my German, while the
+pupils settled to their evening lessons; and the other teachers took up
+their needlework.
+
+The scene of the "etude du soir" was always the refectory, a much
+smaller apartment than any of the three classes or schoolrooms; for
+here none, save the boarders, were ever admitted, and these numbered
+only a score. Two lamps hung from the ceiling over the two tables;
+these were lit at dusk, and their kindling was the signal for
+school-books being set aside, a grave demeanour assumed, general
+silence enforced, and then commenced "la lecture pieuse." This said
+"lecture pieuse" was, I soon found, mainly designed as a wholesome
+mortification of the Intellect, a useful humiliation of the Reason; and
+such a dose for Common Sense as she might digest at her leisure, and
+thrive on as she best could.
+
+The book brought out (it was never changed, but when finished,
+recommenced) was a venerable volume, old as the hills--grey as the
+Hotel de Ville.
+
+I would have given two francs for the chance of getting that book once
+into my hands, turning over the sacred yellow leaves, ascertaining the
+title, and perusing with my own eyes the enormous figments which, as an
+unworthy heretic, it was only permitted me to drink in with my
+bewildered ears. This book contained legends of the saints. Good God!
+(I speak the words reverently) what legends they were. What gasconading
+rascals those saints must have been, if they first boasted these
+exploits or invented these miracles. These legends, however, were no
+more than monkish extravagances, over which one laughed inwardly; there
+were, besides, priestly matters, and the priestcraft of the book was
+far worse than its monkery. The ears burned on each side of my head as
+I listened, perforce, to tales of moral martyrdom inflicted by Rome;
+the dread boasts of confessors, who had wickedly abused their office,
+trampling to deep degradation high-born ladies, making of countesses
+and princesses the most tormented slaves under the sun. Stories like
+that of Conrad and Elizabeth of Hungary, recurred again and again, with
+all its dreadful viciousness, sickening tyranny and black impiety:
+tales that were nightmares of oppression, privation, and agony.
+
+I sat out this "lecture pieuse" for some nights as well as I could, and
+as quietly too; only once breaking off the points of my scissors by
+involuntarily sticking them somewhat deep in the worm-eaten board of
+the table before me. But, at last, it made me so burning hot, and my
+temples, and my heart, and my wrist throbbed so fast, and my sleep
+afterwards was so broken with excitement, that I could sit no longer.
+Prudence recommended henceforward a swift clearance of my person from
+the place, the moment that guilty old book was brought out. No Mause
+Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
+Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
+popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein
+in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I
+shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
+vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
+vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.
+
+When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
+carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
+unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought the
+long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate if the
+moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to their dim
+gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In summer it was
+never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own quarter of the
+long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber was lit by five
+casements large as great doors), and leaning out, looked forth upon the
+city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from the park or the
+palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own life,
+in my own still, shadow-world.
+
+This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
+mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly opened the
+door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which, like every other
+door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Before I
+_saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room, usually void: not that
+there was either stir or breath, or rustle of sound, but Vacuum lacked,
+Solitude was not at home. All the white beds--the "lits d'ange," as
+they were poetically termed--lay visible at a glance; all were empty:
+no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of a drawer cautiously slid out
+struck my ear; stepping a little to one side, my vision took a free
+range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I now commanded my own bed and my
+own toilet, with a locked work-box upon it, and locked drawers
+underneath.
+
+Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
+cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
+apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
+stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
+impartially was each succeeding drawer opened in turn: not an article
+of their contents but was lifted and unfolded, not a paper but was
+glanced over, not a little box but was unlidded; and beautiful was the
+adroitness, exemplary the care with which the search was accomplished.
+Madame wrought at it like a true star, "unhasting yet unresting." I
+will not deny that it was with a secret glee I watched her. Had I been
+a gentleman I believe Madame would have found favour in my eyes, she
+was so handy, neat, thorough in all she did: some people's movements
+provoke the soul by their loose awkwardness, hers--satisfied by their
+trim compactness. I stood, in short, fascinated; but it was necessary
+to make an effort to break this spell a retreat must be beaten. The
+searcher might have turned and caught me; there would have been nothing
+for it then but a scene, and she and I would have had to come all at
+once, with a sudden clash, to a thorough knowledge of each other: down
+would have gone conventionalities, away swept disguises, and _I_ should
+have looked into her eyes, and she into mine--we should have known that
+we could work together no more, and parted in this life for ever.
+
+Where was the use of tempting such a catastrophe? I was not angry, and
+had no wish in the world to leave her. I could hardly get another
+employer whose yoke would be so light and so, easy of carriage; and
+truly I liked Madame for her capital sense, whatever I might think of
+her principles: as to her system, it did me no harm; she might work me
+with it to her heart's content: nothing would come of the operation.
+Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my
+heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.
+I turned, then, and fled; descending the stairs with progress as swift
+and soundless as that of the spider, which at the same instant ran down
+the bannister.
+
+How I laughed when I reached the schoolroom. I knew now she had
+certainly seen Dr. John in the garden; I knew what her thoughts were.
+The spectacle of a suspicious nature so far misled by its own
+inventions, tickled me much. Yet as the laugh died, a kind of wrath
+smote me, and then bitterness followed: it was the rock struck, and
+Meribah's waters gushing out. I never had felt so strange and
+contradictory an inward tumult as I felt for an hour that evening:
+soreness and laughter, and fire, and grief, shared my heart between
+them. I cried hot tears: not because Madame mistrusted me--I did not
+care twopence for her mistrust--but for other reasons. Complicated,
+disquieting thoughts broke up the whole repose of my nature. However,
+that turmoil subsided: next day I was again Lucy Snowe.
+
+On revisiting my drawers, I found them all securely locked; the closest
+subsequent examination could not discover change or apparent
+disturbance in the position of one object. My few dresses were folded
+as I had left them; a certain little bunch of white violets that had
+once been silently presented to me by a stranger (a stranger to me, for
+we had never exchanged words), and which I had dried and kept for its
+sweet perfume between the folds of my best dress, lay there unstirred;
+my black silk scarf, my lace chemisette and collars, were unrumpled.
+Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have felt much
+greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight and
+orderly, I said, "Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I
+bear malice?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A thing there was which puzzled myself, and I sought in my brain a key
+to that riddle almost as sedulously as Madame had sought a guide to
+useful knowledge in my toilet drawers. How was it that Dr. John, if he
+had not been accessory to the dropping of that casket into the garden,
+should have known that it _was_ dropped, and appeared so promptly on
+the spot to seek it? So strong was the wish to clear up this point that
+I began to entertain this daring suggestion: "Why may I not, in case I
+should ever have the opportunity, ask Dr. John himself to explain this
+coincidence?"
+
+And so long as Dr. John was absent, I really believed I had courage to
+test him with such a question.
+
+Little Georgette was now convalescent; and her physician accordingly
+made his visits very rare: indeed, he would have ceased them
+altogether, had not Madame insisted on his giving an occasional call
+till the child should be quite well.
+
+She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to
+Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking
+the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de
+fievre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance
+than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue
+dernierement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+Of course she knew this better than any other person in the house.
+"Well," she continued, "I am going out, pour faire quelques courses en
+fiacre. I shall call on Dr. John, and send him to the child. I will
+that he sees her this evening; her cheeks are flushed, her pulse is
+quick; _you_ will receive him--for my part, I shall be from home."
+
+Now the child was well enough, only warm with the warmth of July; it
+was scarcely less needful to send for a priest to administer extreme
+unction than for a doctor to prescribe a dose; also Madame rarely made
+"courses," as she called them, in the evening: moreover, this was the
+first time she had chosen to absent herself on the occasion of a visit
+from Dr. John. The whole arrangement indicated some plan; this I saw,
+but without the least anxiety. "Ha! ha! Madame," laughed Light-heart
+the Beggar, "your crafty wits are on the wrong tack."
+
+She departed, attired very smartly, in a shawl of price, and a certain
+_chapeau vert tendre_--hazardous, as to its tint, for any complexion
+less fresh than her own, but, to her, not unbecoming. I wondered what
+she intended: whether she really would send Dr. John or not; or whether
+indeed he would come: he might be engaged.
+
+Madame had charged me not to let Georgette sleep till the doctor came;
+I had therefore sufficient occupation in telling her nursery tales and
+palavering the little language for her benefit. I affected Georgette;
+she was a sensitive and a loving child: to hold her in my lap, or carry
+her in my arms, was to me a treat. To-night she would have me lay my
+head on the pillow of her crib; she even put her little arms round my
+neck. Her clasp, and the nestling action with which she pressed her
+cheek to mine, made me almost cry with a tender pain. Feeling of no
+kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure little
+source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart, and
+sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette
+murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. "And you _shall_
+sleep," thought I, "malgre maman and medecin, if they are not here in
+ten minutes."
+
+Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the
+staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine
+introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether
+peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette
+generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame's presence
+would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the
+cabinet--for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not
+a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her
+gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than
+if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
+
+"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
+a jerk of her chin.
+
+"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
+his pencil some harmless prescription.
+
+"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
+his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
+coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."
+
+"I found it: yes."
+
+"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
+very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
+courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point
+which, for others, seems unattainable!
+
+"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort
+of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
+character.
+
+"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
+thrown, since he came to seek it--how did he know?"
+
+"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
+saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."
+
+How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
+as then examining "Gustave."
+
+"Ah ca!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien la-dessous: pas de
+mystere, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"
+
+"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.
+
+"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--a qui tout cela
+commencait a donner des idees."
+
+"Vraiment! vous en etes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
+rejoinder.
+
+She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
+she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and
+genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
+
+"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
+month?" he asked.
+
+"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite readily.
+
+"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
+give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
+danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
+minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
+
+The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
+not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace
+in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering
+like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
+
+I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the
+ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor yet
+on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John's
+heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette's
+little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was the culprit?
+What was the ground--what the origin--what the perfect explanation of
+the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but how many yet
+remained obscure as night!
+
+"However," I said to myself, "it is no affair of yours;" and turning
+from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a
+questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the
+garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bed-side, was slowly
+drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes
+closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he
+should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate
+"good-night.". Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall
+houses bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated,
+cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white
+handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered
+from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after
+there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and
+light--billet the second, of course.
+
+"There!" I ejaculated involuntarily.
+
+"Where?", asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window.
+"What, is it?"
+
+"They have gone and done it again," was my reply. "A handkerchief waved
+and something fell:" and I pointed to the lattice, now closed and
+looking hypocritically blank.
+
+"Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here," was his prompt direction;
+adding, "Nobody will take notice of _you: I_ should be seen."
+
+Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper,
+lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct
+to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.
+
+He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it. "It
+is not in the least _her_ fault, you must remember," he said, looking
+at me.
+
+"_Whose_ fault?" I asked. "_Who_ is it?"
+
+"You don't yet know, then?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Have you no guess?"
+
+"None."
+
+"If I knew you better, I might be tempted to risk some confidence, and
+thus secure you as guardian over a most innocent and excellent, but
+somewhat inexperienced being."
+
+"As a duenna?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said he abstractedly. "What snares are round her!" he added,
+musingly: and now, certainly for the first time, he examined my face,
+anxious, doubtless, to see if any kindly expression there, would
+warrant him in recommending to my care and indulgence some ethereal
+creature, against whom powers of darkness were plotting. I felt no
+particular vocation to undertake the surveillance of ethereal
+creatures; but recalling the scene at the bureau, it seemed to me that
+I owed _him_ a good turn: if I _could_ help him then I would, and it
+lay not with me to decide how. With as little reluctance as might be, I
+intimated that "I was willing to do what I could towards taking care of
+any person in whom he might be interested.".
+
+"I am no farther interested than as a spectator," said he, with a
+modesty, admirable, as I thought, to witness. "I happen to be
+acquainted with the rather worthless character of the person, who, from
+the house opposite, has now twice invaded the sanctity of this place; I
+have also met in society the object at whom these vulgar attempts are
+aimed. Her exquisite superiority and innate refinement ought, one would
+think, to scare impertinence from her very idea. It is not so, however;
+and innocent, unsuspicious as she is, I would guard her from evil if I
+could. In person, however, I can do nothing I cannot come near her"--he
+paused.
+
+"Well, I am willing to help you," said I, "only tell me how." And
+busily, in my own mind, I ran over the list of our inmates, seeking
+this paragon, this pearl of great price, this gem without flaw. "It
+must be Madame," I concluded. "_She_ only, amongst us all, has the art
+even to _seem_ superior: but as to being unsuspicious, inexperienced,
+&c., Dr. John need not distract himself about that. However, this is
+just his whim, and I will not contradict him; he shall be humoured: his
+angel shall be an angel.
+
+"Just notify the quarter to which my care is to be directed," I
+continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of
+being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John
+had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no more
+coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was a
+little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a smile
+he turned and took his hat--he was going. My heart smote me.
+
+"I will--I will help you," said I eagerly. "I will do what you wish. I
+will watch over your angel; I will take care of her, only tell me who
+she is."
+
+"But you _must_ know," said he then with earnestness, yet speaking very
+low. "So spotless, so good, so unspeakably beautiful! impossible that
+one house should contain two like her. I allude, of course--"
+
+Here the latch of Madame Beck's chamber-door (opening into the nursery)
+gave a sudden click, as if the hand holding it had been slightly
+convulsed; there was the suppressed explosion of an irrepressible
+sneeze. These little accidents will happen to the best of us.
+Madame--excellent woman! was then on duty. She had come home quietly,
+stolen up-stairs on tip-toe; she was in her chamber. If she had not
+sneezed, she would have heard all, and so should I; but that unlucky
+sternutation routed Dr. John. While he stood aghast, she came forward
+alert, composed, in the best yet most tranquil spirits: no novice to
+her habits but would have thought she had just come in, and scouted the
+idea of her ear having been glued to the key-hole for at least ten
+minutes. She affected to sneeze again, declared she was "enrhumee," and
+then proceeded volubly to recount her "courses en fiacre." The
+prayer-bell rang, and I left her with the doctor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE FETE.
+
+
+As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country. I
+was sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than before.
+But I must not complain. I lived in a house full of robust life; I
+might have had companions, and I chose solitude. Each of the teachers
+in turn made me overtures of special intimacy; I tried them all. One I
+found to be an honest woman, but a narrow thinker, a coarse feeler, and
+an egotist. The second was a Parisienne, externally refined--at heart,
+corrupt--without a creed, without a principle, without an affection:
+having penetrated the outward crust of decorum in this character, you
+found a slough beneath. She had a wonderful passion for presents; and,
+in this point, the third teacher--a person otherwise characterless and
+insignificant--closely resembled her. This last-named had also one
+other distinctive property--that of avarice. In her reigned the love of
+money for its own sake. The sight of a piece of gold would bring into
+her eyes a green glisten, singular to witness. She once, as a mark of
+high favour, took me up-stairs, and, opening a secret door, showed me a
+hoard--a mass of coarse, large coin--about fifteen guineas, in
+five-franc pieces. She loved this hoard as a bird loves its eggs. These
+were her savings. She would come and talk to me about them with an
+infatuated and persevering dotage, strange to behold in a person not
+yet twenty-five.
+
+The Parisienne, on the other hand, was prodigal and profligate (in
+disposition, that is: as to action, I do not know). That latter quality
+showed its snake-head to me but once, peeping out very cautiously. A
+curious kind of reptile it seemed, judging from the glimpse I got; its
+novelty whetted my curiosity: if it would have come out boldly, perhaps
+I might philosophically have stood my ground, and coolly surveyed the
+long thing from forked tongue to scaly tail-tip; but it merely rustled
+in the leaves of a bad novel; and, on encountering a hasty and
+ill-advised demonstration of wrath, recoiled and vanished, hissing. She
+hated me from that day.
+
+This Parisienne was always in debt; her salary being anticipated, not
+only in dress, but in perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, and
+condiments. What a cold, callous epicure she was in all things! I see
+her now. Thin in face and figure, sallow in complexion, regular in
+features, with perfect teeth, lips like a thread, a large, prominent
+chin, a well-opened, but frozen eye, of light at once craving and
+ingrate. She mortally hated work, and loved what she called pleasure;
+being an insipid, heartless, brainless dissipation of time.
+
+Madame Beck knew this woman's character perfectly well. She once talked
+to me about her, with an odd mixture of discrimination, indifference,
+and antipathy. I asked why she kept her in the establishment. She
+answered plainly, "because it suited her interest to do so;" and
+pointed out a fact I had already noticed, namely, that Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre possessed, in an almost unique degree, the power of keeping
+order amongst her undisciplined ranks of scholars. A certain petrifying
+influence accompanied and surrounded her: without passion, noise, or
+violence, she held them in check as a breezeless frost-air might still
+a brawling stream. She was of little use as far as communication of
+knowledge went, but for strict surveillance and maintenance of rules
+she was invaluable. "Je sais bien qu'elle n'a pas de principes, ni,
+peut-etre, de moeurs," admitted Madame frankly; but added with
+philosophy, "son maintien en classe est toujours convenable et rempli
+meme d'une certaine dignite: c'est tout ce qu'il faut. Ni les eleves ni
+les parents ne regardent plus loin; ni, par consequent, moi non plus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school: great pains
+were taken to hide chains with flowers: a subtle essence of Romanism
+pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was
+permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each
+mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from
+dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was seized
+and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to bring
+up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, fat, ruddy, hale,
+joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. "Eat, drink, and live!"
+she says. "Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I hold their
+cure--guide their course: I guarantee their final fate." A bargain, in
+which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer just offers
+the same terms: "All this power will I give thee, and the glory of it;
+for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If
+thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine!"
+
+About this time--in the ripest glow of summer--Madame Beck's house
+became as merry a place as a school could well be. All day long the
+broad folding-doors and the two-leaved casements stood wide open:
+settled sunshine seemed naturalized in the atmosphere; clouds were far
+off, sailing away beyond sea, resting, no doubt, round islands such as
+England--that dear land of mists--but withdrawn wholly from the drier
+continent. We lived far more in the garden than under a roof: classes
+were held, and meals partaken of, in the "grand berceau." Moreover,
+there was a note of holiday preparation, which almost turned freedom
+into licence. The autumnal long vacation was but two months distant;
+but before that, a great day--an important ceremony--none other than
+the fete of Madame--awaited celebration.
+
+The conduct of this fete devolved chiefly on Mademoiselle St. Pierre:
+Madame herself being supposed to stand aloof, disinterestedly
+unconscious of what might be going forward in her honour. Especially,
+she never knew, never in the least suspected, that a subscription was
+annually levied on the whole school for the purchase of a handsome
+present. The polite tact of the reader will please to leave out of the
+account a brief, secret consultation on this point in Madame's own
+chamber.
+
+"What will you have this year?" was asked by her Parisian lieutenant.
+
+"Oh, no matter! Let it alone. Let the poor children keep their francs,"
+And Madame looked benign and modest.
+
+The St. Pierre would here protrude her chin; she knew Madame by heart;
+she always called her airs of "bonte"--"des grimaces." She never even
+professed to respect them one instant.
+
+"Vite!" she would say coldly. "Name the article. Shall it be jewellery
+or porcelain, haberdashery or silver?"
+
+"Eh bien! Deux ou trois cuillers, et autant de fourchettes en argent."
+
+And the result was a handsome case, containing 300 francs worth of
+plate.
+
+The programme of the fete-day's proceedings comprised: Presentation of
+plate, collation in the garden, dramatic performance (with pupils and
+teachers for actors), a dance and supper. Very gorgeous seemed the
+effect of the whole to me, as I well remember. Zelie St. Pierre
+understood these things and managed them ably.
+
+The play was the main point; a month's previous drilling being there
+required. The choice, too, of the actors required knowledge and care;
+then came lessons in elocution, in attitude, and then the fatigue of
+countless rehearsals. For all this, as may well be supposed, St. Pierre
+did not suffice: other management, other accomplishments than hers were
+requisite here. They were supplied in the person of a master--M. Paul
+Emanuel, professor of literature. It was never my lot to be present at
+the histrionic lessons of M. Paul, but I often saw him as he crossed
+the _carre_ (a square hall between the dwelling-house and
+school-house). I heard him, too, in the warm evenings, lecturing with
+open doors, and his name, with anecdotes of him, resounded in ones ears
+from all sides. Especially our former acquaintance, Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe,--who had been selected to take a prominent part in the
+play--used, in bestowing upon me a large portion of her leisure, to
+lard her discourse with frequent allusions to his sayings and doings.
+She esteemed him hideously plain, and used to profess herself
+frightened almost into hysterics at the sound of his step or voice. A
+dark little man he certainly was; pungent and austere. Even to me he
+seemed a harsh apparition, with his close-shorn, black head, his broad,
+sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide and quivering nostril, his
+thorough glance, and hurried bearing. Irritable he was; one heard that,
+as he apostrophized with vehemence the awkward squad under his orders.
+Sometimes he would break out on these raw amateur actresses with a
+passion of impatience at their falseness of conception, their coldness
+of emotion, their feebleness of delivery. "Ecoutez!" he would cry; and
+then his voice rang through the premises like a trumpet; and when,
+mimicking it, came the small pipe of a Ginevra, a Mathilde, or a
+Blanche, one understood why a hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce hiss
+of rage, rewarded the tame echo.
+
+"Vous n'etes donc que des poupees," I heard him thunder. "Vous n'avez
+pas de passions--vous autres. Vous ne sentez donc rien? Votre chair est
+de neige, votre sang de glace! Moi, je veux que tout cela s'allume,
+qu'il ait une vie, une ame!"
+
+Vain resolve! And when he at last found it _was_ vain, he suddenly
+broke the whole business down. Hitherto he had been teaching them a
+grand tragedy; he tore the tragedy in morsels, and came next day with a
+compact little comic trifle. To this they took more kindly; he
+presently knocked it all into their smooth round pates.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Pierre always presided at M. Emanuel's lessons, and I
+was told that the polish of her manner, her seeming attention, her tact
+and grace, impressed that gentleman very favourably. She had, indeed,
+the art of pleasing, for a given time, whom she would; but the feeling
+would not last: in an hour it was dried like dew, vanished like
+gossamer.
+
+The day preceding Madame's fete was as much a holiday as the fete
+itself. It was devoted to clearing out, cleaning, arranging and
+decorating the three schoolrooms. All within-doors was the gayest
+bustle; neither up-stairs nor down could a quiet, isolated person find
+rest for the sole of her foot; accordingly, for my part, I took refuge
+in the garden. The whole day did I wander or sit there alone, finding
+warmth in the sun, shelter among the trees, and a sort of companionship
+in my own thoughts. I well remember that I exchanged but two sentences
+that day with any living being: not that I felt solitary; I was glad to
+be quiet. For a looker-on, it sufficed to pass through the rooms once
+or twice, observe what changes were being wrought, how a green-room and
+a dressing-room were being contrived, a little stage with scenery
+erected, how M. Paul Emanuel, in conjunction with Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre, was directing all, and how an eager band of pupils, amongst
+them Ginevra Fanshawe, were working gaily under his control.
+
+The great day arrived. The sun rose hot and unclouded, and hot and
+unclouded it burned on till evening. All the doors and all the windows
+were set open, which gave a pleasant sense of summer freedom--and
+freedom the most complete seemed indeed the order of the day. Teachers
+and pupils descended to breakfast in dressing-gowns and curl-papers:
+anticipating "avec delices" the toilette of the evening, they seemed to
+take a pleasure in indulging that forenoon in a luxury of slovenliness;
+like aldermen fasting in preparation for a feast. About nine o'clock
+A.M., an important functionary, the "coiffeur," arrived. Sacrilegious
+to state, he fixed his head-quarters in the oratory, and there, in
+presence of _benitier_, candle, and crucifix, solemnised the mysteries
+of his art. Each girl was summoned in turn to pass through his hands;
+emerging from them with head as smooth as a shell, intersected by
+faultless white lines, and wreathed about with Grecian plaits that
+shone as if lacquered. I took my turn with the rest, and could hardly
+believe what the glass said when I applied to it for information
+afterwards; the lavished garlandry of woven brown hair amazed me--I
+feared it was not all my own, and it required several convincing pulls
+to give assurance to the contrary. I then acknowledged in the coiffeur
+a first-rate artist--one who certainly made the most of indifferent
+materials.
+
+The oratory closed, the dormitory became the scene of ablutions,
+arrayings and bedizenings curiously elaborate. To me it was, and ever
+must be an enigma, how they contrived to spend so much time in doing so
+little. The operation seemed close, intricate, prolonged: the result
+simple. A clear white muslin dress, a blue sash (the Virgin's colours),
+a pair of white, or straw-colour kid gloves--such was the gala uniform,
+to the assumption whereof that houseful of teachers and pupils devoted
+three mortal hours. But though simple, it must be allowed the array was
+perfect--perfect in fashion, fit, and freshness; every head being also
+dressed with exquisite nicety, and a certain compact taste--suiting the
+full, firm comeliness of Labassecourien contours, though too stiff for
+any more flowing and flexible style of beauty--the general effect was,
+on the whole, commendable.
+
+In beholding this diaphanous and snowy mass, I well remember feeling
+myself to be a mere shadowy spot on a field of light; the courage was
+not in me to put on a transparent white dress: something thin I must
+wear--the weather and rooms being too hot to give substantial fabrics
+sufferance, so I had sought through a dozen shops till I lit upon a
+crape-like material of purple-gray--the colour, in short, of dun mist,
+lying on a moor in bloom. My _tailleuse_ had kindly made it as well as
+she could: because, as she judiciously observed, it was "si triste--si
+pen voyant," care in the fashion was the more imperative: it was well
+she took this view of the matter, for I, had no flower, no jewel to
+relieve it: and, what was more, I had no natural rose of complexion.
+
+We become oblivious of these deficiencies in the uniform routine of
+daily drudgery, but they _will_ force upon us their unwelcome blank on
+those bright occasions when beauty should shine.
+
+However, in this same gown of shadow, I felt at home and at ease; an
+advantage I should not have enjoyed in anything more brilliant or
+striking. Madame Beck, too, kept me in countenance; her dress was
+almost as quiet as mine, except that she wore a bracelet, and a large
+brooch bright with gold and fine stones. We chanced to meet on the
+stairs, and she gave me a nod and smile of approbation. Not that she
+thought I was looking well--a point unlikely to engage her
+interest--but she considered me dressed "convenablement," "decemment,"
+and la Convenance et la Decence were the two calm deities of Madame's
+worship. She even paused, laid on my shoulder her gloved hand, holding
+an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, and confided to my ear a
+sarcasm on the other teachers (whom she had just been complimenting to
+their faces). "Nothing so absurd," she said, "as for des femmes mures
+'to dress themselves like girls of fifteen'--quant a la. St. Pierre,
+elle a l'air d'une vieille coquette qui fait l'ingenue."
+
+Being dressed at least a couple of hours before anybody else, I felt a
+pleasure in betaking myself--not to the garden, where servants were
+busy propping up long tables, placing seats, and spreading cloths in
+readiness for the collation but to the schoolrooms, now empty, quiet,
+cool, and clean; their walls fresh stained, their planked floors fresh
+scoured and scarce dry; flowers fresh gathered adorning the recesses in
+pots, and draperies, fresh hung, beautifying the great windows.
+
+Withdrawing to the first classe, a smaller and neater room than the
+others, and taking from the glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key, a
+volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read. The
+glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large
+berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to
+meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush
+bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the stilly
+hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were
+beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to
+lure me along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of
+dreamland--just then, the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to
+which that much-tried instrument had ever thrilled, snatched me back to
+consciousness.
+
+Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or servants,
+or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, went and came on their several
+errands. Moreover, there was good reason to expect it would ring all
+the afternoon, since about one hundred externes were yet to arrive in
+carriages or fiacres: nor could it be expected to rest during the
+evening, when parents and friends would gather thronging to the play.
+Under these circumstances, a ring--even a sharp ring--was a matter of
+course: yet this particular peal had an accent of its own, which chased
+my dream, and startled my book from my knee.
+
+I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
+on through vestibule--along corridor, across carre, through first
+division, second division, grand salle--strode a step, quick, regular,
+intent. The closed door of the first classe--my sanctuary--offered no
+obstacle; it burst open, and a paletot and a bonnet grec filled the
+void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
+into me.
+
+"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant pis.
+Toute Anglaise, et, par consequent, toute begueule qu'elle soit--elle
+fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."
+
+Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not
+caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon
+the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess----, play you must: I am
+planted there."
+
+"What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?" I inquired: for M. Paul
+Emanuel it was, and in a state of no little excitement.
+
+"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the
+prude. I read your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play
+you can; play you must."
+
+"But how, M. Paul? What do you mean?"
+
+"There is no time to be lost," he went on, now speaking in French; "and
+let us thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all minauderies.
+You must take a part."
+
+"In the vaudeville?"
+
+"In the vaudeville. You have said it."
+
+I gasped, horror-struck. _What_ did the little man mean?
+
+"Listen!" he said. "The case shall be stated, and you shall then answer
+me Yes, or No; and according to your answer shall I ever after estimate
+you."
+
+The scarce-suppressed impetus of a most irritable nature glowed in his
+cheek, fed with sharp shafts his glances, a nature--the injudicious,
+the mawkish, the hesitating, the sullen, the affected, above all, the
+unyielding, might quickly render violent and implacable. Silence and
+attention was the best balm to apply: I listened.
+
+"The whole matter is going to fail," he began. "Louise Vanderkelkov has
+fallen ill--at least so her ridiculous mother asserts; for my part, I
+feel sure she might play if she would: it is only good-will that lacks.
+She was charged with a _role_, as you know, or do _not_ know--it is
+equal: without that _role_ the play is stopped. There are now but a few
+hours in which to learn it: not a girl in this school would hear
+reason, and accept the task. Forsooth, it is not an interesting, not an
+amiable, part; their vile _amour-propre_--that base quality of which
+women have so much--would revolt from it. Englishwomen are either the
+best or the worst of their sex. Dieu sait que je les deteste comme la
+peste, ordinairement" (this between his recreant teeth). "I apply to an
+Englishwoman to rescue me. What is her answer--Yes, or No?"
+
+A thousand objections rushed into my mind. The foreign language, the
+limited time, the public display... Inclination recoiled, Ability
+faltered, Self-respect (that "vile quality") trembled. "Non, non, non!"
+said all these; but looking up at M. Paul, and seeing in his vexed,
+fiery, and searching eye, a sort of appeal behind all its menace, my
+lips dropped the word "oui". For a moment his rigid countenance relaxed
+with a quiver of content: quickly bent up again, however, he went on,--
+
+"Vite a l'ouvrage! Here is the book; here is your _role_: read." And I
+read. He did not commend; at some passages he scowled and stamped. He
+gave me a lesson: I diligently imitated. It was a disagreeable part--a
+man's--an empty-headed fop's. One could put into it neither heart nor
+soul: I hated it. The play--a mere trifle--ran chiefly on the efforts
+of a brace of rivals to gain the hand of a fair coquette. One lover was
+called the "Ours," a good and gallant but unpolished man, a sort of
+diamond in the rough; the other was a butterfly, a talker, and a
+traitor: and I was to be the butterfly, talker, and traitor.
+
+I did my best--which was bad, I know: it provoked M. Paul; he fumed.
+Putting both hands to the work, I endeavoured to do better than my
+best; I presume he gave me credit for good intentions; he professed to
+be partially content. "Ca ira!" he cried; and as voices began sounding
+from the garden, and white dresses fluttering among the trees, he
+added: "You must withdraw: you must be alone to learn this. Come with
+me."
+
+Without being allowed time or power to deliberate, I found myself in
+the same breath convoyed along as in a species of whirlwind, up-stairs,
+up two pair of stairs, nay, actually up three (for this fiery little
+man seemed as by instinct to know his way everywhere); to the solitary
+and lofty attic was I borne, put in and locked in, the key being, in
+the door, and that key he took with him and vanished.
+
+The attic was no pleasant place: I believe he did not know how
+unpleasant it was, or he never would have locked me in with so little
+ceremony. In this summer weather, it was hot as Africa; as in winter,
+it was always cold as Greenland. Boxes and lumber filled it; old
+dresses draped its unstained wall--cobwebs its unswept ceiling. Well
+was it known to be tenanted by rats, by black beetles, and by
+cockroaches--nay, rumour affirmed that the ghostly Nun of the garden
+had once been seen here. A partial darkness obscured one end, across
+which, as for deeper mystery, an old russet curtain was drawn, by way
+of screen to a sombre band of winter cloaks, pendent each from its pin,
+like a malefactor from his gibbet. From amongst these cloaks, and
+behind that curtain, the Nun was said to issue. I did not believe this,
+nor was I troubled by apprehension thereof; but I saw a very dark and
+large rat, with a long tail, come gliding out from that squalid alcove;
+and, moreover, my eye fell on many a black-beetle, dotting the floor.
+These objects discomposed me more, perhaps, than it would be wise to
+say, as also did the dust, lumber, and stifling heat of the place. The
+last inconvenience would soon have become intolerable, had I not found
+means to open and prop up the skylight, thus admitting some freshness.
+Underneath this aperture I pushed a large empty chest, and having
+mounted upon it a smaller box, and wiped from both the dust, I gathered
+my dress (my best, the reader must remember, and therefore a legitimate
+object of care) fastidiously around me, ascended this species of
+extempore throne, and being seated, commenced the acquisition of my
+task; while I learned, not forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the
+black-beetles and cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of
+the rats, I sat in mortal dread.
+
+My impression at first was that I had undertaken what it really was
+impossible to perform, and I simply resolved to do my best and be
+resigned to fail. I soon found, however, that one part in so short a
+piece was not more than memory could master at a few hours' notice. I
+learned and learned on, first in a whisper, and then aloud. Perfectly
+secure from human audience, I acted my part before the garret-vermin.
+Entering into its emptiness, frivolity, and falsehood, with a spirit
+inspired by scorn and impatience, I took my revenge on this "fat," by
+making him as fatuitous as I possibly could.
+
+In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into evening;
+and I, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew excessively hungry.
+Now I thought of the collation, which doubtless they were just then
+devouring in the garden far below. (I had seen in the vestibule a
+basketful of small _pates a la creme_, than which nothing in the whole
+range of cookery seemed to me better). A _pate_, or a square of cake,
+it seemed to me would come very _apropos;_ and as my relish for those
+dainties increased, it began to appear somewhat hard that I should pass
+my holiday, fasting and in prison. Remote as was the attic from the
+street-door and vestibule, yet the ever-tinkling bell was faintly
+audible here; and also the ceaseless roll of wheels, on the tormented
+pavement. I knew that the house and garden were thronged, and that all
+was gay and glad below; here it began to grow dusk: the beetles were
+fading from my sight; I trembled lest they should steal on me a march,
+mount my throne unseen, and, unsuspected, invade my skirts. Impatient
+and apprehensive, I recommenced the rehearsal of my part merely to kill
+time. Just as I was concluding, the long-delayed rattle of the key in
+the lock came to my ear--no unwelcome sound. M. Paul (I could just see
+through the dusk that it _was_ M. Paul, for light enough still lingered
+to show the velvet blackness of his close-shorn head, and the sallow
+ivory of his brow) looked in.
+
+"Brava!" cried he, holding the door open and remaining at the
+threshold. "J'ai tout entendu. C'est assez bien. Encore!"
+
+A moment I hesitated.
+
+"Encore!" said he sternly. "Et point de grimaces! A bas la timidite!"
+
+Again I went through the part, but not half so well as I had spoken it
+alone.
+
+"Enfin, elle sait," said he, half dissatisfied, "and one cannot be
+fastidious or exacting under the circumstances." Then he added, "You
+may yet have twenty minutes for preparation: au revoir!" And he was
+going.
+
+"Monsieur," I called out, taking courage.
+
+"Eh bien! Qu'est-ce que c'est, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"J'ai bien faim."
+
+"Comment, vous avez faim! Et la collation?"
+
+"I know nothing about it. I have not seen it, shut up here."
+
+"Ah! C'est vrai," cried he.
+
+In a moment my throne was abdicated, the attic evacuated; an inverse
+repetition of the impetus which had brought me up into the attic,
+instantly took me down--down--down to the very kitchen. I thought I
+should have gone to the cellar. The cook was imperatively ordered to
+produce food, and I, as imperatively, was commanded to eat. To my great
+joy this food was limited to coffee and cake: I had feared wine and
+sweets, which I did not like. How he guessed that I should like a
+_petit pate a la creme_ I cannot tell; but he went out and procured me
+one from some quarter. With considerable willingness I ate and drank,
+keeping the _petit pate_ till the last, as a _bonne bouche_. M. Paul
+superintended my repast, and almost forced upon me more than I could
+swallow.
+
+"A la bonne heure," he cried, when I signified that I really could take
+no more, and, with uplifted hands, implored to be spared the additional
+roll on which he had just spread butter. "You will set me down as a
+species of tyrant and Bluebeard, starving women in a garret; whereas,
+after all, I am no such thing. Now, Mademoiselle, do you feel courage
+and strength to appear?"
+
+I said, I thought I did; though, in truth, I was perfectly confused,
+and could hardly tell how I felt: but this little man was of the order
+of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant
+force sufficient to crush him at once.
+
+"Come then," said he, offering his hand.
+
+I gave him mine, and he set off with a rapid walk, which obliged me to
+run at his side in order to keep pace. In the carre he stopped a
+moment: it was lit with large lamps; the wide doors of the classes were
+open, and so were the equally wide garden-doors; orange-trees in tubs,
+and tall flowers in pots, ornamented these portals on each side; groups
+of ladies and gentlemen in evening-dress stood and walked amongst the
+flowers. Within, the long vista of the school-rooms presented a
+thronging, undulating, murmuring, waving, streaming multitude, all
+rose, and blue, and half translucent white. There were lustres burning
+overhead; far off there was a stage, a solemn green curtain, a row of
+footlights.
+
+"Nest-ce pas que c'est beau?" demanded my companion.
+
+I should have said it was, but my heart got up into my throat. M. Paul
+discovered this, and gave me a side-scowl and a little shake for my
+pains.
+
+"I will do my best, but I wish it was over," said I; then I asked: "Are
+we to walk through that crowd?"
+
+"By no means: I manage matters better: we pass through the
+garden--here."
+
+In an instant we were out of doors: the cool, calm night revived me
+somewhat. It was moonless, but the reflex from the many glowing windows
+lit the court brightly, and even the alleys--dimly. Heaven was
+cloudless, and grand with the quiver of its living fires. How soft are
+the nights of the Continent! How bland, balmy, safe! No sea-fog; no
+chilling damp: mistless as noon, and fresh as morning.
+
+Having crossed court and garden, we reached the glass door of the first
+classe. It stood open, like all other doors that night; we passed, and
+then I was ushered into a small cabinet, dividing the first classe from
+the grand salle. This cabinet dazzled me, it was so full of light: it
+deafened me, it was clamorous with voices: it stifled me, it was so
+hot, choking, thronged.
+
+"De l'ordre! Du silence!" cried M. Paul. "Is this chaos?", he demanded;
+and there was a hush. With a dozen words, and as many gestures, he
+turned out half the persons present, and obliged the remnant to fall
+into rank. Those left were all in costume: they were the performers,
+and this was the green-room. M. Paul introduced me. All stared and some
+tittered. It was a surprise: they had not expected the Englishwoman
+would play in a _vaudeville_. Ginevra Fanshawe, beautifully dressed for
+her part, and looking fascinatingly pretty, turned on me a pair of eyes
+as round as beads. In the highest spirit, unperturbed by fear or
+bashfulness, delighted indeed at the thought of shining off before
+hundreds--my entrance seemed to transfix her with amazement in the
+midst of her joy. She would have exclaimed, but M. Paul held her and
+all the rest in check.
+
+Having surveyed and criticized the whole troop, he turned to me.
+
+"You, too, must be dressed for your part."
+
+"Dressed--dressed like a man!" exclaimed Zelie St. Pierre, darting
+forwards; adding with officiousness, "I will dress her myself."
+
+To be dressed like a man did not please, and would not suit me. I had
+consented to take a man's name and part; as to his dress--_halte la!_
+No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might storm,
+might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice as
+resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in utterance.
+
+He did not immediately storm or rage, as I fully thought he would he
+stood silent. But Zelie again interposed.
+
+"She will make a capital _petit-maitre_. Here are the garments,
+all--all complete: somewhat too large, but--I will arrange all that.
+Come, chere amie--belle Anglaise!"
+
+And she sneered, for I was not "belle." She seized my hand, she was
+drawing me away. M. Paul stood impassable--neutral.
+
+"You must not resist," pursued St. Pierre--for resist I did. "You will
+spoil all, destroy the mirth of the piece, the enjoyment of the
+company, sacrifice everything to your _amour-propre_. This would be too
+bad--monsieur will never permit this?"
+
+She sought his eye. I watched, likewise, for a glance. He gave her one,
+and then he gave me one. "Stop!" he said slowly, arresting St. Pierre,
+who continued her efforts to drag me after her. Everybody awaited the
+decision. He was not angry, not irritated; I perceived that, and took
+heart.
+
+"You do not like these clothes?" he asked, pointing to the masculine
+vestments.
+
+"I don't object to some of them, but I won't have them all."
+
+"How must it be, then? How accept a man's part, and go on the stage
+dressed as a woman? This is an amateur affair, it is true--a
+_vaudeville de pensionnat;_ certain modifications I might sanction, yet
+something you must have to announce you as of the nobler sex."
+
+"And I will, Monsieur; but it must be arranged in my own way: nobody
+must meddle; the things must not be forced upon me. Just let me dress
+myself."
+
+Monsieur, without another word, took the costume from St. Pierre, gave
+it to me, and permitted me to pass into the dressing-room. Once alone,
+I grew calm, and collectedly went to work. Retaining my woman's garb
+without the slightest retrenchment, I merely assumed, in addition, a
+little vest, a collar, and cravat, and a paletot of small dimensions;
+the whole being the costume of a brother of one of the pupils. Having
+loosened my hair out of its braids, made up the long back-hair close,
+and brushed the front hair to one side, I took my hat and gloves in my
+hand and came out. M. Paul was waiting, and so were the others. He
+looked at me. "That may pass in a pensionnat," he pronounced. Then
+added, not unkindly, "Courage, mon ami! Un peu de sangfroid--un peu
+d'aplomb, M. Lucien, et tout ira bien."
+
+St. Pierre sneered again, in her cold snaky manner.
+
+I was irritable, because excited, and I could not help turning upon her
+and saying, that if she were not a lady and I a gentleman, I should
+feel disposed to call her out.
+
+"After the play, after the play," said M. Paul. "I will then divide my
+pair of pistols between you, and we will settle the dispute according
+to form: it will only be the old quarrel of France and England."
+
+But now the moment approached for the performance to commence. M. Paul,
+setting us before him, harangued us briefly, like a general addressing
+soldiers about to charge. I don't know what he said, except that he
+recommended each to penetrate herself with a sense of her personal
+insignificance. God knows I thought this advice superfluous for some of
+us. A bell tinkled. I and two more were ushered on to the stage. The
+bell tinkled again. I had to speak the very first words.
+
+"Do not look at the crowd, nor think of it," whispered M. Paul in my
+ear. "Imagine yourself in the garret, acting to the rats."
+
+He vanished. The curtain drew up--shrivelled to the ceiling: the bright
+lights, the long room, the gay throng, burst upon us. I thought of the
+black-beetles, the old boxes, the worm-eaten bureau. I said my say
+badly; but I said it. That first speech was the difficulty; it revealed
+to me this fact, that it was not the crowd I feared so much as my own
+voice. Foreigners and strangers, the crowd were nothing to me. Nor did
+I think of them. When my tongue once got free, and my voice took its
+true pitch, and found its natural tone, I thought of nothing but the
+personage I represented--and of M. Paul, who was listening, watching,
+prompting in the side-scenes.
+
+By-and-by, feeling the right power come--the spring demanded gush and
+rise inwardly--I became sufficiently composed to notice my
+fellow-actors. Some of them played very well; especially Ginevra
+Fanshawe, who had to coquette between two suitors, and managed
+admirably: in fact she was in her element. I observed that she once or
+twice threw a certain marked fondness and pointed partiality into her
+manner towards me--the fop. With such emphasis and animation did she
+favour me, such glances did she dart out into the listening and
+applauding crowd, that to me--who knew her--it presently became evident
+she was acting _at_ some one; and I followed her eye, her smile, her
+gesture, and ere long discovered that she had at least singled out a
+handsome and distinguished aim for her shafts; full in the path of
+those arrows--taller than other spectators, and therefore more sure to
+receive them--stood, in attitude quiet but intent, a well-known
+form--that of Dr. John.
+
+The spectacle seemed somehow suggestive. There was language in Dr.
+John's look, though I cannot tell what he said; it animated me: I drew
+out of it a history; I put my idea into the part I performed; I threw
+it into my wooing of Ginevra. In the "Ours," or sincere lover, I saw
+Dr. John. Did I pity him, as erst? No, I hardened my heart, rivalled
+and out-rivalled him. I knew myself but a fop, but where _he_ was
+outcast _I_ could please. Now I know acted as if wishful and resolute
+to win and conquer. Ginevra seconded me; between us we half-changed the
+nature of the _role_, gilding it from top to toe. Between the acts M.
+Paul, told us he knew not what possessed us, and half expostulated.
+"C'est peut-etre plus beau que votre modele," said he, "mais ce n'est
+pas juste." I know not what possessed me either; but somehow, my
+longing was to eclipse the "Ours," _i.e._, Dr. John. Ginevra was
+tender; how could I be otherwise than chivalric? Retaining the letter,
+I recklessly altered the spirit of the _role_. Without heart, without
+interest, I could not play it at all. It must be played--in went the
+yearned-for seasoning--thus favoured, I played it with relish.
+
+What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and
+do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold,
+reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere
+long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please
+myself. Yet the next day, when I thought it over, I quite disapproved
+of these amateur performances; and though glad that I had obliged M.
+Paul, and tried my own strength for once, I took a firm resolution,
+never to be drawn into a similar affair. A keen relish for dramatic
+expression had revealed itself as part of my nature; to cherish and
+exercise this new-found faculty might gift me with a world of delight,
+but it would not do for a mere looker-on at life: the strength and
+longing must be put by; and I put them by, and fastened them in with
+the lock of a resolution which neither Time nor Temptation has since
+picked.
+
+No sooner was the play over, and _well_ over, than the choleric and
+arbitrary M. Paul underwent a metamorphosis. His hour of managerial
+responsibility past, he at once laid aside his magisterial austerity;
+in a moment he stood amongst us, vivacious, kind, and social, shook
+hands with us all round, thanked us separately, and announced his
+determination that each of us should in turn be his partner in the
+coming ball. On his claiming my promise, I told him I did not dance.
+"For once I must," was the answer; and if I had not slipped aside and
+kept out of his way, he would have compelled me to this second
+performance. But I had acted enough for one evening; it was time I
+retired into myself and my ordinary life. My dun-coloured dress did
+well enough under a paletot on the stage, but would not suit a waltz or
+a quadrille. Withdrawing to a quiet nook, whence unobserved I could
+observe--the ball, its splendours and its pleasures, passed before me
+as a spectacle.
+
+Again Ginevra Fanshawe was the belle, the fairest and the gayest
+present; she was selected to open the ball: very lovely she looked,
+very gracefully she danced, very joyously she smiled. Such scenes were
+her triumphs--she was the child of pleasure. Work or suffering found
+her listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded
+her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made
+her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet and
+plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like a
+humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake
+her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room; elsewhere
+she drooped dispirited.
+
+Think not, reader, that she thus bloomed and sparkled for the mere sake
+of M. Paul, her partner, or that she lavished her best graces that
+night for the edification of her companions only, or for that of the
+parents and grand-parents, who filled the carre, and lined the
+ball-room; under circumstances so insipid and limited, with motives so
+chilly and vapid, Ginevra would scarce have deigned to walk one
+quadrille, and weariness and fretfulness would have replaced animation
+and good-humour, but she knew of a leaven in the otherwise heavy festal
+mass which lighted the whole; she tasted a condiment which gave it
+zest; she perceived reasons justifying the display of her choicest
+attractions.
+
+In the ball-room, indeed, not a single male spectator was to be seen
+who was not married and a father--M. Paul excepted--that gentleman,
+too, being the sole creature of his sex permitted to lead out a pupil
+to the dance; and this exceptional part was allowed him, partly as a
+matter of old-established custom (for he was a kinsman of Madame
+Beck's, and high in her confidence), partly because he would always
+have his own way and do as he pleased, and partly because--wilful,
+passionate, partial, as he might be--he was the soul of honour, and
+might be trusted with a regiment of the fairest and purest; in perfect
+security that under his leadership they would come to no harm. Many of
+the girls--it may be noted in parenthesis--were not pure-minded at all,
+very much otherwise; but they no more dare betray their natural
+coarseness in M. Paul's presence, than they dare tread purposely on his
+corns, laugh in his face during a stormy apostrophe, or speak above
+their breath while some crisis of irritability was covering his human
+visage with the mask of an intelligent tiger. M. Paul, then, might
+dance with whom he would--and woe be to the interference which put him
+out of step.
+
+Others there were admitted as spectators--with (seeming) reluctance,
+through prayers, by influence, under restriction, by special and
+difficult exercise of Madame Beck's gracious good-nature, and whom she
+all the evening--with her own personal surveillance--kept far aloof at
+the remotest, drearest, coldest, darkest side of the carre--a small,
+forlorn band of "jeunes gens;" these being all of the best families,
+grown-up sons of mothers present, and whose sisters were pupils in the
+school. That whole evening was Madame on duty beside these "jeunes
+gens"--attentive to them as a mother, but strict with them as a dragon.
+There was a sort of cordon stretched before them, which they wearied
+her with prayers to be permitted to pass, and just to revive themselves
+by one dance with that "belle blonde," or that "jolie brune," or "cette
+jeune fille magnifique aux cheveux noirs comme le jais."
+
+"Taisez-vous!" Madame would reply, heroically and inexorably. "Vous ne
+passerez pas a moins que ce ne soit sur mon cadavre, et vous ne
+danserez qu'avec la nonnette du jardin" (alluding to the legend). And
+she majestically walked to and fro along their disconsolate and
+impatient line, like a little Bonaparte in a mouse-coloured silk gown.
+
+Madame knew something of the world; Madame knew much of human nature. I
+don't think that another directress in Villette would have dared to
+admit a "jeune homme" within her walls; but Madame knew that by
+granting such admission, on an occasion like the present, a bold stroke
+might be struck, and a great point gained.
+
+In the first place, the parents were made accomplices to the deed, for
+it was only through their mediation it was brought about. Secondly: the
+admission of these rattlesnakes, so fascinating and so dangerous,
+served to draw out Madame precisely in her strongest character--that of
+a first-rate _surveillante_. Thirdly: their presence furnished a most
+piquant ingredient to the entertainment: the pupils knew it, and saw
+it, and the view of such golden apples shining afar off, animated them
+with a spirit no other circumstance could have kindled. The children's
+pleasure spread to the parents; life and mirth circulated quickly round
+the ball-room; the "jeunes gens" themselves, though restrained, were
+amused: for Madame never permitted them to feel dull--and thus Madame
+Beck's fete annually ensured a success unknown to the fete of any other
+directress in the land.
+
+I observed that Dr. John was at first permitted to walk at large
+through the classes: there was about him a manly, responsible look,
+that redeemed his youth, and half-expiated his beauty; but as soon as
+the ball began, Madame ran up to him.
+
+"Come, Wolf; come," said she, laughing: "you wear sheep's clothing, but
+you must quit the fold notwithstanding. Come; I have a fine menagerie
+of twenty here in the carre: let me place you amongst my collection."
+
+"But first suffer me to have one dance with one pupil of my choice."
+
+"Have you the face to ask such a thing? It is madness: it is impiety.
+Sortez, sortez, au plus vite."
+
+She drove him before her, and soon had him enclosed within the cordon.
+
+Ginevra being, I suppose, tired with dancing, sought me out in my
+retreat. She threw herself on the bench beside me, and (a demonstration
+I could very well have dispensed with) cast her arms round my neck.
+
+"Lucy Snowe! Lucy Snowe!" she cried in a somewhat sobbing voice, half
+hysterical.
+
+"What in the world is the matter?" I drily said.
+
+"How do I look--how do I look to-night?" she demanded.
+
+"As usual," said I; "preposterously vain."
+
+"Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of
+you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel
+it, I see it--for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room,
+where I can view my shape from head to foot. Will you go with me now,
+and let us two stand before it?"
+
+"I will, Miss Fanshawe: you shall be humoured even to the top of your
+bent."
+
+The dressing-room was very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm
+through mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance
+remonstrance, or remark, I stood and let her self-love have its feast
+and triumph: curious to see how much it could swallow--whether it was
+possible it could feed to satiety--whether any whisper of consideration
+for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate its vainglorious
+exultation.
+
+Not at all. She turned me and herself round; she viewed us both on all
+sides; she smiled, she waved her curls, she retouched her sash, she
+spread her dress, and finally, letting go my arm, and curtseying with
+mock respect, she said: "I would not be you for a kingdom."
+
+The remark was too _naive_ to rouse anger; I merely said: "Very good."
+
+"And what would _you_ give to be ME?" she inquired.
+
+"Not a bad sixpence--strange as it may sound," I replied. "You are but
+a poor creature."
+
+"You don't think so in your heart."
+
+"No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only
+occasionally turn you over in my brain."
+
+"Well, but," said she, in an expostulatory tone, "just listen to the
+difference of our positions, and then see how happy am I, and how
+miserable are you."
+
+"Go on; I listen."
+
+"In the first place: I am the daughter of a gentleman of family, and
+though my father is not rich, I have expectations from an uncle. Then,
+I am just eighteen, the finest age possible. I have had a continental
+education, and though I can't spell, I have abundant accomplishments. I
+_am_ pretty; _you_ can't deny that; I may have as many admirers as I
+choose. This very night I have been breaking the hearts of two
+gentlemen, and it is the dying look I had from one of them just now,
+which puts me in such spirits. I do so like to watch them turn red and
+pale, and scowl and dart fiery glances at each other, and languishing
+ones at me. There is _me_--happy ME; now for _you_, poor soul!
+
+"I suppose you are nobody's daughter, since you took care of little
+children when you first came to Villette: you have no relations; you
+can't call yourself young at twenty-three; you have no attractive
+accomplishments--no beauty. As to admirers, you hardly know what they
+are; you can't even talk on the subject: you sit dumb when the other
+teachers quote their conquests. I believe you never were in love, and
+never will be: you don't know the feeling, and so much the better, for
+though you might have your own heart broken, no living heart will you
+ever break. Isn't it all true?"
+
+"A good deal of it is true as gospel, and shrewd besides. There must be
+good in you, Ginevra, to speak so honestly; that snake, Zelie St.
+Pierre, could not utter what you have uttered. Still, Miss Fanshawe,
+hapless as I am, according to your showing, sixpence I would not give
+to purchase you, body and soul."
+
+"Just because I am not clever, and that is all _you_ think of. Nobody
+in the world but you cares for cleverness."
+
+"On the contrary, I consider you _are_ clever, in your way--very smart
+indeed. But you were talking of breaking hearts--that edifying
+amusement into the merits of which I don't quite enter; pray on whom
+does your vanity lead you to think you have done execution to-night?"
+
+She approached her lips to my ear--"Isidore and Alfred de Hamal are
+both here?" she whispered.
+
+"Oh! they are? I should like to see them."
+
+"There's a dear creature! your curiosity is roused at last. Follow me,
+I will point them out."
+
+She proudly led the way--"But you cannot see them well from the
+classes," said she, turning, "Madame keeps them too far off. Let us
+cross the garden, enter by the corridor, and get close to them behind:
+we shall be scolded if we are seen, but never mind."
+
+For once, I did not mind. Through the garden we went--penetrated into
+the corridor by a quiet private entrance, and approaching the _carre_,
+yet keeping in the corridor shade, commanded a near view of the band of
+"jeunes gens."
+
+I believe I could have picked out the conquering de Hamal even
+undirected. He was a straight-nosed, very correct-featured little
+dandy. I say _little_ dandy, though he was not beneath the middle
+standard in stature; but his lineaments were small, and so were his
+hands and feet; and he was pretty and smooth, and as trim as a doll: so
+nicely dressed, so nicely curled, so booted and gloved and cravated--he
+was charming indeed. I said so. "What, a dear personage!" cried I, and
+commended Ginevra's taste warmly; and asked her what she thought de
+Hamal might have done with the precious fragments of that heart she had
+broken--whether he kept them in a scent-vial, and conserved them in
+otto of roses? I observed, too, with deep rapture of approbation, that
+the colonel's hands were scarce larger than Miss Fanshawe's own, and
+suggested that this circumstance might be convenient, as he could wear
+her gloves at a pinch. On his dear curls, I told her I doated: and as
+to his low, Grecian brow, and exquisite classic headpiece, I confessed
+I had no language to do such perfections justice.
+
+"And if he were your lover?" suggested the cruelly exultant Ginevra.
+
+"Oh! heavens, what bliss!" said I; "but do not be inhuman, Miss
+Fanshawe: to put such thoughts into my head is like showing poor
+outcast Cain a far, glimpse of Paradise."
+
+"You like him, then?"
+
+"As I like sweets, and jams, and comfits, and conservatory flowers."
+
+Ginevra admired my taste, for all these things were her adoration; she
+could then readily credit that they were mine too.
+
+"Now for Isidore," I went on. I own I felt still more curious to see
+him than his rival; but Ginevra was absorbed in the latter.
+
+"Alfred was admitted here to-night," said she, "through the influence
+of his aunt, Madame la Baronne de Dorlodot; and now, having seen him,
+can you not understand why I have been in such spirits all the evening,
+and acted so well, and danced with such life, and why I am now happy as
+a queen? Dieu! Dieu! It was such good fun to glance first at him and
+then at the other, and madden them both."
+
+"But that other--where is he? Show me Isidore."
+
+"I don't like."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I am ashamed of him."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Because--because" (in a whisper) "he has such--such whiskers,
+orange--red--there now!"
+
+"The murder is out," I subjoined. "Never mind, show him all the same; I
+engage not to faint."
+
+She looked round. Just then an English voice spoke behind her and me.
+
+"You are both standing in a draught; you must leave this corridor."
+
+"There is no draught, Dr. John," said I, turning.
+
+"She takes cold so easily," he pursued, looking at Ginevra with extreme
+kindness. "She is delicate; she must be cared for: fetch her a shawl."
+
+"Permit me to judge for myself," said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. "I
+want no shawl."
+
+"Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated."
+
+"Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing."
+
+The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was
+hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he
+turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty
+of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.
+
+"She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her," said I, folding
+it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her
+arms. "Is that Isidore?" I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.
+
+She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have given
+her a dozen.
+
+"C'est lui-meme," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
+Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"
+
+Dr. John now passed on.
+
+"The Colonel-Count!" I echoed. "The doll--the puppet--the manikin--the
+poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his
+foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman--handsome as a
+vision--offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises
+to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and
+struggles of life--and you hang back--you scorn, you sting, you torture
+him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where is it?
+Does it lie all in your beauty--your pink and white complexion, and
+your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend his
+neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection, his
+tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble, cordial
+love--and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only
+dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him;
+but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?"
+
+"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."
+
+I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a
+seat and told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she
+meant in the end to accept--the man or the monkey.
+
+"Him you call the man," said she, "is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and
+answers to the name of John!--cela suffit: je n'en veux pas. Colonel de
+Hamal is a gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners, sweet
+appearance, with pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like an
+Italian. Then too he is the most delightful company possible--a man
+quite in my way; not sensible and serious like the other; but one with
+whom I can talk on equal terms--who does not plague and bore, and
+harass me with depths, and heights, and passions, and talents for which
+I have no taste. There now. Don't hold me so fast."
+
+I slackened my grasp, and she darted off. I did not care to pursue her.
+
+Somehow I could not avoid returning once more in the direction of the
+corridor to get another glimpse of Dr. John; but I met him on the
+garden-steps, standing where the light from a window fell broad. His
+well-proportioned figure was not to be mistaken, for I doubt whether
+there was another in that assemblage his equal. He carried his hat in
+his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine brow were most handsome
+and manly. _His_ features were not delicate, not slight like those of a
+woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble; though well cut, they
+were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to lose in expression or
+significance what they gained in unmeaning symmetry. Much feeling spoke
+in them at times, and more sat silent in his eye. Such at least were my
+thoughts of him: to me he seemed all this. An inexpressible sense of
+wonder occupied me, as I looked at this man, and reflected that _he_
+could not be slighted.
+
+It was, not my intention to approach or address him in the garden, our
+terms of acquaintance not warranting such a step; I had only meant to
+view him in the crowd--myself unseen: coming upon him thus alone, I
+withdrew. But he was looking out for me, or rather for her who had been
+with me: therefore he descended the steps, and followed me down the
+alley.
+
+"You know Miss Fanshawe? I have often wished to ask whether you knew
+her," said he.
+
+"Yes: I know her."
+
+"Intimately?"
+
+"Quite as intimately as I wish."
+
+"What have you done with her now?"
+
+"Am I her keeper?" I felt inclined to ask; but I simply answered, "I
+have shaken her well, and would have shaken her better, but she escaped
+out of my hands and ran away."
+
+"Would you favour me," he asked, "by watching over her this one
+evening, and observing that she does nothing imprudent--does not, for
+instance, run out into the night-air immediately after dancing?"
+
+"I may, perhaps, look after her a little; since you wish it; but she
+likes her own way too well to submit readily to control."
+
+"She is so young, so thoroughly artless," said he.
+
+"To me she is an enigma," I responded.
+
+"Is she?" he asked--much interested. "How?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say how--difficult, at least, to tell _you_
+how."
+
+"And why me?"
+
+"I wonder she is not better pleased that you are so much her friend."
+
+"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend. That is
+precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she ever
+speak of me to you?"
+
+"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I must
+add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered that
+you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within that
+brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the person,
+under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that she is the
+magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her sake you
+venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by rivals."
+
+"You know all?"
+
+"I know so much."
+
+"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society.
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see
+her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore' she
+often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of
+confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her remarks?
+I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented with
+uncertainty as to how I stand with her."
+
+"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."
+
+"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"
+
+"I can," thought I, "but it would not do to communicate that general
+idea to you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would
+not believe me."
+
+"You are silent," he pursued. "I suppose you have no good news to
+impart. No matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion,
+it is a sign I do not deserve her."
+
+"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
+Colonel de Hamal?"
+
+"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being, and
+would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal, I
+fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me, all
+his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your beautiful
+young friend."
+
+"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel
+who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not
+serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."
+
+"Are you not a little severe?"
+
+"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You
+should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young
+friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of
+tender considerateness for her delicate nature."
+
+"She is so lovely, one cannot but be loving towards her. You--every
+woman older than herself, must feel for such a simple, innocent,
+girlish fairy a sort of motherly or elder-sisterly fondness. Graceful
+angel! Does not your heart yearn towards her when she pours into your
+ear her pure, childlike confidences? How you are privileged!" And he
+sighed.
+
+"I cut short these confidences somewhat abruptly now and then," said I.
+"But excuse me, Dr. John, may I change the theme for one instant? What
+a god-like person is that de Hamal! What a nose on his face--perfect!
+Model one in putty or clay, you could not make a better or straighter,
+or neater; and then, such classic lips and chin--and his
+bearing--sublime."
+
+"De Hamal is an unutterable puppy, besides being a very white-livered
+hero."
+
+"You, Dr. John, and every man of a less-refined mould than he, must
+feel for him a sort of admiring affection, such as Mars and the coarser
+deities may be supposed to have borne the young, graceful Apollo."
+
+"An unprincipled, gambling little jackanapes!" said Dr. John curtly,
+"whom, with one hand, I could lift up by the waistband any day, and lay
+low in the kennel if I liked."
+
+"The sweet seraph!" said I. "What a cruel idea! Are you not a little
+severe, Dr. John?"
+
+And now I paused. For the second time that night I was going beyond
+myself--venturing out of what I looked on as my natural
+habits--speaking in an unpremeditated, impulsive strain, which startled
+me strangely when I halted to reflect. On rising that morning, had I
+anticipated that before night I should have acted the part of a gay
+lover in a vaudeville; and an hour after, frankly discussed with Dr.
+John the question of his hapless suit, and rallied him on his
+illusions? I had no more presaged such feats than I had looked forward
+to an ascent in a balloon, or a voyage to Cape Horn.
+
+The Doctor and I, having paced down the walk, were now returning; the
+reflex from the window again lit his face: he smiled, but his eye was
+melancholy. How I wished that he could feel heart's-ease! How I grieved
+that he brooded over pain, and pain from such a cause! He, with his
+great advantages, _he_ to love in vain! I did not then know that the
+pensiveness of reverse is the best phase for some minds; nor did I
+reflect that some herbs, "though scentless when entire, yield fragrance
+when they're bruised."
+
+"Do not be sorrowful, do not grieve," I broke out. "If there is in
+Ginevra one spark of worthiness of your affection, she will--she _must_
+feel devotion in return. Be cheerful, be hopeful, Dr. John. Who should
+hope, if not you?"
+
+In return for this speech I got--what, it must be supposed, I
+deserved--a look of surprise: I thought also of some disapprobation. We
+parted, and I went into the house very chill. The clocks struck and the
+bells tolled midnight; people were leaving fast: the fete was over; the
+lamps were fading. In another hour all the dwelling-house, and all the
+pensionnat, were dark and hushed. I too was in bed, but not asleep. To
+me it was not easy to sleep after a day of such excitement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE LONG VACATION.
+
+
+Following Madame Beck's fete, with its three preceding weeks of
+relaxation, its brief twelve hours' burst of hilarity and dissipation,
+and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of reaction;
+two months of real application, of close, hard study. These two months,
+being the last of the "annee scolaire," were indeed the only genuine
+working months in the year. To them was procrastinated--into them
+concentrated, alike by professors, mistresses, and pupils--the main
+burden of preparation for the examinations preceding the distribution
+of prizes. Candidates for rewards had then to work in good earnest;
+masters and teachers had to set their shoulders to the wheel, to urge
+on the backward, and diligently aid and train the more promising. A
+showy demonstration--a telling exhibition--must be got up for public
+view, and all means were fair to this end.
+
+I scarcely noted how the other teachers went to work; I had my own
+business to mind; and _my_ task was not the least onerous, being to
+imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they
+considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the
+English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was an
+almost impossible pronunciation--the lisping and hissing dentals of the
+Isles.
+
+The examination-day arrived. Awful day! Prepared for with anxious care,
+dressed for with silent despatch--nothing vaporous or fluttering
+now--no white gauze or azure streamers; the grave, close, compact was
+the order of the toilette. It seemed to me that I was this day,
+especially doomed--the main burden and trial falling on me alone of all
+the female teachers. The others were not expected to examine in the
+studies they taught; the professor of literature, M. Paul, taking upon
+himself this duty. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and sundry
+reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any
+colleague; he would not have help. Madame herself, who evidently rather
+wished to undertake the examination in geography--her favourite study,
+which she taught well--was forced to succumb, and be subordinate to her
+despotic kinsman's direction. The whole staff of instructors, male and
+female, he set aside, and stood on the examiner's estrade alone. It
+irked him that he was forced to make one exception to this rule. He
+could not manage English: he was obliged to leave that branch of
+education in the English teacher's hands; which he did, not without a
+flash of naive jealousy.
+
+A constant crusade against the "amour-propre" of every human being but
+himself, was the crotchet of this able, but fiery and grasping little
+man. He had a strong relish for public representation in his own
+person, but an extreme abhorrence of the like display in any other. He
+quelled, he kept down when he could; and when he could not, he fumed
+like a bottled storm.
+
+On the evening preceding the examination-day, I was walking in the
+garden, as were the other teachers and all the boarders. M. Emanuel
+joined me in the "allee defendue;" his cigar was at his lips; his
+paletot--a most characteristic garment of no particular shape--hung
+dark and menacing; the tassel of his bonnet grec sternly shadowed his
+left temple; his black whiskers curled like those of a wrathful cat;
+his blue eye had a cloud in its glitter.
+
+"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez
+troner comme une reine; demain--troner a mes cotes? Sans doute vous
+savourez d'avance les delices de l'autorite. Je crois voir en je ne
+sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!"
+
+Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken. I did not--could
+not--estimate the admiration or the good opinion of tomorrow's audience
+at the same rate he did. Had that audience numbered as many personal
+friends and acquaintance for me as for him, I know not how it might
+have been: I speak of the case as it stood. On me school-triumphs shed
+but a cold lustre. I had wondered--and I wondered now--how it was that
+for him they seemed to shine as with hearth-warmth and hearth-glow.
+_He_ cared for them perhaps too much; _I_, probably, too little.
+However, I had my own fancies as well as he. I liked, for instance, to
+see M. Emanuel jealous; it lit up his nature, and woke his spirit; it
+threw all sorts of queer lights and shadows over his dun face, and into
+his violet-azure eyes (he used to say that his black hair and blue eyes
+were "une de ses beautes"). There was a relish in his anger; it was
+artless, earnest, quite unreasonable, but never hypocritical. I uttered
+no disclaimer then of the complacency he attributed to me; I merely
+asked where the English examination came in--whether at the
+commencement or close of the day?
+
+"I hesitate," said he, "whether at the very beginning, before many
+persons are come, and when your aspiring nature will not be gratified
+by a large audience, or quite at the close, when everybody is tired,
+and only a jaded and worn-out attention will be at your service."
+
+"Que vous etes dur, Monsieur!" I said, affecting dejection.
+
+"One ought to be 'dur' with you. You are one of those beings who must
+be _kept down_. I know you! I know you! Other people in this house see
+you pass, and think that a colourless shadow has gone by. As for me, I
+scrutinized your face once, and it sufficed."
+
+"You are satisfied that you understand me?"
+
+Without answering directly, he went on, "Were you not gratified when
+you succeeded in that vaudeville? I watched you and saw a passionate
+ardour for triumph in your physiognomy. What fire shot into the glance!
+Not mere light, but flame: je me tiens pour averti."
+
+"What feeling I had on that occasion, Monsieur--and pardon me, if I
+say, you immensely exaggerate both its quality and quantity--was quite
+abstract. I did not care for the vaudeville. I hated the part you
+assigned me. I had not the slightest sympathy with the audience below
+the stage. They are good people, doubtless, but do I know them? Are
+they anything to me? Can I care for being brought before their view
+again to-morrow? Will the examination be anything but a task to me--a
+task I wish well over?"
+
+"Shall I take it out of your hands?"
+
+"With all my heart; if you do not fear failure."
+
+"But I should fail. I only know three phrases of English, and a few
+words: par exemple, de sonn, de mone, de stares--est-ce bien dit? My
+opinion is that it would be better to give up the thing altogether: to
+have no English examination, eh?"
+
+"If Madame consents, I consent."
+
+"Heartily?"
+
+"Very heartily."
+
+He smoked his cigar in silence. He turned suddenly.
+
+"Donnez-moi la main," said he, and the spite and jealousy melted out of
+his face, and a generous kindliness shone there instead.
+
+"Come, we will not be rivals, we will be friends," he pursued. "The
+examination shall take place, and I will choose a good moment; and
+instead of vexing and hindering, as I felt half-inclined ten minutes
+ago--for I have my malevolent moods: I always had from childhood--I
+will aid you sincerely. After all, you are solitary and a stranger, and
+have your way to make and your bread to earn; it may be well that you
+should become known. We will be friends: do you agree?"
+
+"Out of my heart, Monsieur. I am glad of a friend. I like that better
+than a triumph."
+
+"Pauvrette?" said he, and turned away and left the alley.
+
+The examination passed over well; M. Paul was as good as his word, and
+did his best to make my part easy. The next day came the distribution
+of prizes; that also passed; the school broke up; the pupils went home,
+and now began the long vacation.
+
+That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not. Madame Beck went,
+the first day of the holidays, to join her children at the sea-side;
+all the three teachers had parents or friends with whom they took
+refuge; every professor quitted the city; some went to Paris, some to
+Boue-Marine; M. Paul set forth on a pilgrimage to Rome; the house was
+left quite empty, but for me, a servant, and a poor deformed and
+imbecile pupil, a sort of cretin, whom her stepmother in a distant
+province would not allow to return home.
+
+My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its chords.
+How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless! How vast
+and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the forsaken
+garden--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed. Looking
+forward at the commencement of those eight weeks, I hardly knew how I
+was to live to the end. My spirits had long been gradually sinking; now
+that the prop of employment was withdrawn, they went down fast. Even to
+look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no comfort, offered
+no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil in reliance on
+future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on
+me--a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end of all things
+earthly. Alas! When I had full leisure to look on life as life must be
+looked on by such as me, I found it but a hopeless desert: tawny sands,
+with no green fields, no palm-tree, no well in view. The hopes which
+are dear to youth, which bear it up and lead it on, I knew not and
+dared not know. If they knocked at my heart sometimes, an inhospitable
+bar to admission must be inwardly drawn. When they turned away thus
+rejected, tears sad enough sometimes flowed: but it could not be
+helped: I dared not give such guests lodging. So mortally did I fear
+the sin and weakness of presumption.
+
+Religious reader, you will preach to me a long sermon about what I have
+just written, and so will you, moralist: and you, stern sage: you,
+stoic, will frown; you, cynic, sneer; you, epicure, laugh. Well, each
+and all, take it your own way. I accept the sermon, frown, sneer, and
+laugh; perhaps you are all right: and perhaps, circumstanced like me,
+you would have been, like me, wrong. The first month was, indeed, a
+long, black, heavy month to me.
+
+The cretin did not seem unhappy. I did my best to feed her well and
+keep her warm, and she only asked food and sunshine, or when that
+lacked, fire. Her weak faculties approved of inertion: her brain, her
+eyes, her ears, her heart slept content; they could not wake to work,
+so lethargy was their Paradise.
+
+Three weeks of that vacation were hot, fair, and dry, but the fourth
+and fifth were tempestuous and wet. I do not know why that change in
+the atmosphere made a cruel impression on me, why the raging storm and
+beating rain crushed me with a deadlier paralysis than I had
+experienced while the air had remained serene; but so it was; and my
+nervous system could hardly support what it had for many days and
+nights to undergo in that huge empty house. How I used to pray to
+Heaven for consolation and support! With what dread force the
+conviction would grasp me that Fate was my permanent foe, never to be
+conciliated. I did not, in my heart, arraign the mercy or justice of
+God for this; I concluded it to be a part of his great plan that some
+must deeply suffer while they live, and I thrilled in the certainty
+that of this number, I was one.
+
+It was some relief when an aunt of the cretin, a kind old woman, came
+one day, and took away my strange, deformed companion. The hapless
+creature had been at times a heavy charge; I could not take her out
+beyond the garden, and I could not leave her a minute alone: for her
+poor mind, like her body, was warped: its propensity was to evil. A
+vague bent to mischief, an aimless malevolence, made constant vigilance
+indispensable. As she very rarely spoke, and would sit for hours
+together moping and mowing, and distorting her features with
+indescribable grimaces, it was more like being prisoned with some
+strange tameless animal, than associating with a human being. Then
+there were personal attentions to be rendered which required the nerve
+of a hospital nurse; my resolution was so tried, it sometimes fell
+dead-sick. These duties should not have fallen on me; a servant, now
+absent, had rendered them hitherto, and in the hurry of holiday
+departure, no substitute to fill this office had been provided. This
+tax and trial were by no means the least I have known in life. Still,
+menial and distasteful as they were, my mental pain was far more
+wasting and wearing. Attendance on the cretin deprived me often of the
+power and inclination to swallow a meal, and sent me faint to the fresh
+air, and the well or fountain in the court; but this duty never wrung
+my heart, or brimmed my eyes, or scalded my cheek with tears hot as
+molten metal.
+
+The cretin being gone, I was free to walk out. At first I lacked
+courage to venture very far from the Rue Fossette, but by degrees I
+sought the city gates, and passed them, and then went wandering away
+far along chaussees, through fields, beyond cemeteries, Catholic and
+Protestant, beyond farmsteads, to lanes and little woods, and I know
+not where. A goad thrust me on, a fever forbade me to rest; a want of
+companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly
+famine. I often walked all day, through the burning noon and the arid
+afternoon, and the dusk evening, and came back with moonrise.
+
+While wandering in solitude, I would sometimes picture the present
+probable position of others, my acquaintance. There was Madame Beck at
+a cheerful watering-place with her children, her mother, and a whole
+troop of friends who had sought the same scene of relaxation. Zelie St.
+Pierre was at Paris, with her relatives; the other teachers were at
+their homes. There was Ginevra Fanshawe, whom certain of her
+connections had carried on a pleasant tour southward. Ginevra seemed to
+me the happiest. She was on the route of beautiful scenery; these
+September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest and
+vintage matured under their mellow beam. These gold and crystal moons
+rose on her vision over blue horizons waved in mounted lines.
+
+But all this was nothing; I too felt those autumn suns and saw those
+harvest moons, and I almost wished to be covered in with earth and
+turf, deep out of their influence; for I could not live in their light,
+nor make them comrades, nor yield them affection. But Ginevra had a
+kind of spirit with her, empowered to give constant strength and
+comfort, to gladden daylight and embalm darkness; the best of the good
+genii that guard humanity curtained her with his wings, and canopied
+her head with his bending form. By True Love was Ginevra followed:
+never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It
+seemed to me impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined
+her grateful in secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day
+to show how much she loved: I pictured her faithful hero half conscious
+of her coy fondness, and comforted by that consciousness: I conceived
+an electric chord of sympathy between them, a fine chain of mutual
+understanding, sustaining union through a separation of a hundred
+leagues--carrying, across mound and hollow, communication by prayer and
+wish. Ginevra gradually became with me a sort of heroine. One day,
+perceiving this growing illusion, I said, "I really believe my nerves
+are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too much a
+malady is growing upon it--what shall I do? How shall I keep well?"
+
+Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last a
+day and night of peculiarly agonizing depression were succeeded by
+physical illness, I took perforce to my bed. About this time the Indian
+summer closed and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine dark and
+wet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf,
+dishevelled--bewildered with sounding hurricane--I lay in a strange
+fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in
+the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A
+rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied---Sleep never
+came!
+
+I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she
+brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste,
+that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but
+sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a
+nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very
+tone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night a
+cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no well,
+but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea. Suffering,
+brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for mortal lips,
+tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank and woke, I thought
+all was over: the end come and past by. Trembling fearfully--as
+consciousness returned--ready to cry out on some fellow-creature to
+help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was near enough to catch
+the wild summons--Goton in her far distant attic could not hear--I rose
+on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over me: indescribably was
+I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the horrors of that dream
+I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-loved dead, who had
+loved _me_ well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated: galled was my
+inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future.
+Motive there was none why I should try to recover or wish to live; and
+yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and haughty voice in which Death
+challenged me to engage his unknown terrors. When I tried to pray I
+could only utter these words: "From my youth up Thy terrors have I
+suffered with a troubled mind."
+
+Most true was it.
+
+On bringing me my tea next morning Goton urged me to call in a doctor.
+I would not: I thought no doctor could cure me.
+
+One evening--and I was not delirious: I was in my sane mind, I got
+up--I dressed myself, weak and shaking. The solitude and the stillness
+of the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white
+beds were turning into spectres--the coronal of each became a
+death's-head, huge and sun-bleached--dead dreams of an elder world and
+mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes. That evening
+more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate
+was of stone, and Hope a false idol--blind, bloodless, and of granite
+core. I felt, too, that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its
+climax, and must now be turned by my own hands, hot, feeble, trembling
+as they were. It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I
+thought, than it had poured and raged all day. Twilight was falling,
+and I deemed its influence pitiful; from the lattice I saw coming
+night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping. It seemed to me that
+at this hour there was affection and sorrow in Heaven above for all
+pain suffered on earth beneath; the weight of my dreadful dream became
+alleviated--that insufferable thought of being no more loved--no more
+owned, half-yielded to hope of the contrary--I was sure this hope would
+shine clearer if I got out from under this house-roof, which was
+crushing as the slab of a tomb, and went outside the city to a certain
+quiet hill, a long way distant in the fields. Covered with a cloak (I
+could not be delirious, for I had sense and recollection to put on warm
+clothing), forth I set. The bells of a church arrested me in passing;
+they seemed to call me in to the _salut_, and I went in. Any solemn
+rite, any spectacle of sincere worship, any opening for appeal to God
+was as welcome to me then as bread to one in extremity of want. I knelt
+down with others on the stone pavement. It was an old solemn church,
+its pervading gloom not gilded but purpled by light shed through
+stained glass.
+
+Few worshippers were assembled, and, the _salut_ over, half of them
+departed. I discovered soon that those left remained to confess. I did
+not stir. Carefully every door of the church was shut; a holy quiet
+sank upon, and a solemn shade gathered about us. After a space,
+breathless and spent in prayer, a penitent approached the confessional.
+I watched. She whispered her avowal; her shrift was whispered back; she
+returned consoled. Another went, and another. A pale lady, kneeling
+near me, said in a low, kind voice:--"Go you now, I am not quite
+prepared."
+
+Mechanically obedient, I rose and went. I knew what I was about; my
+mind had run over the intent with lightning-speed. To take this step
+could not make me more wretched than I was; it might soothe me.
+
+The priest within the confessional never turned his eyes to regard me;
+he only quietly inclined his ear to my lips. He might be a good man,
+but this duty had become to him a sort of form: he went through it with
+the phlegm of custom. I hesitated; of the formula of confession I was
+ignorant: instead of commencing, then, with the prelude usual, I
+said:--"Mon pere, je suis Protestante."
+
+He directly turned. He was not a native priest: of that class, the cast
+of physiognomy is, almost invariably, grovelling: I saw by his profile
+and brow he was a Frenchman; though grey and advanced in years, he did
+not, I think, lack feeling or intelligence. He inquired, not unkindly,
+why, being a Protestant, I came to him?
+
+I said I was perishing for a word of advice or an accent of comfort. I
+had been living for some weeks quite alone; I had been ill; I had a
+pressure of affliction on my mind of which it would hardly any longer
+endure the weight.
+
+"Was it a sin, a crime?" he inquired, somewhat startled. I reassured
+him on this point, and, as well as I could, I showed him the mere
+outline of my experience.
+
+He looked thoughtful, surprised, puzzled. "You take me unawares," said
+he. "I have not had such a case as yours before: ordinarily we know our
+routine, and are prepared; but this makes a great break in the common
+course of confession. I am hardly furnished with counsel fitting the
+circumstances."
+
+Of course, I had not expected he would be; but the mere relief of
+communication in an ear which was human and sentient, yet
+consecrated--the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating,
+long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it could not be again
+diffused--had done me good. I was already solaced.
+
+"Must I go, father?" I asked of him as he sat silent.
+
+"My daughter," he said kindly--and I am sure he was a kind man: he had
+a compassionate eye--"for the present you had better go: but I assure
+you your words have struck me. Confession, like other things, is apt to
+become formal and trivial with habit. You have come and poured your
+heart out; a thing seldom done. I would fain think your case over, and
+take it with me to my oratory. Were you of our faith I should know what
+to say--a mind so tossed can find repose but in the bosom of retreat,
+and the punctual practice of piety. The world, it is well known, has no
+satisfaction for that class of natures. Holy men have bidden penitents
+like you to hasten their path upward by penance, self-denial, and
+difficult good works. Tears are given them here for meat and
+drink--bread of affliction and waters of affliction--their recompence
+comes hereafter. It is my own conviction that these impressions under
+which you are smarting are messengers from God to bring you back to the
+true Church. You were made for our faith: depend upon it our faith
+alone could heal and help you--Protestantism is altogether too dry,
+cold, prosaic for you. The further I look into this matter, the more
+plainly I see it is entirely out of the common order of things. On no
+account would I lose sight of you. Go, my daughter, for the present;
+but return to me again."
+
+I rose and thanked him. I was withdrawing when he signed me to return.
+
+"You must not come to this church," said he: "I see you are ill, and
+this church is too cold; you must come to my house: I live----" (and he
+gave me his address). "Be there to-morrow morning at ten."
+
+In reply to this appointment, I only bowed; and pulling down my veil,
+and gathering round me my cloak, I glided away.
+
+Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that
+worthy priest's reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a
+Babylonish furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he
+was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
+softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting some
+sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre of root in
+reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to withstand. Had I gone
+to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, and comforting, and
+gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he would have tried to
+kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good works. I know not how
+it would all have ended. We all think ourselves strong in some points;
+we all know ourselves weak in many; the probabilities are that had I
+visited Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the hour and day appointed, I
+might just now, instead of writing this heretic narrative, be counting
+my beads in the cell of a certain Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of
+Crecy, in Villette. There was something of Fenelon about that benign
+old priest; and whatever most of his brethren may be, and whatever I
+may think of his Church and creed (and I like neither), of himself I
+must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind when I needed
+kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!
+
+Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets
+ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become
+possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the
+little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative
+impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope: she
+put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But I had
+become involved in a part of the city with which I was not familiar; it
+was the old part, and full of narrow streets of picturesque, ancient,
+and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be very collected, and I
+was still too careless of my own welfare and safety to be cautious; I
+grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network of turns unknown. I was
+lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of any passenger.
+
+If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost
+time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from
+north-west to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a
+sharp hail, like shot: it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I bent
+my head to meet it, but it beat me back. My heart did not fail at all
+in this conflict; I only wished that I had wings and could ascend the
+gale, spread and repose my pinions on its strength, career in its
+course, sweep where it swept. While wishing this, I suddenly felt
+colder where before I was cold, and more powerless where before I was
+weak. I tried to reach the porch of a great building near, but the mass
+of frontage and the giant spire turned black and vanished from my eyes.
+Instead of sinking on the steps as I intended, I seemed to pitch
+headlong down an abyss. I remember no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AULD LANG SYNE.
+
+
+Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw,
+or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept
+her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling
+imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and
+come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and
+deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While
+she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's
+threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more,
+all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of
+whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
+
+I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a
+moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were
+hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a
+racking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me,
+red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, like
+thunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled, wondering
+into what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first I
+knew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall--a lamp not a lamp. I
+should have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did the
+commonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eye
+rested on struck it as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each in
+his place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and regular
+working.
+
+Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removed
+from the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and tempest
+were excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house I had
+been carried--but what house?
+
+I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Still
+half-dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me;
+whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I was
+puzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I saw
+accord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty white
+beds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. "Surely,"
+thought I, "it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carried
+me!" And here my eye fell on an easy-chair covered with blue damask.
+Other seats, cushioned to match, dawned on me by degrees; and at last I
+took in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on a
+clear-shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue relieved
+a ground of shaded fawn; pale walls over which a slight but endless
+garland of azure forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered amongst myriad
+gold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the space between
+two windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw
+myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked spectral; my eyes
+larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural, by contrast
+with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not only from the
+furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, that
+this was an unknown room in an unknown house.
+
+Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as I
+gazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did a
+certain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with a
+blue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all, two
+little footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed chair,
+of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of brilliant
+flowers on a dark ground.
+
+Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, old
+acquaintance were all about me, and "auld lang syne" smiled out of
+every nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, of
+which I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered "heads;"
+the velvets circling the white throats; the swell of the full muslin
+kerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon the
+mantel-shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutive
+tea-service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a white
+centre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass.
+Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered the
+flaws or cracks, like any _clairvoyante_. Above all, there was a pair
+of handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like line
+engravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding again, recalling
+hours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, a
+tedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers, now
+so skeleton-like.
+
+Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year of
+our Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distant
+country. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth year
+they and I had never met. I gasped audibly, "Where am I?"
+
+A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shape
+inharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate the
+riddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in a
+common-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French nor
+English, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understanding
+her phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead with
+some cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion on
+which I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed her
+post at the foot of the sofa.
+
+She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on her
+without interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or what
+she could have to do among the scenes, or with the days of my girlhood.
+Still more I marvelled what those scenes and days could now have to do
+with me.
+
+Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it by
+saying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew there
+could be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I was
+sane. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might not
+so clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens,
+the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damask
+furniture, were, in fact, precisely the same, in every minutest detail,
+with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been so
+thoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother's house at
+Bretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of different
+proportions and dimensions.
+
+I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo to
+the gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down the
+storm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from the
+church-steps, and "rising high into the air," as the eastern tale said,
+had he borne me over land and ocean, and laid me quietly down beside a
+hearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth burned
+before its Lares no more--it went out long ago, and the household gods
+had been carried elsewhere.
+
+The bonne turned again to survey me, and seeing my eyes wide open, and,
+I suppose, deeming their expression perturbed and excited, she put down
+her knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand; she
+poured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in hand, she
+approached me. What dark-tinged draught might she now be offering? what
+Genii-elixir or Magi-distillation?
+
+It was too late to inquire--I had swallowed it passively, and at once.
+A tide of quiet thought now came gently caressing my brain; softer and
+softer rose the flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. The
+pain of weakness left my limbs, my muscles slept. I lost power to move;
+but, losing at the same time wish, it was no privation. That kind bonne
+placed a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to do this, but
+do not remember seeing her resume her place: in the interval between
+the two acts, I "fell on sleep."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surrounded
+me; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw and
+blustering autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat--sure
+by the beating rain on the casement; sure by the "wuther" of wind
+amongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, the
+whiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I say _whiteness_--for the
+dimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.
+
+I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of a
+long, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on encountering
+the limited area of a small cabinet--a cabinet with seagreen walls;
+also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there was one high
+lattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two dozen little
+stands of painted wood, each holding a basin and an ewer, there was a
+toilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white robe over a
+pink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a pretty
+pin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette, together with
+a small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a washstand topped with
+a marble slab, and supplied with utensils of pale greenware,
+sufficiently furnished the tiny chamber.
+
+Reader; I felt alarmed! Why? you will ask. What was there in this
+simple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid?
+Merely this--These articles of furniture could not be real, solid
+arm-chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands--they must be the ghosts of
+such articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis--and,
+confounded as I was, I _did_ deny it--there remained but to conclude
+that I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in short, that
+I was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the strangest
+figment with which delirium had ever harassed a victim.
+
+I knew--I was obliged to know--the green chintz of that little chair;
+the little snug chair itself, the carved, shining-black, foliated frame
+of that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on the
+stand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered at
+one corner;--all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, as
+last night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, the
+drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.
+
+Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. And
+why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they came
+at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my distempered
+vision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone?
+As to that pincushion made of crimson satin, ornamented with gold beads
+and frilled with thread-lace, I had the same right to know it as to
+know the screens--I had made it myself. Rising with a start from the
+bed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined it. There was the
+cipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beds, and surrounded with an oval
+wreath embroidered in white silk. These were the initials of my
+godmother's name--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.
+
+"Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?" I muttered; and hastily pulling up
+the blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and
+discover _where_ I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsome
+buildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to see at
+the end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant of
+a town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street in a pleasant
+and ancient English city.
+
+I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering round
+the high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level, a
+lawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond--high
+forest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were now
+groaning under the gale of October, and between their trunks I traced
+the line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, or
+were whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. Whatever landscape
+might lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches shut it
+out. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I did not
+know it at all.
+
+Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning my
+face to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments became
+excluded. Excluded? No! For as I arranged my position in this hope,
+behold, on the green space between the divided and looped-up curtains,
+hung a broad, gilded picture-frame enclosing a portrait. It was
+drawn--well drawn, though but a sketch--in water-colours; a head, a
+boy's head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youth
+of sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hair
+long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an arch
+mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at,
+especially for, those claiming a right to that youth's
+affections--parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little
+school-girl might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked
+as if when somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response to
+love: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine
+of faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips
+menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.
+
+Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered
+to myself--
+
+"Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the
+mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I
+used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding it
+in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance
+under their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well I
+liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of the
+mouth." I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that
+mouth, or of the chin; even _my_ ignorance knew that both were
+beautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: "How it was that
+what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?" Once, by
+way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms,
+told her to look at the picture.
+
+"Do you like it, Polly?" I asked. She never answered, but gazed long,
+and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as she
+said, "Put me down." So I put her down, saying to myself: "The child
+feels it too."
+
+All these things do I now think over, adding, "He had his faults, yet
+scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible." My
+reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, "Graham!"
+
+"Graham!" echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. "Do you want Graham?"
+
+I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If
+it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall,
+still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered
+living form opposite--a woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall,
+well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best became her
+matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good face; too
+marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or character. She
+was little changed; something sterner, something more robust--but she
+was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs. Bretton.
+
+I kept quiet, yet internally _I_ was much agitated: my pulse fluttered,
+and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
+
+"Madam, where am I?" I inquired.
+
+"In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind
+quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning."
+
+"I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my
+senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular:
+but you speak English, do you not, madam?"
+
+"I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long
+discourse in French."
+
+"You do not come from England?"
+
+"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You
+seem to know my son?"
+
+"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son--the picture there?"
+
+"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced
+his name."
+
+"Graham Bretton?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ----shire?"
+
+"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign
+school here: my son recognised you as such."
+
+"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"
+
+"My son shall tell you that by-and-by," said she; "but at present you
+are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast,
+and then sleep."
+
+Notwithstanding all I had undergone--the bodily fatigue, the
+perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather--it seemed that I was
+better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was
+abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid
+food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast
+being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward
+faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered,
+and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It was
+only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or
+three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth
+and a biscuit.
+
+As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild and
+cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary--very weary
+of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it confining: I
+longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering gloom, too,
+depressed me; I wanted to see--to feel firelight. Besides, I kept
+thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him?
+Certainly not till I left my room.
+
+At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to
+wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but,
+declining these attentions, I proceeded to dress myself:
+
+The business was just achieved, and I was sitting down to take breath,
+when Mrs. Bretton once more appeared.
+
+"Dressed!" she exclaimed, smiling with that smile I so well knew--a
+pleasant smile, though not soft. "You are quite better then? Quite
+strong--eh?"
+
+She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almost
+fancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort of
+patronage in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had always
+experienced from her--a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it was
+not founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (in
+the last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree was
+mine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the shelter
+the tree gives the herb. I put a request without further ceremony.
+
+"Do let me go down-stairs, madam; I am so cold and dull here."
+
+"I desire nothing better, if you are strong enough to bear the change,"
+was her reply. "Come then; here is an arm." And she offered me hers: I
+took it, and we descended one flight of carpeted steps to a landing
+where a tall door, standing open, gave admission into the blue-damask
+room. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic comfort! How
+warm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To render the
+picture perfect, tea stood ready on the table--an English tea, whereof
+the whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from the solid
+silver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the same metal,
+to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding. I knew the
+very seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould, which
+always had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it, and
+there it was as of yore--set before Graham's plate with the silver
+knife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham was
+now, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.
+
+"Sit down--sit down," said my conductress, as my step faltered a little
+in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passed
+behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found another
+seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to make a fuss
+about any person or anything; without remonstrance she suffered me to
+have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the newspaper. I
+liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her movements were so
+young: she must have been now above fifty, yet neither her sinews nor
+her spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of age. Though portly, she
+was alert, and though serene, she was at times impetuous--good health
+and an excellent temperament kept her green as in her spring.
+
+While she read, I perceived she listened--listened for her son. She was
+not the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no lull
+in the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind--roaring
+still unsatisfied--I well knew his mother's heart would be out with him.
+
+"Ten minutes behind his time," said she, looking at her watch; then, in
+another minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slight
+inclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard some
+sound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, less
+practised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel,
+lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot from
+the urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned blue
+chair--her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might with
+impunity usurp it. And when that _one_ came up the stairs--which he
+soon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as the
+wild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in--
+
+"Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speaking
+curtly.
+
+"Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessing
+himself irreverently of the abdicated throne.
+
+"Don't you deserve cold tea, for being late?"
+
+"I shall not get my deserts, for the urn sings cheerily."
+
+"Wheel yourself to the table, lazy boy: no seat will serve you but
+mine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would always
+leave that chair for the Old Lady."
+
+"So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. How
+is your patient, mamma?"
+
+"Will she come forward and speak for herself?" said Mrs. Bretton,
+turning to my corner; and at this invitation, forward I came. Graham
+courteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figure
+justifying his mother's unconcealed pride.
+
+"So you are come down," said he; "you must be better then--much better.
+I scarcely expected we should meet thus, or here. I was alarmed last
+night, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, I
+certainly would not have left you; but my mother herself is something
+of a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I saw the case was a
+fainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What brought it on, I have yet
+to learn, and all particulars; meantime, I trust you really do feel
+better?"
+
+"Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."
+
+For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host of
+mine--this Graham Bretton, _was_ Dr. John: he, and no other; and, what
+is more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What is
+more, when I heard Graham's step on the stairs, I knew what manner of
+figure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. The
+discovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated my perceptions
+long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten
+years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they
+mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference as
+would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John
+Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he
+had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the
+excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I
+first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back,
+when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification
+of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point,
+that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits
+of his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep tones
+the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of
+old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and
+lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his
+well-charactered brow.
+
+To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ at my discovery, had not
+suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling.
+On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked
+entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through,
+while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination which
+shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast
+light no farther.
+
+Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come
+forward and announce, "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in my
+teacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He
+heard me called "Miss," and "Miss Lucy;" he never heard the surname,
+"Snowe." As to spontaneous recognition--though I, perhaps, was still
+less changed than he--the idea never approached his mind, and why
+should I suggest it?
+
+During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal
+over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the
+cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst
+them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten
+minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me.
+Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, presently, "I have seldom seen a stronger
+likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
+
+"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One
+would think you had an attack of second sight."
+
+"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing to
+me.
+
+"Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is
+your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not
+know your ways."
+
+"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she
+like, Graham?"
+
+"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to
+solve it!"
+
+"And you have known her some time, you say--ever since you first began
+to attend the school in the Rue Fossette:--yet you never mentioned to
+me that singular resemblance!"
+
+"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
+not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"
+
+"Stupid boy! look at her."
+
+Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must end,
+so I thought it best to anticipate.
+
+"Dr. John," I said, "has had so much to do and think of, since he and I
+shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while I
+readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never
+occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at
+once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,
+perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without being
+particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make a
+bustle, and she preferred all sentimental demonstrations in bas-relief.
+So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single salute;
+yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we renewed old
+acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed of his
+paroxysm of astonishment.
+
+"Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so," at length he said;
+"for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected
+this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I
+recollect her perfectly, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,"
+he added, "you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all this
+time, and never mentioned it."
+
+"That I have," was my answer.
+
+Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as eccentric,
+but he was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay, too, he
+would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very closely,
+to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and, though he
+might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was by no means
+such as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.
+
+For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the
+circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight
+annoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my
+mind.
+
+"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."
+
+"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.
+
+"Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I
+wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to
+your usually averted eyes."
+
+"You see how it was now?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past
+times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to
+explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed
+conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John
+listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had
+known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had
+retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, with
+such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with
+the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of those
+on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity might
+set against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat her down
+with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not rash, yet
+valiant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to win from
+her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.
+
+In the profession he had adopted, his success was now quite decided.
+Within the last three months he had taken this house (a small chateau,
+they told me, about half a league without the Porte de Crecy); this
+country site being chosen for the sake of his mother's health, with
+which town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton,
+and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residue
+furniture of the former St. Ann's Street mansion as she had thought fit
+to keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs, and
+the wraiths of looking-glasses, tea-urns, and teacups.
+
+As the clock struck eleven, Dr. John stopped his mother.
+
+"Miss Snowe must retire now," he said; "she is beginning to look very
+pale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting the
+cause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since last
+July, when I saw her enact with no little spirit the part of a very
+killing fine gentleman. As to last night's catastrophe, I am sure
+thereby hangs a tale, but we will inquire no further this evening.
+Good-night, Miss Lucy."
+
+And so he kindly led me to the door, and holding a wax-candle, lighted
+me up the one flight of stairs.
+
+When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, I
+felt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehement
+attachment, not offering the tender solace of well-matched and
+congenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand of
+affection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; but
+towards whom my heart softened instinctively, and yearned with an
+importunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to check.
+
+"Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly," I
+implored: "let me be content with a temperate draught of this living
+stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome
+waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth's
+fountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enough
+sustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, brief,
+unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!"
+
+Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_ repeating
+it, I steeped that pillow with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+LA TERRASSE.
+
+
+These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of
+the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
+They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that
+turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often
+opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenour of a
+life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on
+the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
+As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as
+you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to
+your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how you
+are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray
+with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for
+patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not
+_your_ hour, the waiting waters will stir; in _some_ shape, though
+perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for
+which it bled, the healing herald will descend, the cripple and the
+blind, and the dumb, and the possessed will be led to bathe. Herald,
+come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing, to
+see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are the "times" of Heaven:
+the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may
+enring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered
+generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and through
+pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again,
+and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first
+and sole angel visitant, him easterns call Azrael!
+
+I tried to get up next morning, but while I was dressing, and at
+intervals drinking cold water from the _carafe_ on my washstand, with
+design to brace up that trembling weakness which made dressing so
+difficult, in came Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Here is an absurdity!" was her morning accost. "Not so," she added,
+and dealing with me at once in her own brusque, energetic fashion--that
+fashion which I used formerly to enjoy seeing applied to her son, and
+by him vigorously resisted--in two minutes she consigned me captive to
+the French bed.
+
+"There you lie till afternoon," said she. "My boy left orders before he
+went out that such should be the case, and I can assure you my son is
+master and must be obeyed. Presently you shall have breakfast."
+
+Presently she brought that meal--brought it with her own active
+hands--not leaving me to servants. She seated herself on the bed while
+I ate. Now it is not everybody, even amongst our respected friends and
+esteemed acquaintance, whom we like to have near us, whom we like to
+watch us, to wait on us, to approach us with the proximity of a nurse
+to a patient. It is not every friend whose eye is a light in a sick
+room, whose presence is there a solace: but all this was Mrs. Bretton
+to me; all this she had ever been. Food or drink never pleased me so
+well as when it came through her hands. I do not remember the occasion
+when her entrance into a room had not made that room cheerier. Our
+natures own predilections and antipathies alike strange. There are
+people from whom we secretly shrink, whom we would personally avoid,
+though reason confesses that they are good people: there are others
+with faults of temper, &c., evident enough, beside whom we live
+content, as if the air about them did us good. My godmother's lively
+black eye and clear brunette cheek, her warm, prompt hand, her
+self-reliant mood, her decided bearing, were all beneficial to me as
+the atmosphere of some salubrious climate. Her son used to call her
+"the old lady;" it filled me with pleasant wonder to note how the
+alacrity and power of five-and-twenty still breathed from her and
+around her.
+
+"I would bring my work here," she said, as she took from me the emptied
+teacup, "and sit with you the whole day, if that overbearing John
+Graham had not put his veto upon such a proceeding. 'Now, mamma,' he
+said, when he went out, 'take notice, you are not to knock up your
+god-daughter with gossip,' and he particularly desired me to keep close
+to my own quarters, and spare you my fine company. He says, Lucy, he
+thinks you have had a nervous fever, judging from your look,--is that
+so?"
+
+I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that
+I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on
+this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details
+of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which
+I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region
+would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! The
+difference between her and me might be figured by that between the
+stately ship cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of
+crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the
+life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old,
+dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough
+weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide
+between them the rule of the great deep. No, the "Louisa Bretton" never
+was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could
+not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own
+counsel, and spins no yarns.
+
+She left me, and I lay in bed content: it was good of Graham to
+remember me before he went out.
+
+My day was lonely, but the prospect of coming evening abridged and
+cheered it. Then, too, I felt weak, and rest seemed welcome; and after
+the morning hours were gone by,--those hours which always bring, even
+to the necessarily unoccupied, a sense of business to be done, of tasks
+waiting fulfilment, a vague impression of obligation to be
+employed--when this stirring time was past, and the silent descent of
+afternoon hushed housemaid steps on the stairs and in the chambers, I
+then passed into a dreamy mood, not unpleasant.
+
+My calm little room seemed somehow like a cave in the sea. There was no
+colour about it, except that white and pale green, suggestive of foam
+and deep water; the blanched cornice was adorned with shell-shaped
+ornaments, and there were white mouldings like dolphins in the
+ceiling-angles. Even that one touch of colour visible in the red satin
+pincushion bore affinity to coral; even that dark, shining glass might
+have mirrored a mermaid. When I closed my eyes, I heard a gale,
+subsiding at last, bearing upon the house-front like a settling swell
+upon a rock-base. I heard it drawn and withdrawn far, far off, like a
+tide retiring from a shore of the upper world--a world so high above
+that the rush of its largest waves, the dash of its fiercest breakers,
+could sound down in this submarine home, only like murmurs and a
+lullaby.
+
+Amidst these dreams came evening, and then Martha brought a light; with
+her aid I was quickly dressed, and stronger now than in the morning, I
+made my way down to the blue saloon unassisted.
+
+Dr. John, it appears, had concluded his round of professional calls
+earlier than usual; his form was the first object that met my eyes as I
+entered the parlour; he stood in that window-recess opposite the door,
+reading the close type of a newspaper by such dull light as closing day
+yet gave. The fire shone clear, but the lamp stood on the table unlit,
+and tea was not yet brought up.
+
+As to Mrs. Bretton, my active godmother--who, I afterwards found, had
+been out in the open air all day--lay half-reclined in her
+deep-cushioned chair, actually lost in a nap. Her son seeing me, came
+forward. I noticed that he trod carefully, not to wake the sleeper; he
+also spoke low: his mellow voice never had any sharpness in it;
+modulated as at present, it was calculated rather to soothe than
+startle slumber.
+
+"This is a quiet little chateau," he observed, after inviting me to sit
+near the casement. "I don't know whether you may have noticed it in
+your walks: though, indeed, from the chaussee it is not visible; just a
+mile beyond the Porte de Crecy, you turn down a lane which soon becomes
+an avenue, and that leads you on, through meadow and shade, to the very
+door of this house. It is not a modern place, but built somewhat in the
+old style of the Basse-Ville. It is rather a manoir than a chateau;
+they call it 'La Terrasse,' because its front rises from a broad turfed
+walk, whence steps lead down a grassy slope to the avenue. See yonder!
+The moon rises: she looks well through the tree-boles."
+
+Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined
+or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted
+now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her flushed ascent,
+she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated up stainless into
+a now calm sky. Did moonlight soften or sadden Dr. Bretton? Did it
+touch him with romance? I think it did. Albeit of no sighing mood, he
+sighed in watching it: sighed to himself quietly. No need to ponder the
+cause or the course of that sigh; I knew it was wakened by beauty; I
+knew it pursued Ginevra. Knowing this, the idea pressed upon me that it
+was in some sort my duty to speak the name he meditated. Of course he
+was ready for the subject: I saw in his countenance a teeming plenitude
+of comment, question and interest; a pressure of language and
+sentiment, only checked, I thought, by sense of embarrassment how to
+begin. To spare him this embarrassment was my best, indeed my sole use.
+I had but to utter the idol's name, and love's tender litany would flow
+out. I had just found a fitting phrase, "You know that Miss Fanshawe is
+gone on a tour with the Cholmondeleys," and was opening my lips to
+speak to it, when he scattered my plans by introducing another theme.
+
+"The first thing this morning," said he, putting his sentiment in his
+pocket, turning from the moon, and sitting down, "I went to the Rue
+Fossette, and told the cuisiniere that you were safe and in good hands.
+Do you know that I actually found that she had not yet discovered your
+absence from the house: she thought you safe in the great dormitory.
+With what care you must have been waited on!"
+
+"Oh! all that is very conceivable," said I. "Goton could do nothing for
+me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had
+rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got
+tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the
+school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed. I
+believe, however, that she is a good-natured creature, and would have
+been delighted to cook me cotelettes de mouton, if I could have eaten
+them."
+
+"What did Madame Beck mean by leaving you alone?"
+
+"Madame Beck could not foresee that I should fall ill."
+
+"Your nervous system bore a good share of the suffering?"
+
+"I am not quite sure what my nervous system is, but I was dreadfully
+low-spirited."
+
+"Which disables me from helping you by pill or potion. Medicine can
+give nobody good spirits. My art halts at the threshold of
+Hypochondria: she just looks in and sees a chamber of torture, but can
+neither say nor do much. Cheerful society would be of use; you should
+be as little alone as possible; you should take plenty of exercise."
+
+Acquiescence and a pause followed these remarks. They sounded all
+right, I thought, and bore the safe sanction of custom, and the
+well-worn stamp of use.
+
+"Miss Snowe," recommenced Dr. John--my health, nervous system included,
+being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--"is it
+permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"
+
+I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
+idea?"
+
+"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt."
+
+"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
+learn how I fell into your hands."
+
+"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all
+day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
+character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
+similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
+interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
+symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
+set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
+the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
+past an old church belonging to a community of Beguines, I saw by a
+lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
+lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
+the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
+have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
+latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
+class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better informed,
+as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on me to stop:
+what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I alighted.
+
+"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
+is not dead.'
+
+"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
+at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
+bloodless, and nearly cold.
+
+"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.
+
+"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
+evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
+coupled with some things you had said--"
+
+"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"
+
+"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
+the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
+Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it
+seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should be out on
+such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch
+you when you quitted the church, and so to manage as not to lose sight
+of you, till you should have reached home. Perhaps the worthy man
+might, half unconsciously, have blent in this proceeding some little of
+the subtlety of his class: it might have been his resolve to learn the
+locality of your home--did you impart that in your confession?"
+
+"I did not: on the contrary, I carefully avoided the shadow of any
+indication: and as to my confession, Dr. John, I suppose you will think
+me mad for taking such a step, but I could not help it: I suppose it
+was all the fault of what you call my 'nervous system.' I cannot put
+the case into words, but my days and nights were grown intolerable: a
+cruel sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling that would make its
+way, rush out, or kill me--like (and this you will understand, Dr.
+John) the current which passes through the heart, and which, if
+aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels,
+seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I
+wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet or chamber, so I
+went and sought them in church and confessional. As to what I said, it
+was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong: my life has
+not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality:
+all I poured out was a dreary, desperate complaint."
+
+"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature
+is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom
+widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"
+
+"It was not Madame Beck's fault," said I; "it is no living being's
+fault, and I won't hear any one blamed."
+
+"Who is in the wrong, then, Lucy?"
+
+"Me--Dr. John--me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I
+like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and
+Fate."
+
+"'Me' must take better care in future," said Dr. John--smiling, I
+suppose, at my bad grammar.
+
+"Change of air--change of scene; those are my prescriptions," pursued
+the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As
+yet, Pere Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no
+wiser than you choose him to be; for, instead of returning to the Rue
+Fossette, your fevered wanderings--there must have been high fever--"
+
+"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night--now, don't make out
+that I was delirious, for I know differently."
+
+"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your
+wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the pensionnat. Near the
+Beguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity
+of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your
+succour, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we
+procured a fiacre and brought you here. Pere Silas, old as he is, would
+carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would
+certainly have remained with you till suspended animation had been
+restored: and so should I, but, at that juncture, a hurried messenger
+arrived from the dying patient I had scarcely left--the last duties
+were called for--the physician's last visit and the priest's last rite;
+extreme unction could not be deferred. Pere Silas and myself departed
+together, my mother was spending the evening abroad; we gave you in
+charge to Martha, leaving directions, which it seems she followed
+successfully. Now, are you a Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," said I, with a smile. "And never let Pere Silas know where I
+live, or he will try to convert me; but give him my best and truest
+thanks when you see him, and if ever I get rich I will send him money
+for his charities. See, Dr. John, your mother wakes; you ought to ring
+for tea."
+
+Which he did; and, as Mrs. Bretton sat up--astonished and indignant at
+herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully
+prepared to deny that she had slept at all--her son came gaily to the
+attack.
+
+"Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your
+slumbers."
+
+"My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never
+_do_ sleep by day: it was the slightest doze possible."
+
+"Exactly! a seraph's gentle lapse--a fairy's dream. Mamma, under such
+circumstances, you always remind me of Titania."
+
+"That is because you, yourself, are so like Bottom."
+
+"Miss Snowe--did you ever hear anything like mamma's wit? She is a most
+sprightly woman of her size and age."
+
+"Keep your compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own
+size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not
+rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an
+eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent--a beef-eater
+tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you."
+
+"As if you could not sooner disown your own personality! I am
+indispensable to the old lady's happiness, Lucy. She would pine away in
+green and yellow melancholy if she had not my six feet of iniquity to
+scold. It keeps her lively--it maintains the wholesome ferment of her
+spirits."
+
+The two were now standing opposite to each other, one on each side the
+fire-place; their words were not very fond, but their mutual looks
+atoned for verbal deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
+Bretton's life was certainly casketed in her son's bosom; her dearest
+pulse throbbed in his heart. As to him, of course another love shared
+his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the new passion was
+the latest born, so he assigned it in his emotions Benjamin's portion.
+Ginevra! Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet her own young
+idol had laid his homage? Would she approve that choice? I could not
+tell; but I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe's conduct
+towards Graham: her alternations between coldness and coaxing, and
+repulse and allurement; if she could at all suspect the pain with which
+she had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen, his fine
+spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior preferred before him, his
+subordinate made the instrument of his humiliation--_then_ Mrs. Bretton
+would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted, or both. Well--I
+thought so too.
+
+That second evening passed as sweetly as the first--_more_ sweetly
+indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange of thought; old troubles were
+not reverted to, acquaintance was better cemented; I felt happier,
+easier, more at home. That night--instead of crying myself asleep--I
+went down to dreamland by a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WE QUARREL.
+
+
+During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a
+seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the
+quarter where I sat, or looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual,
+but I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to leap from his
+lips. I kept my ear and mind in perpetual readiness for the tender
+theme; my patience was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my
+sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready for
+outpouring. At last, and after a little inward struggle, which I saw
+and respected, he one day launched into the topic. It was introduced
+delicately; anonymously as it were.
+
+"Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling, I hear?"
+
+"Friend, forsooth!" thought I to myself: but it would not do to
+contradict; he must have his own way; I must own the soft impeachment:
+friend let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could not help asking
+whom he meant?
+
+He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid hands on a reel of
+thread which he proceeded recklessly to unwind.
+
+"Ginevra--Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied the Cholmondeleys on a tour
+through the south of France?"
+
+"She has."
+
+"Do you and she correspond?"
+
+"It will astonish you to hear that I never once thought of making
+application for that privilege."
+
+"You have seen letters of her writing?"
+
+"Yes; several to her uncle."
+
+"They will not be deficient in wit and _naivete_; there is so much
+sparkle, and so little art in her soul?"
+
+"She writes comprehensively enough when she writes to M. de
+Bassompierre: he who runs may read." (In fact, Ginevra's epistles to
+her wealthy kinsman were commonly business documents, unequivocal
+applications for cash.)
+
+"And her handwriting? It must be pretty, light, ladylike, I should
+think?"
+
+It was, and I said so.
+
+"I verily believe that all she does is well done," said Dr. John; and
+as I seemed in no hurry to chime in with this remark, he added "You,
+who know her, could you name a point in which she is deficient?"
+
+"She does several things very well." ("Flirtation amongst the rest,"
+subjoined I, in thought.)
+
+"When do you suppose she will return to town?" he soon inquired.
+
+"Pardon me, Dr. John, I must explain. You honour me too much in
+ascribing to me a degree of intimacy with Miss Fanshawe I have not the
+felicity to enjoy. I have never been the depositary of her plans and
+secrets. You will find her particular friends in another sphere than
+mine: amongst the Cholmondeleys, for instance."
+
+He actually thought I was stung with a kind of jealous pain similar to
+his own!
+
+"Excuse her," he said; "judge her indulgently; the glitter of fashion
+misleads her, but she will soon find out that these people are hollow,
+and will return to you with augmented attachment and confirmed trust. I
+know something of the Cholmondeleys: superficial, showy, selfish
+people; depend on it, at heart Ginevra values you beyond a score of
+such."
+
+"You are very kind," I said briefly.
+
+A disclaimer of the sentiments attributed to me burned on my lips, but
+I extinguished the flame. I submitted to be looked upon as the
+humiliated, cast-off, and now pining confidante of the distinguished
+Miss Fanshawe: but, reader, it was a hard submission.
+
+"Yet, you see," continued Graham, "while I comfort _you_, I cannot take
+the same consolation to myself; I cannot hope she will do me justice.
+De Hamal is most worthless, yet I fear he pleases her: wretched
+delusion!"
+
+My patience really gave way, and without notice: all at once. I suppose
+illness and weakness had worn it and made it brittle.
+
+"Dr. Bretton," I broke out, "there is no delusion like your own. On all
+points but one you are a man, frank, healthful, right-thinking,
+clear-sighted: on this exceptional point you are but a slave. I
+declare, where Miss Fanshawe is concerned, you merit no respect; nor
+have you mine."
+
+I got up, and left the room very much excited.
+
+This little scene took place in the morning; I had to meet him again in
+the evening, and then I saw I had done mischief. He was not made of
+common clay, not put together out of vulgar materials; while the
+outlines of his nature had been shaped with breadth and vigour, the
+details embraced workmanship of almost feminine delicacy: finer, much
+finer, than you could be prepared to meet with; than you could believe
+inherent in him, even after years of acquaintance. Indeed, till some
+over-sharp contact with his nerves had betrayed, by its effects, their
+acute sensibility, this elaborate construction must be ignored; and the
+more especially because the sympathetic faculty was not prominent in
+him: to feel, and to seize quickly another's feelings, are separate
+properties; a few constructions possess both, some neither. Dr. John
+had the one in exquisite perfection; and because I have admitted that
+he was not endowed with the other in equal degree, the reader will
+considerately refrain from passing to an extreme, and pronouncing him
+_un_sympathizing, unfeeling: on the contrary, he was a kind, generous
+man. Make your need known, his hand was open. Put your grief into
+words, he turned no deaf ear. Expect refinements of perception,
+miracles of intuition, and realize disappointment. This night, when Dr.
+John entered the room, and met the evening lamp, I saw well and at one
+glance his whole mechanism.
+
+To one who had named him "slave," and, on any point, banned him from
+respect, he must now have peculiar feelings. That the epithet was well
+applied, and the ban just, might be; he put forth no denial that it was
+so: his mind even candidly revolved that unmanning possibility. He
+sought in this accusation the cause of that ill-success which had got
+so galling a hold on his mental peace: Amid the worry of a
+self-condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold,
+both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice,
+no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's
+best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the
+table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I
+handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank
+you, Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my
+ear welcomed.
+
+For my part, there was only one plan to be pursued; I must expiate my
+culpable vehemence, or I must not sleep that night. This would not do
+at all; I could not stand it: I made no pretence of capacity to wage
+war on this footing. School solitude, conventual silence and
+stagnation, anything seemed preferable to living embroiled with Dr.
+John. As to Ginevra, she might take the silver wings of a dove, or any
+other fowl that flies, and mount straight up to the highest place,
+among the highest stars, where her lover's highest flight of fancy
+chose to fix the constellation of her charms: never more be it mine to
+dispute the arrangement. Long I tried to catch his eye. Again and again
+that eye just met mine; but, having nothing to say, it withdrew, and I
+was baffled. After tea, he sat, sad and quiet, reading a book. I wished
+I could have dared to go and sit near him, but it seemed that if I
+ventured to take that step, he would infallibly evince hostility and
+indignation. I longed to speak out, and I dared not whisper. His mother
+left the room; then, moved by insupportable regret, I just murmured the
+words "Dr. Bretton."
+
+He looked up from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his
+mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might
+have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour
+in one thunder-clap.
+
+"Dr. Bretton, forgive my hasty words: _do, do_ forgive them."
+
+He smiled that moment I spoke. "Perhaps I deserved them, Lucy. If you
+don't respect me, I am sure it is because I am not respectable. I fear,
+I am an awkward fool: I must manage badly in some way, for where I wish
+to please, it seems I don't please."
+
+"Of that you cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the
+fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me
+unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply
+respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of
+others, what is that but an excellence?"
+
+"Can I think too much of Ginevra?"
+
+"_I_ believe you may; _you_ believe you can't. Let us agree to differ.
+Let me be pardoned; that is what I ask."
+
+"Do you think I cherish ill-will for one warm word?"
+
+"I see you do not and cannot; but just say, 'Lucy, I forgive you!' Say
+that, to ease me of the heart-ache."
+
+"Put away your heart-ache, as I will put away mine; for you wounded me
+a little, Lucy. Now, when the pain is gone, I more than forgive: I feel
+grateful, as to a sincere well-wisher."
+
+"I _am_ your sincere well-wisher: you are right."
+
+Thus our quarrel ended.
+
+Reader, if in the course of this work, you find that my opinion of Dr.
+John undergoes modification, excuse the seeming inconsistency. I give
+the feeling as at the time I felt it; I describe the view of character
+as it appeared when discovered.
+
+He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that
+misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my
+theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed,
+somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated.
+An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but
+very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two
+lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those
+few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail
+frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I
+think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in
+discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me. He seemed to know that
+if he would but talk about himself, and about that in which he was most
+interested, my expectation would always be answered, my wish always
+satisfied. It follows, as a matter of course, that I continued to hear
+much of "Ginevra."
+
+"Ginevra!" He thought her so fair, so good; he spoke so lovingly of her
+charms, her sweetness, her innocence, that, in spite of my plain prose
+knowledge of the reality, a kind of reflected glow began to settle on
+her idea, even for me. Still, reader, I am free to confess, that he
+often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient with him.
+I had had my lesson: I had learned how severe for me was the pain of
+crossing, or grieving, or disappointing him. In a strange and new
+sense, I grew most selfish, and quite powerless to deny myself the
+delight of indulging his mood, and being pliant to his will. He still
+seemed to me most absurd when he obstinately doubted, and desponded
+about his power to win in the end Miss Fanshawe's preference. The fancy
+became rooted in my own mind more stubbornly than ever, that she was
+only coquetting to goad him, and that, at heart, she coveted everyone
+of his words and looks. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of my
+resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable
+gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the
+flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again. I
+chanced to assert one day, with a view to stilling his impatience, that
+in my own mind, I felt positive Miss Fanshawe _must_ intend eventually
+to accept him.
+
+"Positive! It was easy to say so, but had I any grounds for such
+assurance?"
+
+"The best grounds."
+
+"Now, Lucy, _do_ tell me what!"
+
+"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really
+amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her
+fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult."
+
+"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a
+little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an
+explanation--a full explanation: I must have it."
+
+"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man:
+you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Pere
+Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for his
+poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your
+favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John--"
+
+"Hush!" said he, "don't go on."
+
+"Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her hands
+filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for
+her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts
+the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could
+have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments,
+to purchase which your generosity must have verged on extravagance."
+
+The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now
+flushed all over the face of her admirer.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my
+scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour
+in accepting them."
+
+"She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour that
+she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection,
+she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some
+rouleaux of gold pieces."
+
+"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for
+my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value."
+
+I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and
+well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money's worth, and
+endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the
+most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years.
+
+He pursued. "You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap
+some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even
+pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me,
+she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to
+bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her
+ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully
+chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not
+valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would hardly
+cast one look on my gift."
+
+"Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to
+you?"
+
+"No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to
+seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like
+quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build
+on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part,
+were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her
+incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture
+to believe the transaction advanced me one step."
+
+"Dr. John," I began, "Love is blind;" but just then a blue subtle ray
+sped sideways from Dr. John's eye: it reminded me of old days, it
+reminded me of his picture: it half led me to think that part, at
+least, of his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe's _naivete_ was
+assumed; it led me dubiously to conjecture that perhaps, in spite of
+his passion for her beauty, his appreciation of her foibles might
+possibly be less mistaken, more clear-sighted, than from his general
+language was presumable. After all it might be only a chance look, or
+at best the token of a merely momentary impression. Chance or
+intentional real or imaginary, it closed the conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE CLEOPATRA.
+
+
+My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of
+the vacation. Mrs. Bretton's kind management procured me this respite.
+Her son having one day delivered the dictum that "Lucy was not yet
+strong enough to go back to that den of a pensionnat," she at once
+drove over to the Rue Fossette, had an interview with the directress,
+and procured the indulgence, on the plea of prolonged rest and change
+being necessary to perfect recovery. Hereupon, however, followed an
+attention I could very well have dispensed with, viz--a polite call
+from Madame Beck.
+
+That lady--one fine day--actually came out in a fiacre as far as the
+chateau. I suppose she had resolved within herself to see what manner
+of place Dr. John inhabited. Apparently, the pleasant site and neat
+interior surpassed her expectations; she eulogized all she saw,
+pronounced the blue salon "une piece magnifique," profusely
+congratulated me on the acquisition of friends, "tellement dignes,
+aimables, et respectables," turned also a neat compliment in my favour,
+and, upon Dr. John coming in, ran up to him with the utmost buoyancy,
+opening at the same time such a fire of rapid language, all sparkling
+with felicitations and protestations about his "chateau,"--"madame sa
+mere, la digne chatelaine:" also his looks; which, indeed, were very
+flourishing, and at the moment additionally embellished by the
+good-natured but amused smile with which he always listened to Madame's
+fluent and florid French. In short, Madame shone in her very best phase
+that day, and came in and went out quite a living catherine-wheel of
+compliments, delight, and affability. Half purposely, and half to ask
+some question about school-business, I followed her to the carriage,
+and looked in after she was seated and the door closed. In that brief
+fraction of time what a change had been wrought! An instant ago, all
+sparkles and jests, she now sat sterner than a judge and graver than a
+sage. Strange little woman!
+
+I went back and teased Dr. John about Madame's devotion to him. How he
+laughed! What fun shone in his eyes as he recalled some of her fine
+speeches, and repeated them, imitating her voluble delivery! He had an
+acute sense of humour, and was the finest company in the world--when he
+could forget Miss Fanshawe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To "sit in sunshine calm and sweet" is said to be excellent for weak
+people; it gives them vital force. When little Georgette Beck was
+recovering from her illness, I used to take her in my arms and walk
+with her in the garden by the hour together, beneath a certain wall
+hung with grapes, which the Southern sun was ripening: that sun
+cherished her little pale frame quite as effectually as it mellowed and
+swelled the clustering fruit.
+
+There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose
+influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for
+the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these
+choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton's and his mother's. They
+liked to communicate happiness, as some like to occasion misery: they
+did it instinctively; without fuss, and apparently with little
+consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their
+minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little plan was
+proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was
+Dr. John's time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each
+brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they
+were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which
+left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet
+seldom over-driven, and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What
+he did was accomplished with the ease and grace of all-sufficing
+strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of high and unbroken
+energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy fortnight, more
+of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen in the
+whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of
+interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard;
+with willingness and spirit he communicates much noteworthy
+information. He never seemed to think it a trouble to talk to me, and,
+I am sure, it was never a task to me to listen. It was not his way to
+treat subjects coldly and vaguely; he rarely generalized, never prosed.
+He seemed to like nice details almost as much as I liked them myself:
+he seemed observant of character: and not superficially observant,
+either. These points gave the quality of interest to his discourse; and
+the fact of his speaking direct from his own resources, and not
+borrowing or stealing from books--here a dry fact, and there a trite
+phrase, and elsewhere a hackneyed opinion--ensured a freshness, as
+welcome as it was rare. Before my eyes, too, his disposition seemed to
+unfold another phase; to pass to a fresh day: to rise in new and nobler
+dawn.
+
+His mother possessed a good development of benevolence, but he owned a
+better and larger. I found, on accompanying him to the Basse-Ville--the
+poor and crowded quarter of the city--that his errands there were as
+much those of the philanthropist as the physician. I understood
+presently that cheerfully, habitually, and in single-minded
+unconsciousness of any special merit distinguishing his deeds--he was
+achieving, amongst a very wretched population, a world of active good.
+The lower orders liked him well; his poor, patients in the hospitals
+welcomed him with a sort of enthusiasm.
+
+But stop--I must not, from the faithful narrator, degenerate into the
+partial eulogist. Well, full well, do I know that Dr. John was not
+perfect, anymore than I am perfect. Human fallibility leavened him
+throughout: there was no hour, and scarcely a moment of the time I
+spent with him that in act or speech, or look, he did not betray
+something that was not of a god. A god could not have the cruel vanity
+of Dr. John, nor his sometime levity. No immortal could have resembled
+him in his occasional temporary oblivion of all but the present--in his
+passing passion for that present; shown not coarsely, by devoting it to
+material indulgence, but selfishly, by extracting from it whatever it
+could yield of nutriment to his masculine self-love: his delight was to
+feed that ravenous sentiment, without thought of the price of
+provender, or care for the cost of keeping it sleek and high-pampered.
+
+The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two
+views which have been given of Graham Bretton--the public and
+private--the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public,
+he is shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his
+energies, as earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside
+picture, there is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he
+is; pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in
+receiving the same. Both portraits are correct.
+
+It was hardly possible to oblige Dr. John quietly and in secret. When
+you thought that the fabrication of some trifle dedicated to his use
+had been achieved unnoticed, and that, like other men, he would use it
+when placed ready for his use, and never ask whence it came, he amazed
+you by a smilingly-uttered observation or two, proving that his eye had
+been on the work from commencement to close: that he had noted the
+design, traced its progress, and marked its completion. It pleased him
+to be thus served, and he let his pleasure beam in his eye and play
+about his mouth.
+
+This would have been all very well, if he had not added to such kindly
+and unobtrusive evidence a certain wilfulness in discharging what he
+called debts. When his mother worked for him, he paid her by showering
+about her his bright animal spirits, with even more affluence than his
+gay, taunting, teasing, loving wont. If Lucy Snowe were discovered to
+have put her hand to such work, he planned, in recompence, some
+pleasant recreation.
+
+I often felt amazed at his perfect knowledge of Villette; a knowledge
+not merely confined to its open streets, but penetrating to all its
+galleries, salles, and cabinets: of every door which shut in an object
+worth seeing, of every museum, of every hall, sacred to art or science,
+he seemed to possess the "Open! Sesame." I never had a head for
+science, but an ignorant, blind, fond instinct inclined me to art. I
+liked to visit the picture-galleries, and I dearly liked to be left
+there alone. In company, a wretched idiosyncracy forbade me to see much
+or to feel anything. In unfamiliar company, where it was necessary to
+maintain a flow of talk on the subjects in presence, half an hour would
+knock me up, with a combined pressure of physical lassitude and entire
+mental incapacity. I never yet saw the well-reared child, much less the
+educated adult, who could not put me to shame, by the sustained
+intelligence of its demeanour under the ordeal of a conversable,
+sociable visitation of pictures, historical sights or buildings, or any
+lions of public interest. Dr. Bretton was a cicerone after my own
+heart; he would take me betimes, ere the galleries were filled, leave
+me there for two or three hours, and call for me when his own
+engagements were discharged. Meantime, I was happy; happy, not always
+in admiring, but in examining, questioning, and forming conclusions. In
+the commencement of these visits, there was some misunderstanding and
+consequent struggle between Will and Power. The former faculty exacted
+approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the
+latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then
+self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet
+its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't
+praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue
+resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I
+might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually
+that I might, and so sank supine into a luxury of calm before
+ninety-nine out of a hundred of the exhibited frames.
+
+It seemed to me that an original and good picture was just as scarce as
+an original and good book; nor did I, in the end, tremble to say to
+myself, standing before certain _chef-d'oeuvres_ bearing great names,
+"These are not a whit like nature. Nature's daylight never had that
+colour: never was made so turbid, either by storm or cloud, as it is
+laid out there, under a sky of indigo: and that indigo is not ether;
+and those dark weeds plastered upon it are not trees." Several very
+well executed and complacent-looking fat women struck me as by no means
+the goddesses they appeared to consider themselves. Many scores of
+marvellously-finished little Flemish pictures, and also of sketches,
+excellent for fashion-books displaying varied costumes in the
+handsomest materials, gave evidence of laudable industry whimsically
+applied. And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which
+satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision.
+Nature's power here broke through in a mountain snow-storm; and there
+her glory in a sunny southern day. An expression in this portrait
+proved clear insight into character; a face in that historical
+painting, by its vivid filial likeness, startlingly reminded you that
+genius gave it birth. These exceptions I loved: they grew dear as
+friends.
+
+One day, at a quiet early hour, I found myself nearly alone in a
+certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of portentous size, set
+up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before
+it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of
+worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet,
+might be fain to complete the business sitting: this picture, I say,
+seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
+
+It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life.
+I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude, suitable
+for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from
+fourteen to sixteen stone. She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very
+much butcher's meat--to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and
+liquids--must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that
+wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half-reclined on a
+couch: why, it would be difficult to say; broad daylight blazed round
+her; she appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two
+plain cooks; she could not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been
+standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to
+lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent
+garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of
+abundance of material--seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of
+drapery--she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the
+wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and
+pans--perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets--were rolled here and
+there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst
+them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered
+the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalogue, I
+found that this notable production bore the name "Cleopatra."
+
+Well, I was sitting wondering at it (as the bench was there, I thought
+I might as well take advantage of its accommodation), and thinking that
+while some of the details--as roses, gold cups, jewels, &c., were very
+prettily painted, it was on the whole an enormous piece of claptrap;
+the room, almost vacant when I entered, began to fill. Scarcely
+noticing this circumstance (as, indeed, it did not matter to me) I
+retained my seat; rather to rest myself than with a view to studying
+this huge, dark-complexioned gipsy-queen; of whom, indeed, I soon
+tired, and betook myself for refreshment to the contemplation of some
+exquisite little pictures of still life: wild-flowers, wild-fruit,
+mossy woodnests, casketing eggs that looked like pearls seen through
+clear green sea-water; all hung modestly beneath that coarse and
+preposterous canvas.
+
+Suddenly a light tap visited my shoulder. Starting, turning, I met a
+face bent to encounter mine; a frowning, almost a shocked face it was.
+
+"Que faites-vous ici?" said a voice.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur, je m'amuse."
+
+"Vous vous amusez! et a quoi, s'il vous plait? Mais d'abord, faites-moi
+le plaisir de vous lever; prenez mon bras, et allons de l'autre cote."
+
+I did precisely as I was bid. M. Paul Emanuel (it was he) returned from
+Rome, and now a travelled man, was not likely to be less tolerant of
+insubordination now, than before this added distinction laurelled his
+temples.
+
+"Permit me to conduct you to your party," said he, as we crossed the
+room.
+
+"I have no party."
+
+"You are not alone?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Did you come here unaccompanied?"
+
+"No, Monsieur. Dr. Bretton brought me here."
+
+"Dr. Bretton and Madame his mother, of course?"
+
+"No; only Dr. Bretton."
+
+"And he told you to look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"By no means; I found it out for myself."
+
+M. Paul's hair was shorn close as raven down, or I think it would have
+bristled on his head. Beginning now to perceive his drift, I had a
+certain pleasure in keeping cool, and working him up.
+
+"Astounding insular audacity!" cried the Professor. "Singulieres femmes
+que ces Anglaises!"
+
+"What is the matter, Monsieur?"
+
+"Matter! How dare you, a young person, sit coolly down, with the
+self-possession of a garcon, and look at _that_ picture?"
+
+"It is a very ugly picture, but I cannot at all see why I should not
+look at it."
+
+"Bon! bon! Speak no more of it. But you ought not to be here alone."
+
+"If, however, I have no society--no _party_, as you say? And then, what
+does it signify whether I am alone, or accompanied? nobody meddles with
+me."
+
+"Taisez-vous, et asseyez-vous la--la!"--setting down a chair with
+emphasis in a particularly dull corner, before a series of most
+specially dreary "cadres."
+
+"Mais, Monsieur?"
+
+"Mais, Mademoiselle, asseyez-vous, et ne bougez
+pas--entendez-vous?--jusqu'a ce qu'on vienne vous chercher, ou que je
+vous donne la permission."
+
+"Quel triste coin!" cried I, "et quelles laids tableaux!"
+
+And "laids," indeed, they were; being a set of four, denominated in the
+catalogue "La vie d'une femme." They were painted rather in a
+remarkable style--flat, dead, pale, and formal. The first represented a
+"Jeune Fille," coming out of a church-door, a missal in her hand, her
+dress very prim, her eyes cast down, her mouth pursed up--the image of
+a most villanous little precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a
+"Mariee," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her
+chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and
+showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The
+third, a "Jeune Mere," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy
+baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve,"
+being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the
+twain studiously surveying an elegant French monument, set up in a
+corner of some Pere la Chaise. All these four "Anges" were grim and
+grey as burglars, and cold and vapid as ghosts. What women to live
+with! insincere, ill-humoured, bloodless, brainless nonentities! As bad
+in their way as the indolent gipsy-giantess, the Cleopatra, in hers.
+
+It was impossible to keep one's attention long confined to these
+master-pieces, and so, by degrees, I veered round, and surveyed the
+gallery.
+
+A perfect crowd of spectators was by this time gathered round the
+Lioness, from whose vicinage I had been banished; nearly half this
+crowd were ladies, but M. Paul afterwards told me, these were "des
+dames," and it was quite proper for them to contemplate what no
+"demoiselle" ought to glance at. I assured him plainly I could not
+agree in this doctrine, and did not see the sense of it; whereupon,
+with his usual absolutism, he merely requested my silence, and also, in
+the same breath, denounced my mingled rashness and ignorance. A more
+despotic little man than M. Paul never filled a professor's chair. I
+noticed, by the way, that he looked at the picture himself quite at his
+ease, and for a very long while: he did not, however, neglect to glance
+from time to time my way, in order, I suppose, to make sure that I was
+obeying orders, and not breaking bounds. By-and-by, he again accosted
+me.
+
+"Had I not been ill?" he wished to know: "he understood I had."
+
+"Yes, but I was now quite well."
+
+"Where had I spent the vacation?"
+
+"Chiefly in the Rue Fossette; partly with Madame Bretton."
+
+"He had heard that I was left alone in the Rue Fossette; was that so?"
+
+"Not quite alone: Marie Broc" (the cretin) "was with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders; varied and contradictory expressions played
+rapidly over his countenance. Marie Broc was well known to M. Paul; he
+never gave a lesson in the third division (containing the least
+advanced pupils), that she did not occasion in him a sharp conflict
+between antagonistic impressions. Her personal appearance, her
+repulsive manners, her often unmanageable disposition, irritated his
+temper, and inspired him with strong antipathy; a feeling he was too
+apt to conceive when his taste was offended or his will thwarted. On
+the other hand, her misfortunes, constituted a strong claim on his
+forbearance and compassion--such a claim as it was not in his nature to
+deny; hence resulted almost daily drawn battles between impatience and
+disgust on the one hand, pity and a sense of justice on the other; in
+which, to his credit be it said, it was very seldom that the former
+feelings prevailed: when they did, however, M. Paul showed a phase of
+character which had its terrors. His passions were strong, his
+aversions and attachments alike vivid; the force he exerted in holding
+both in check by no means mitigated an observer's sense of their
+vehemence. With such tendencies, it may well be supposed he often
+excited in ordinary minds fear and dislike; yet it was an error to fear
+him: nothing drove him so nearly frantic as the tremor of an
+apprehensive and distrustful spirit; nothing soothed him like
+confidence tempered with gentleness. To evince these sentiments,
+however, required a thorough comprehension of his nature; and his
+nature was of an order rarely comprehended.
+
+"How did you get on with Marie Broc?" he asked, after some minutes'
+silence.
+
+"Monsieur, I did my best; but it was terrible to be alone with her!"
+
+"You have, then, a weak heart! You lack courage; and, perhaps, charity.
+Yours are not the qualities which might constitute a Sister of Mercy."
+
+[He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and
+self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of
+his soul.]
+
+"I don't know, indeed: I took as good care of her as I could; but when
+her aunt came to fetch her away, it was a great relief."
+
+"Ah! you are an egotist. There are women who have nursed hospitals-full
+of similar unfortunates. You could not do that?"
+
+"Could Monsieur do it himself?"
+
+"Women who are worthy the name ought infinitely to surpass; our coarse,
+fallible, self-indulgent sex, in the power to perform such duties."
+
+"I washed her, I kept her clean, I fed her, I tried to amuse her; but
+she made mouths at me instead of speaking."
+
+"You think you did great things?"
+
+"No; but as great as I _could_ do."
+
+"Then limited are your powers, for in tending one idiot you fell sick."
+
+"Not with that, Monsieur; I had a nervous fever: my mind was ill."
+
+"Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic
+mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it
+merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of
+Cleopatra."
+
+It would have been easy to show anger at the teasing, hostile tone of
+the little man. I had never been angry with him yet, however, and had
+no present disposition to begin.
+
+"Cleopatra!" I repeated, quietly. "Monsieur, too, has been looking at
+Cleopatra; what does he think of her?"
+
+"Cela ne vaut rien," he responded. "Une femme superbe--une taille
+d'imperatrice, des formes de Junon, mais une personne dont je ne
+voudrais ni pour femme, ni pour fille, ni pour soeur. Aussi vous ne
+jeterez plus un seul coup d'oeil de sa cote."
+
+"But I have looked at her a great many times while Monsieur has been
+talking: I can see her quite well from this corner."
+
+"Turn to the wall and study your four pictures of a woman's life."
+
+"Excuse me, M. Paul; they are too hideous: but if you admire them,
+allow me to vacate my seat and leave you to their contemplation."
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, grimacing a half-smile, or what he intended
+for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You
+nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk
+calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if
+some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you would
+issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire."
+
+"Will Monsieur have the goodness to move an inch to one side?"
+
+"How! At what are you gazing now? You are not recognising an
+acquaintance amongst that group of jeunes gens?"
+
+"I think so--Yes, I see there a person I know."
+
+In fact, I had caught a glimpse of a head too pretty to belong to any
+other than the redoubted Colonel de Hamal. What a very finished, highly
+polished little pate it was! What a figure, so trim and natty! What
+womanish feet and hands! How daintily he held a glass to one of his
+optics! with what admiration he gazed upon the Cleopatra! and then, how
+engagingly he tittered and whispered a friend at his elbow! Oh, the man
+of sense! Oh, the refined gentleman of superior taste and tact! I
+observed him for about ten minutes, and perceived that he was
+exceedingly taken with this dusk and portly Venus of the Nile. So much
+was I interested in his bearing, so absorbed in divining his character
+by his looks and movements, I temporarily forgot M. Paul; in the
+interim a group came between that gentleman and me; or possibly his
+scruples might have received another and worse shock from my present
+abstraction, causing him to withdraw voluntarily: at any rate, when I
+again looked round, he was gone.
+
+My eye, pursuant of the search, met not him, but another and dissimilar
+figure, well seen amidst the crowd, for the height as well as the port
+lent each its distinction. This way came Dr. John, in visage, in shape,
+in hue, as unlike the dark, acerb, and caustic little professor, as the
+fruit of the Hesperides might be unlike the sloe in the wild thicket;
+as the high-couraged but tractable Arabian is unlike the rude and
+stubborn "sheltie." He was looking for me, but had not yet explored the
+corner where the schoolmaster had just put me. I remained quiet; yet
+another minute I would watch.
+
+He approached de Hamal; he paused near him; I thought he had a pleasure
+in looking over his head; Dr. Bretton, too, gazed on the Cleopatra. I
+doubt if it were to his taste: he did not simper like the little Count;
+his mouth looked fastidious, his eye cool; without demonstration he
+stepped aside, leaving room for others to approach. I saw now that he
+was waiting, and, rising, I joined him.
+
+We took one turn round the gallery; with Graham it was very pleasant to
+take such a turn. I always liked dearly to hear what he had to say
+about either pictures or books; because without pretending to be a
+connoisseur, he always spoke his thought, and that was sure to be
+fresh: very often it was also just and pithy. It was pleasant also to
+tell him some things he did not know--he listened so kindly, so
+teachably; unformalized by scruples lest so to bend his bright handsome
+head, to gather a woman's rather obscure and stammering explanation,
+should imperil the dignity of his manhood. And when he communicated
+information in return, it was with a lucid intelligence that left all
+his words clear graven on the memory; no explanation of his giving, no
+fact of his narrating, did I ever forget.
+
+As we left the gallery, I asked him what he thought of the Cleopatra
+(after making him laugh by telling him how Professor Emanuel had sent
+me to the right about, and taking him to see the sweet series of
+pictures recommended to my attention.)
+
+"Pooh!" said he. "My mother is a better-looking woman. I heard some
+French fops, yonder, designating her as 'le type du voluptueux;' if so,
+I can only say, 'le voluptueux' is little to my liking. Compare that
+mulatto with Ginevra!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE CONCERT.
+
+
+One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me to
+open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a word.
+
+"That will do," said she, when she had turned them over. "You must have
+a new one."
+
+She went out. She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me
+measured. "I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my
+own way in this little matter."
+
+Two days after came home--a pink dress!
+
+"That is not for me," I said, hurriedly, feeling that I would almost as
+soon clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.
+
+"We shall see whether it is for you or not," rejoined my godmother,
+adding with her resistless decision: "Mark my words. You will wear it
+this very evening."
+
+I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put me
+into it. A pink dress! I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not proved
+it.
+
+My godmother went on to decree that I was to go with her and Graham to
+a concert that same night: which concert, she explained, was a grand
+affair to be held in the large salle, or hall, of the principal musical
+society. The most advanced of the pupils of the Conservatoire were to
+perform: it was to be followed by a lottery "au benefice des pauvres;"
+and to crown all, the King, Queen, and Prince of Labassecour were to be
+present. Graham, in sending tickets, had enjoined attention to costume
+as a compliment due to royalty: he also recommended punctual readiness
+by seven o'clock.
+
+About six, I was ushered upstairs. Without any force at all, I found
+myself led and influenced by another's will, unconsulted, unpersuaded,
+quietly overruled. In short, the pink dress went on, softened by some
+drapery of black lace. I was pronounced to be en grande tenue, and
+requested to look in the glass. I did so with some fear and trembling;
+with more fear and trembling, I turned away. Seven o'clock struck; Dr.
+Bretton was come; my godmother and I went down. _She_ was clad in brown
+velvet; as I walked in her shadow, how I envied her those folds of
+grave, dark majesty! Graham stood in the drawing-room doorway.
+
+"I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to draw
+attention," was my uneasy aspiration.
+
+"Here, Lucy, are some flowers," said he, giving me a bouquet. He took
+no further notice of my dress than was conveyed in a kind smile and
+satisfied nod, which calmed at once my sense of shame and fear of
+ridicule. For the rest; the dress was made with extreme simplicity,
+guiltless of flounce or furbelow; it was but the light fabric and
+bright tint which scared me, and since Graham found in it nothing
+absurd, my own eye consented soon to become reconciled.
+
+I suppose people who go every night to places of public amusement, can
+hardly enter into the fresh gala feeling with which an opera or a
+concert is enjoyed by those for whom it is a rarity: I am not sure that
+I expected great pleasure from the concert, having but a very vague
+notion of its nature, but I liked the drive there well. The snug
+comfort of the close carriage on a cold though fine night, the pleasure
+of setting out with companions so cheerful and friendly, the sight of
+the stars glinting fitfully through the trees as we rolled along the
+avenue; then the freer burst of the night-sky when we issued forth to
+the open chaussee, the passage through the city gates, the lights there
+burning, the guards there posted, the pretence of inspection, to which
+we there submitted, and which amused us so much--all these small
+matters had for me, in their novelty, a peculiarly exhilarating charm.
+How much of it lay in the atmosphere of friendship diffused about me, I
+know not: Dr. John and his mother were both in their finest mood,
+contending animatedly with each other the whole way, and as frankly
+kind to me as if I had been of their kin.
+
+Our way lay through some of the best streets of Villette, streets
+brightly lit, and far more lively now than at high noon. How brilliant
+seemed the shops! How glad, gay, and abundant flowed the tide of life
+along the broad pavement! While I looked, the thought of the Rue
+Fossette came across me--of the walled-in garden and school-house, and
+of the dark, vast "classes," where, as at this very hour, it was my
+wont to wander all solitary, gazing at the stars through the high,
+blindless windows, and listening to the distant voice of the reader in
+the refectory, monotonously exercised upon the "lecture pieuse." Thus
+must I soon again listen and wander; and this shadow of the future
+stole with timely sobriety across the radiant present.
+
+By this time we had got into a current of carriages all tending in one
+direction, and soon the front of a great illuminated building blazed
+before us. Of what I should see within this building, I had, as before
+intimated, but an imperfect idea; for no place of public entertainment
+had it ever been my lot to enter yet.
+
+We alighted under a portico where there was a great bustle and a great
+crowd, but I do not distinctly remember further details, until I found
+myself mounting a majestic staircase wide and easy of ascent, deeply
+and softly carpeted with crimson, leading up to great doors closed
+solemnly, and whose panels were also crimson-clothed.
+
+I hardly noticed by what magic these doors were made to roll back--Dr.
+John managed these points; roll back they did, however, and within was
+disclosed a hall--grand, wide, and high, whose sweeping circular walls,
+and domed hollow ceiling, seemed to me all dead gold (thus with nice
+art was it stained), relieved by cornicing, fluting, and garlandry,
+either bright, like gold burnished, or snow-white, like alabaster, or
+white and gold mingled in wreaths of gilded leaves and spotless lilies:
+wherever drapery hung, wherever carpets were spread, or cushions
+placed, the sole colour employed was deep crimson. Pendent from the
+dome, flamed a mass that dazzled me--a mass, I thought, of
+rock-crystal, sparkling with facets, streaming with drops, ablaze with
+stars, and gorgeously tinged with dews of gems dissolved, or fragments
+of rainbows shivered. It was only the chandelier, reader, but for me it
+seemed the work of eastern genii: I almost looked to see if a huge,
+dark, cloudy hand--that of the Slave of the Lamp--were not hovering in
+the lustrous and perfumed atmosphere of the cupola, guarding its
+wondrous treasure.
+
+We moved on--I was not at all conscious whither--but at some turn we
+suddenly encountered another party approaching from the opposite
+direction. I just now see that group, as it flashed--upon me for one
+moment. A handsome middle-aged lady in dark velvet; a gentleman who
+might be her son--the best face, the finest figure, I thought, I had
+ever seen; a third person in a pink dress and black lace mantle.
+
+I noted them all--the third person as well as the other two--and for
+the fraction of a moment believed them all strangers, thus receiving an
+impartial impression of their appearance. But the impression was hardly
+felt and not fixed, before the consciousness that I faced a great
+mirror, filling a compartment between two pillars, dispelled it: the
+party was our own party. Thus for the first, and perhaps only time in
+my life, I enjoyed the "giftie" of seeing myself as others see me. No
+need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of
+regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful;
+it might have been worse.
+
+At last, we were seated in places commanding a good general view of
+that vast and dazzling, but warm and cheerful hall. Already it was
+filled, and filled with a splendid assemblage. I do not know that the
+women were very beautiful, but their dresses were so perfect; and
+foreigners, even such as are ungraceful in domestic privacy, seem to
+posses the art of appearing graceful in public: however blunt and
+boisterous those every-day and home movements connected with peignoir
+and papillotes, there is a slide, a bend, a carriage of the head and
+arms, a mien of the mouth and eyes, kept nicely in reserve for gala
+use--always brought out with the grande toilette, and duly put on with
+the "parure."
+
+Some fine forms there were here and there, models of a peculiar style
+of beauty; a style, I think, never seen in England; a solid, firm-set,
+sculptural style. These shapes have no angles: a caryatid in marble is
+almost as flexible; a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain
+still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters
+give to their madonnas: low-country classic features, regular but
+round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless calm,
+of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone offer a type.
+Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any; the
+smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to the
+smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; the rounded
+arm and perfect neck require neither bracelet nor chain.
+
+With one of these beauties I once had the honour and rapture to be
+perfectly acquainted: the inert force of the deep, settled love she
+bore herself, was wonderful; it could only be surpassed by her proud
+impotency to care for any other living thing. Of blood, her cool veins
+conducted no flow; placid lymph filled and almost obstructed her
+arteries.
+
+Such a Juno as I have described sat full in our view--a sort of mark
+for all eyes, and quite conscious that so she was, but proof to the
+magnetic influence of gaze or glance: cold, rounded, blonde, and
+beauteous as the white column, capitalled with gilding, which rose at
+her side.
+
+Observing that Dr. John's attention was much drawn towards her, I
+entreated him in a low voice "for the love of heaven to shield well his
+heart. You need not fall in love with _that_ lady," I said, "because, I
+tell you beforehand, you might die at her feet, and she would not love
+you again."
+
+"Very well," said he, "and how do you know that the spectacle of her
+grand insensibility might not with me be the strongest stimulus to
+homage? The sting of desperation is, I think, a wonderful irritant to
+my emotions: but" (shrugging his shoulders) "you know nothing about
+these things; I'll address myself to my mother. Mamma, I'm in a
+dangerous way."
+
+"As if that interested me!" said Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Alas! the cruelty of my lot!" responded her son. "Never man had a more
+unsentimental mother than mine: she never seems to think that such a
+calamity can befall her as a daughter-in-law."
+
+"If I don't, it is not for want of having that same calamity held over
+my head: you have threatened me with it for the last ten years. 'Mamma,
+I am going to be married soon!' was the cry before you were well out of
+jackets."
+
+"But, mother, one of these days it will be realized. All of a sudden,
+when you think you are most secure, I shall go forth like Jacob or
+Esau, or any other patriarch, and take me a wife: perhaps of these
+which are of the daughters of the land."
+
+"At your peril, John Graham! that is all."
+
+"This mother of mine means me to be an old bachelor. What a jealous old
+lady it is! But now just look at that splendid creature in the pale
+blue satin dress, and hair of paler brown, with 'reflets satines' as
+those of her robe. Would you not feel proud, mamma, if I were to bring
+that goddess home some day, and introduce her to you as Mrs. Bretton,
+junior?"
+
+"You will bring no goddess to La Terrasse: that little chateau will not
+contain two mistresses; especially if the second be of the height,
+bulk, and circumference of that mighty doll in wood and wax, and kid
+and satin."
+
+"Mamma, she would fill your blue chair so admirably!"
+
+"Fill my chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it be
+for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, and use your eyes."
+
+During the above skirmish, the hall, which, I had thought, seemed full
+at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the
+semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping
+from floor to ceiling. The stage, too, or rather the wide temporary
+platform, larger than any stage, desert half an hour since, was now
+overflowing with life; round two grand pianos, placed about the centre,
+a white flock of young girls, the pupils of the Conservatoire, had
+noiselessly poured. I had noticed their gathering, while Graham and his
+mother were engaged in discussing the belle in blue satin, and had
+watched with interest the process of arraying and marshalling them. Two
+gentlemen, in each of whom I recognised an acquaintance, officered this
+virgin troop. One, an artistic-looking man, bearded, and with long
+hair, was a noted pianiste, and also the first music-teacher in
+Villette; he attended twice a week at Madame Beck's pensionnat, to give
+lessons to the few pupils whose parents were rich enough to allow their
+daughters the privilege of his instructions; his name was M. Josef
+Emanuel, and he was half-brother to M. Paul: which potent personage was
+now visible in the person of the second gentleman.
+
+M. Paul amused me; I smiled to myself as I watched him, he seemed so
+thoroughly in his element--standing conspicuous in presence of a wide
+and grand assemblage, arranging, restraining, over-aweing about one
+hundred young ladies. He was, too, so perfectly in earnest--so
+energetic, so intent, and, above all, so absolute: and yet what
+business had he there? What had he to do with music or the
+Conservatoire--he who could hardly distinguish one note from another? I
+knew that it was his love of display and authority which had brought
+him there--a love not offensive, only because so naive. It presently
+became obvious that his brother, M. Josef, was as much under his
+control as were the girls themselves. Never was such a little hawk of a
+man as that M. Paul! Ere long, some noted singers and musicians dawned
+upon the platform: as these stars rose, the comet-like professor set.
+Insufferable to him were all notorieties and celebrities: where he
+could not outshine, he fled.
+
+And now all was prepared: but one compartment of the hall waited to be
+filled--a compartment covered with crimson, like the grand staircase
+and doors, furnished with stuffed and cushioned benches, ranged on each
+side of two regal chairs, placed solemnly under a canopy.
+
+A signal was given, the doors rolled back, the assembly stood up, the
+orchestra burst out, and, to the welcome of a choral burst, enter the
+King, the Queen, the Court of Labassecour.
+
+Till then, I had never set eyes on living king or queen; it may
+consequently be conjectured how I strained my powers of vision to take
+in these specimens of European royalty. By whomsoever majesty is beheld
+for the first time, there will always be experienced a vague surprise
+bordering on disappointment, that the same does not appear seated, en
+permanence, on a throne, bonneted with a crown, and furnished, as to
+the hand, with a sceptre. Looking out for a king and queen, and seeing
+only a middle-aged soldier and a rather young lady, I felt half
+cheated, half pleased.
+
+Well do I recall that King--a man of fifty, a little bowed, a little
+grey: there was no face in all that assembly which resembled his. I had
+never read, never been told anything of his nature or his habits; and
+at first the strong hieroglyphics graven as with iron stylet on his
+brow, round his eyes, beside his mouth, puzzled and baffled instinct.
+Ere long, however, if I did not know, at least I felt, the meaning of
+those characters written without hand. There sat a silent sufferer--a
+nervous, melancholy man. Those eyes had looked on the visits of a
+certain ghost--had long waited the comings and goings of that strangest
+spectre, Hypochondria. Perhaps he saw her now on that stage, over
+against him, amidst all that brilliant throng. Hypochondria has that
+wont, to rise in the midst of thousands--dark as Doom, pale as Malady,
+and well-nigh strong as Death. Her comrade and victim thinks to be
+happy one moment--"Not so," says she; "I come." And she freezes the
+blood in his heart, and beclouds the light in his eye.
+
+Some might say it was the foreign crown pressing the King's brows which
+bent them to that peculiar and painful fold; some might quote the
+effects of early bereavement. Something there might be of both these;
+but these are embittered by that darkest foe of
+humanity--constitutional melancholy. The Queen, his wife, knew this: it
+seemed to me, the reflection of her husband's grief lay, a subduing
+shadow, on her own benignant face. A mild, thoughtful, graceful woman
+that princess seemed; not beautiful, not at all like the women of solid
+charms and marble feelings described a page or two since. Hers was a
+somewhat slender shape; her features, though distinguished enough, were
+too suggestive of reigning dynasties and royal lines to give
+unqualified pleasure. The expression clothing that profile was
+agreeable in the present instance; but you could not avoid connecting
+it with remembered effigies, where similar lines appeared, under phase
+ignoble; feeble, or sensual, or cunning, as the case might be. The
+Queen's eye, however, was her own; and pity, goodness, sweet sympathy,
+blessed it with divinest light. She moved no sovereign, but a
+lady--kind, loving, elegant. Her little son, the Prince of Labassecour,
+and young Duc de Dindonneau, accompanied her: he leaned on his mother's
+knee; and, ever and anon, in the course of that evening, I saw her
+observant of the monarch at her side, conscious of his beclouded
+abstraction, and desirous to rouse him from it by drawing his attention
+to their son. She often bent her head to listen to the boy's remarks,
+and would then smilingly repeat them to his sire. The moody King
+started, listened, smiled, but invariably relapsed as soon as his good
+angel ceased speaking. Full mournful and significant was that
+spectacle! Not the less so because, both for the aristocracy and the
+honest bourgeoisie of Labassecour, its peculiarity seemed to be wholly
+invisible: I could not discover that one soul present was either struck
+or touched.
+
+With the King and Queen had entered their court, comprising two or
+three foreign ambassadors; and with them came the elite of the
+foreigners then resident in Villette. These took possession of the
+crimson benches; the ladies were seated; most of the men remained
+standing: their sable rank, lining the background, looked like a dark
+foil to the splendour displayed in front. Nor was this splendour
+without varying light and shade and gradation: the middle distance was
+filled with matrons in velvets and satins, in plumes and gems; the
+benches in the foreground, to the Queen's right hand, seemed devoted
+exclusively to young girls, the flower--perhaps, I should rather say,
+the bud--of Villette aristocracy. Here were no jewels, no head-dresses,
+no velvet pile or silken sheen purity, simplicity, and aerial grace
+reigned in that virgin band. Young heads simply braided, and fair forms
+(I was going to write _sylph_ forms, but that would have been quite
+untrue: several of these "jeunes filles," who had not numbered more
+than sixteen or seventeen years, boasted contours as robust and solid
+as those of a stout Englishwoman of five-and-twenty)--fair forms robed
+in white, or pale rose, or placid blue, suggested thoughts of heaven
+and angels. I knew a couple, at least, of these "rose et blanche"
+specimens of humanity. Here was a pair of Madame Beck's late
+pupils--Mesdemoiselles Mathilde and Angelique: pupils who, during their
+last year at school, ought to have been in the first class, but whose
+brains never got them beyond the second division. In English, they had
+been under my own charge, and hard work it was to get them to translate
+rationally a page of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Also during three months
+I had one of them for my vis-a-vis at table, and the quantity of
+household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would habitually consume
+at "second dejeuner" was a real world's wonder--to be exceeded only by
+the fact of her actually pocketing slices she could not eat. Here be
+truths--wholesome truths, too.
+
+I knew another of these seraphs--the prettiest, or, at any rate, the
+least demure and hypocritical looking of the lot: she was seated by the
+daughter of an English peer, also an honest, though haughty-looking
+girl: both had entered in the suite of the British embassy. She (_i.e._
+my acquaintance) had a slight, pliant figure, not at all like the forms
+of the foreign damsels: her hair, too, was not close-braided, like a
+shell or a skull-cap of satin; it looked _like_ hair, and waved from
+her head, long, curled, and flowing. She chatted away volubly, and
+seemed full of a light-headed sort of satisfaction with herself and her
+position. I did not look at Dr. Bretton; but I knew that he, too, saw
+Ginevra Fanshawe: he had become so quiet, he answered so briefly his
+mother's remarks, he so often suppressed a sigh. Why should he sigh? He
+had confessed a taste for the pursuit of love under difficulties; here
+was full gratification for that taste. His lady-love beamed upon him
+from a sphere above his own: he could not come near her; he was not
+certain that he could win from her a look. I watched to see if she
+would so far favour him. Our seat was not far from the crimson benches;
+we must inevitably be seen thence, by eyes so quick and roving as Miss
+Fanshawe's, and very soon those optics of hers were upon us: at least,
+upon Dr. and Mrs. Bretton. I kept rather in the shade and out of sight,
+not wishing to be immediately recognised: she looked quite steadily at
+Dr. John, and then she raised a glass to examine his mother; a minute
+or two afterwards she laughingly whispered her neighbour; upon the
+performance commencing, her rambling attention was attracted to the
+platform.
+
+On the concert I need not dwell; the reader would not care to have my
+impressions thereanent: and, indeed, it would not be worth while to
+record them, as they were the impressions of an ignorance crasse. The
+young ladies of the Conservatoire, being very much frightened, made
+rather a tremulous exhibition on the two grand pianos. M. Josef Emanuel
+stood by them while they played; but he had not the tact or influence
+of his kinsman, who, under similar circumstances, would certainly have
+_compelled_ pupils of his to demean themselves with heroism and
+self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the hysteric debutantes
+between two fires--terror of the audience, and terror of himself--and
+would have inspired them with the courage of desperation, by making the
+latter terror incomparably the greater: M. Josef could not do this.
+
+Following the white muslin pianistes, came a fine, full-grown, sulky
+lady in white satin. She sang. Her singing just affected me like the
+tricks of a conjuror: I wondered how she did it--how she made her voice
+run up and down, and cut such marvellous capers; but a simple Scotch
+melody, played by a rude street minstrel, has often moved me more
+deeply.
+
+Afterwards stepped forth a gentleman, who, bending his body a good deal
+in the direction of the King and Queen, and frequently approaching his
+white-gloved hand to the region of his heart, vented a bitter outcry
+against a certain "fausse Isabelle." I thought he seemed especially to
+solicit the Queen's sympathy; but, unless I am egregiously mistaken,
+her Majesty lent her attention rather with the calm of courtesy than
+the earnestness of interest. This gentleman's state of mind was very
+harrowing, and I was glad when he wound up his musical exposition of
+the same.
+
+Some rousing choruses struck me as the best part of the evening's
+entertainment. There were present deputies from all the best provincial
+choral societies; genuine, barrel-shaped, native Labassecouriens. These
+worthies gave voice without mincing the matter their hearty exertions
+had at least this good result--the ear drank thence a satisfying sense
+of power.
+
+Through the whole performance--timid instrumental duets, conceited
+vocal solos, sonorous, brass-lunged choruses--my attention gave but one
+eye and one ear to the stage, the other being permanently retained in
+the service of Dr. Bretton: I could not forget him, nor cease to
+question how he was feeling, what he was thinking, whether he was
+amused or the contrary. At last he spoke.
+
+"And how do you like it all, Lucy? You are very quiet," he said, in his
+own cheerful tone.
+
+"I am quiet," I said, "because I am so very, _very_ much interested:
+not merely with the music, but with everything about me."
+
+He then proceeded to make some further remarks, with so much equanimity
+and composure that I began to think he had really not seen what I had
+seen, and I whispered--"Miss Fanshawe is here: have you noticed her?"
+
+"Oh, yes! and I observed that you noticed her too."
+
+"Is she come with Mrs. Cholmondeley, do you think?"
+
+"Mrs. Cholmondeley is there with a very grand party. Yes; Ginevra was
+in _her_ train; and Mrs. Cholmondeley was in Lady ----'s train, who was
+in the Queen's train. If this were not one of the compact little minor
+European courts, whose very formalities are little more imposing than
+familiarities, and whose gala grandeur is but homeliness in Sunday
+array, it would sound all very fine."
+
+"Ginevra saw you, I think?"
+
+"So do I think so. I have had my eye on her several times since you
+withdrew yours; and I have had the honour of witnessing a little
+spectacle which you were spared."
+
+I did not ask what; I waited voluntary information, which was presently
+given.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he said, "has a companion with her--a lady of rank. I
+happen to know Lady Sara by sight; her noble mother has called me in
+professionally. She is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent, and
+I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation by
+making a butt of her neighbours."
+
+"What neighbours?"
+
+"Merely myself and my mother. As to me it is all very natural: nothing,
+I suppose, can be fairer game than the young bourgeois doctor; but my
+mother! I never saw her ridiculed before. Do you know, the curling lip,
+and sarcastically levelled glass thus directed, gave me a most curious
+sensation?"
+
+"Think nothing of it, Dr. John: it is not worth while. If Ginevra were
+in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no
+scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy
+King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly. To
+a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred."
+
+"But you forget: I have not been accustomed to look on Miss Fanshawe in
+the light of a feather-brained school-girl. Was she not my
+divinity--the angel of my career?"
+
+"Hem! There was your mistake."
+
+"To speak the honest truth, without any false rant or assumed romance,
+there actually was a moment, six months ago, when I thought her divine.
+Do you remember our conversation about the presents? I was not quite
+open with you in discussing that subject: the warmth with which you
+took it up amused me. By way of having the full benefit of your lights,
+I allowed you to think me more in the dark than I really was. It was
+that test of the presents which first proved Ginevra mortal. Still her
+beauty retained its fascination: three days--three hours ago, I was
+very much her slave. As she passed me to-night, triumphant in beauty,
+my emotions did her homage; but for one luckless sneer, I should yet be
+the humblest of her servants. She might have scoffed at _me_, and,
+while wounding, she would not soon have alienated me: through myself,
+she could not in ten years have done what, in a moment, she has done
+through my mother."
+
+He held his peace awhile. Never before had I seen so much fire, and so
+little sunshine in Dr. John's blue eye as just now.
+
+"Lucy," he recommenced, "look well at my mother, and say, without fear
+or favour, in what light she now appears to you."
+
+"As she always does--an English, middle-class gentlewoman; well, though
+gravely dressed, habitually independent of pretence, constitutionally
+composed and cheerful."
+
+"So she seems to me--bless her! The merry may laugh _with_ mamma, but
+the weak only will laugh _at_ her. She shall not be ridiculed, with my
+consent, at least; nor without my--my scorn--my antipathy--my--"
+
+He stopped: and it was time--for he was getting excited--more it seemed
+than the occasion warranted. I did not then know that he had witnessed
+double cause for dissatisfaction with Miss Fanshawe. The glow of his
+complexion, the expansion of his nostril, the bold curve which disdain
+gave his well-cut under lip, showed him in a new and striking phase.
+Yet the rare passion of the constitutionally suave and serene, is not a
+pleasant spectacle; nor did I like the sort of vindictive thrill which
+passed through his strong young frame.
+
+"Do I frighten you, Lucy?" he asked.
+
+"I cannot tell why you are so very angry."
+
+"For this reason," he muttered in my ear. "Ginevra is neither a pure
+angel, nor a pure-minded woman."
+
+"Nonsense! you exaggerate: she has no great harm in her."
+
+"Too much for me. _I_ can see where _you_ are blind. Now dismiss the
+subject. Let me amuse myself by teasing mamma: I will assert that she
+is flagging. Mamma, pray rouse yourself."
+
+"John, I will certainly rouse you if you are not better conducted. Will
+you and Lucy be silent, that I may hear the singing?"
+
+They were then thundering in a chorus, under cover of which all the
+previous dialogue had taken place.
+
+"_You_ hear the singing, mamma! Now, I will wager my studs, which are
+genuine, against your paste brooch--"
+
+"My paste brooch, Graham? Profane boy! you know that it is a stone of
+value."
+
+"Oh! that is one of your superstitions: you were cheated in the
+business."
+
+"I am cheated in fewer things than you imagine. How do you happen to be
+acquainted with young ladies of the court, John? I have observed two of
+them pay you no small attention during the last half-hour."
+
+"I wish you would not observe them."
+
+"Why not? Because one of them satirically levels her eyeglass at me?
+She is a pretty, silly girl: but are you apprehensive that her titter
+will discomfit the old lady?"
+
+"The sensible, admirable old lady! Mother, you are better to me than
+ten wives yet."
+
+"Don't be demonstrative, John, or I shall faint, and you will have to
+carry me out; and if that burden were laid upon you, you would reverse
+your last speech, and exclaim, 'Mother, ten wives could hardly be worse
+to me than you are!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The concert over, the Lottery "au benefice des pauvres" came next: the
+interval between was one of general relaxation, and the pleasantest
+imaginable stir and commotion. The white flock was cleared from the
+platform; a busy throng of gentlemen crowded it instead, making
+arrangements for the drawing; and amongst these--the busiest of
+all--re-appeared that certain well-known form, not tall but active,
+alive with the energy and movement of three tall men. How M. Paul did
+work! How he issued directions, and, at the same time, set his own
+shoulder to the wheel! Half-a-dozen assistants were at his beck to
+remove the pianos, &c.; no matter, he must add to their strength his
+own. The redundancy of his alertness was half-vexing, half-ludicrous:
+in my mind I both disapproved and derided most of this fuss. Yet, in
+the midst of prejudice and annoyance, I could not, while watching,
+avoid perceiving a certain not disagreeable naivete in all he did and
+said; nor could I be blind to certain vigorous characteristics of his
+physiognomy, rendered conspicuous now by the contrast with a throng of
+tamer faces: the deep, intent keenness of his eye, the power of his
+forehead, pale, broad, and full--the mobility of his most flexible
+mouth. He lacked the calm of force, but its movement and its fire he
+signally possessed.
+
+Meantime the whole hall was in a stir; most people rose and remained
+standing, for a change; some walked about, all talked and laughed. The
+crimson compartment presented a peculiarly animated scene. The long
+cloud of gentlemen, breaking into fragments, mixed with the rainbow
+line of ladies; two or three officer-like men approached the King and
+conversed with him. The Queen, leaving her chair, glided along the rank
+of young ladies, who all stood up as she passed; and to each in turn I
+saw her vouchsafe some token of kindness--a gracious word, look or
+smile. To the two pretty English girls, Lady Sara and Ginevra Fanshawe,
+she addressed several sentences; as she left them, both, and especially
+the latter, seemed to glow all over with gratification. They were
+afterwards accosted by several ladies, and a little circle of gentlemen
+gathered round them; amongst these--the nearest to Ginevra--stood the
+Count de Hamal.
+
+"This room is stiflingly hot," said Dr. Bretton, rising with sudden
+impatience. "Lucy--mother--will you come a moment to the fresh air?"
+
+"Go with him, Lucy," said Mrs. Bretton. "I would rather keep my seat."
+
+Willingly would I have kept mine also, but Graham's desire must take
+precedence of my own; I accompanied him.
+
+We found the night-air keen; or at least I did: he did not seem to feel
+it; but it was very still, and the star-sown sky spread cloudless. I
+was wrapped in a fur shawl. We took some turns on the pavement; in
+passing under a lamp, Graham encountered my eye.
+
+"You look pensive, Lucy: is it on my account?"
+
+"I was only fearing that you were grieved."
+
+"Not at all: so be of good cheer--as I am. Whenever I die, Lucy, my
+persuasion is that it will not be of heart-complaint. I may be stung, I
+may seem to droop for a time, but no pain or malady of sentiment has
+yet gone through my whole system. You have always seen me cheerful at
+home?"
+
+"Generally."
+
+"I am glad she laughed at my mother. I would not give the old lady for
+a dozen beauties. That sneer did me all the good in the world. Thank
+you, Miss Fanshawe!" And he lifted his hat from his waved locks, and
+made a mock reverence.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in
+ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled
+from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in a trice."
+
+"You are angry just now, heated and indignant; you will think and feel
+differently to-morrow."
+
+"_I_ heated and indignant! You don't know me. On the contrary, the heat
+is gone: I am as cool as the night--which, by the way, may be too cool
+for you. We will go back."
+
+"Dr. John, this is a sudden change."
+
+"Not it: or if it be, there are good reasons for it--two good reasons:
+I have told you one. But now let us re-enter."
+
+We did not easily regain our seats; the lottery was begun, and all was
+excited confusion; crowds blocked the sort of corridor along which we
+had to pass: it was necessary to pause for a time. Happening to glance
+round--indeed I half fancied I heard my name pronounced--I saw quite
+near, the ubiquitous, the inevitable M. Paul. He was looking at me
+gravely and intently: at me, or rather at my pink dress--sardonic
+comment on which gleamed in his eye. Now it was his habit to indulge in
+strictures on the dress, both of the teachers and pupils, at Madame
+Beck's--a habit which the former, at least, held to be an offensive
+impertinence: as yet I had not suffered from it--my sombre daily attire
+not being calculated to attract notice. I was in no mood to permit any
+new encroachment to-night: rather than accept his banter, I would
+ignore his presence, and accordingly steadily turned my face to the
+sleeve of Dr. John's coat; finding in that same black sleeve a prospect
+more redolent of pleasure and comfort, more genial, more friendly, I
+thought, than was offered by the dark little Professor's unlovely
+visage. Dr. John seemed unconsciously to sanction the preference by
+looking down and saying in his kind voice, "Ay, keep close to my side,
+Lucy: these crowding burghers are no respecters of persons."
+
+I could not, however, be true to myself. Yielding to some influence,
+mesmeric or otherwise--an influence unwelcome, displeasing, but
+effective--I again glanced round to see if M. Paul was gone. No, there
+he stood on the same spot, looking still, but with a changed eye; he
+had penetrated my thought, and read my wish to shun him. The mocking
+but not ill-humoured gaze was turned to a swarthy frown, and when I
+bowed, with a view to conciliation, I got only the stiffest and
+sternest of nods in return.
+
+"Whom have you made angry, Lucy?" whispered Dr. Bretton, smiling. "Who
+is that savage-looking friend of yours?"
+
+"One of the professors at Madame Beck's: a very cross little man."
+
+"He looks mighty cross just now: what have you done to him? What is it
+all about? Ah, Lucy, Lucy! tell me the meaning of this."
+
+"No mystery, I assure you. M. Emanuel is very exigeant, and because I
+looked at your coat-sleeve, instead of curtseying and dipping to him,
+he thinks I have failed in respect."
+
+"The little--" began Dr. John: I know not what more he would have
+added, for at that moment I was nearly thrown down amongst the feet of
+the crowd. M. Paul had rudely pushed past, and was elbowing his way
+with such utter disregard to the convenience and security of all
+around, that a very uncomfortable pressure was the consequence.
+
+"I think he is what he himself would call 'mechant,'" said Dr. Bretton.
+I thought so, too.
+
+Slowly and with difficulty we made our way along the passage, and at
+last regained our seats. The drawing of the lottery lasted nearly an
+hour; it was an animating and amusing scene; and as we each held
+tickets, we shared in the alternations of hope and fear raised by each
+turn of the wheel. Two little girls, of five and six years old, drew
+the numbers: and the prizes were duly proclaimed from the platform.
+These prizes were numerous, though of small value. It so fell out that
+Dr. John and I each gained one: mine was a cigar-case, his a lady's
+head-dress--a most airy sort of blue and silver turban, with a streamer
+of plumage on one side, like a snowy cloud. He was excessively anxious
+to make an exchange; but I could not be brought to hear reason, and to
+this day I keep my cigar-case: it serves, when I look at it, to remind
+me of old times, and one happy evening.
+
+Dr. John, for his part, held his turban at arm's length between his
+finger and thumb, and looked at it with a mixture of reverence and
+embarrassment highly provocative of laughter. The contemplation over,
+he was about coolly to deposit the delicate fabric on the ground
+between his feet; he seemed to have no shadow of an idea of the
+treatment or stowage it ought to receive: if his mother had not come to
+the rescue, I think he would finally have crushed it under his arm like
+an opera-hat; she restored it to the band-box whence it had issued.
+
+Graham was quite cheerful all the evening, and his cheerfulness seemed
+natural and unforced. His demeanour, his look, is not easily described;
+there was something in it peculiar, and, in its way, original. I read
+in it no common mastery of the passions, and a fund of deep and healthy
+strength which, without any exhausting effort, bore down Disappointment
+and extracted her fang. His manner, now, reminded me of qualities I had
+noticed in him when professionally engaged amongst the poor, the
+guilty, and the suffering, in the Basse-Ville: he looked at once
+determined, enduring, and sweet-tempered. Who could help liking him?
+_He_ betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with
+considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from _him_
+broke no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; _his_
+lips let fall no caustic that burned to the bone; _his_ eye shot no
+morose shafts that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your
+heart: beside him was rest and refuge--around him, fostering sunshine.
+
+And yet he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Miss Fanshawe. Once
+angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated--once
+alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. He looked at her more
+than once; not stealthily or humbly, but with a movement of hardy, open
+observation. De Hamal was now a fixture beside her; Mrs. Cholmondeley
+sat near, and they and she were wholly absorbed in the discourse,
+mirth, and excitement, with which the crimson seats were as much astir
+as any plebeian part of the hall. In the course of some apparently
+animated discussion, Ginevra once or twice lifted her hand and arm; a
+handsome bracelet gleamed upon the latter. I saw that its gleam
+flickered in Dr. John's eye--quickening therein a derisive, ireful
+sparkle; he laughed:----
+
+"I think," he said, "I will lay my turban on my wonted altar of
+offerings; there, at any rate, it would be certain to find favour: no
+grisette has a more facile faculty of acceptance. Strange! for after
+all, I know she is a girl of family."
+
+"But you don't know her education, Dr. John," said I. "Tossed about all
+her life from one foreign school to another, she may justly proffer the
+plea of ignorance in extenuation of most of her faults. And then, from
+what she says, I believe her father and mother were brought up much as
+she has been brought up."
+
+"I always understood she had no fortune; and once I had pleasure in the
+thought," said he.
+
+"She tells me," I answered, "that they are poor at home; she always
+speaks quite candidly on such points: you never find her lying, as
+these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they
+occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their
+opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and
+inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered
+reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of sustaining
+a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the only state of
+things, she has seen from childhood upwards."
+
+"I believe it--and I thought to mould her to something better: but,
+Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing to-night, in
+looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence
+directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between them
+immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome light on
+my mind."
+
+"How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep
+up?"
+
+"Ay, flirtation! That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the
+true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look
+marking mutual and secret understanding--it was neither girlish nor
+innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give
+or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I
+would rather wed a paysanne in a short petticoat and high cap--and be
+sure that she was honest."
+
+I could not help smiling. I felt sure he now exaggerated the case:
+Ginevra, I was certain, was honest enough, with all her giddiness. I
+told him so. He shook his head, and said he would not be the man to
+trust her with his honour.
+
+"The only thing," said I, "with which you may safely trust her. She
+would unscrupulously damage a husband's purse and property, recklessly
+try his patience and temper: I don't think she would breathe, or let
+another breathe, on his honour."
+
+"You are becoming her advocate," said he. "Do you wish me to resume my
+old chains?"
+
+"No: I am glad to see you free, and trust that free you will long
+remain. Yet be, at the same time, just."
+
+"I am so: just as Rhadamanthus, Lucy. When once I am thoroughly
+estranged, I cannot help being severe. But look! the King and Queen are
+rising. I like that Queen: she has a sweet countenance. Mamma, too, is
+excessively tired; we shall never get the old lady home if we stay
+longer."
+
+"I tired, John?" cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and
+as wide-awake as her son. "I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave
+us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most
+jaded by sunrise."
+
+"I should not like to try the experiment; for, in truth, mamma, you are
+the most unfading of evergreens and the freshest of matrons. It must
+then be on the plea of your son's delicate nerves and fragile
+constitution that I found a petition for our speedy adjournment."
+
+"Indolent young man! You wish you were in bed, no doubt; and I suppose
+you must be humoured. There is Lucy, too, looking quite done up. For
+shame, Lucy! At your age, a week of evenings-out would not have made me
+a shade paler. Come away, both of you; and you may laugh at the old
+lady as much as you please, but, for my part, I shall take charge of
+the bandbox and turban."
+
+Which she did accordingly. I offered to relieve her, but was shaken off
+with kindly contempt: my godmother opined that I had enough to do to
+take care of myself. Not standing on ceremony now, in the midst of the
+gay "confusion worse confounded" succeeding to the King and Queen's
+departure, Mrs. Bretton preceded us, and promptly made us a lane
+through the crowd. Graham followed, apostrophizing his mother as the
+most flourishing grisette it had ever been his good fortune to see
+charged with carriage of a bandbox; he also desired me to mark her
+affection for the sky-blue turban, and announced his conviction that
+she intended one day to wear it.
+
+The night was now very cold and very dark, but with little delay we
+found the carriage. Soon we were packed in it, as warm and as snug as
+at a fire-side; and the drive home was, I think, still pleasanter than
+the drive to the concert. Pleasant it was, even though the
+coachman--having spent in the shop of a "marchand de vin" a portion of
+the time we passed at the concert--drove us along the dark and solitary
+chaussee far past the turn leading down to La Terrasse; we, who were
+occupied in talking and laughing, not noticing the aberration till, at
+last, Mrs. Bretton intimated that, though she had always thought the
+chateau a retired spot, she did not know it was situated at the world's
+end, as she declared seemed now to be the case, for she believed we had
+been an hour and a half en route, and had not yet taken the turn down
+the avenue.
+
+Then Graham looked out, and perceiving only dim-spread fields, with
+unfamiliar rows of pollards and limes ranged along their else invisible
+sunk-fences, began to conjecture how matters were, and calling a halt
+and descending, he mounted the box and took the reins himself. Thanks
+to him, we arrived safe at home about an hour and a half beyond our
+time.
+
+Martha had not forgotten us; a cheerful fire was burning, and a neat
+supper spread in the dining-room: we were glad of both. The winter dawn
+was actually breaking before we gained our chambers. I took off my pink
+dress and lace mantle with happier feelings than I had experienced in
+putting them on. Not all, perhaps, who had shone brightly arrayed at
+that concert could say the same; for not all had been satisfied with
+friendship--with its calm comfort and modest hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+REACTION.
+
+
+Yet three days, and then I must go back to the _pensionnat_. I almost
+numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I have
+retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them: they
+were already gone while I yet feared their departure.
+
+"Lucy will not leave us to-day," said Mrs. Bretton, coaxingly at
+breakfast; "she knows we can procure a second respite."
+
+"I would not ask for one if I might have it for a word," said I. "I
+long to get the good-by over, and to be settled in the Rue Fossette
+again. I must go this morning: I must go directly; my trunk is packed
+and corded."
+
+It appeared; however, that my going depended upon Graham; he had said
+he would accompany, me, and it so fell out that he was engaged all day,
+and only returned home at dusk. Then ensued a little combat of words.
+Mrs. Bretton and her son pressed me to remain one night more. I could
+have cried, so irritated and eager was I to be gone. I longed to leave
+them as the criminal on the scaffold longs for the axe to descend: that
+is, I wished the pang over. How much I wished it, they could not tell.
+On these points, mine was a state of mind out of their experience.
+
+It was dark when Dr. John handed me from the carriage at Madame Beck's
+door. The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had
+rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement. Just such a
+night was it as that on which, not a year ago, I had first stopped at
+this very threshold; just similar was the scene. I remembered the very
+shapes of the paving-stones which I had noted with idle eye, while,
+with a thick-beating heart, I waited the unclosing of that door at
+which I stood--a solitary and a suppliant. On that night, too, I had
+briefly met him who now stood with me. Had I ever reminded him of that
+rencontre, or explained it? I had not, nor ever felt the inclination to
+do so: it was a pleasant thought, laid by in my own mind, and best kept
+there.
+
+Graham rung the bell. The door was instantly opened, for it was just
+that period of the evening when the half-boarders took their
+departure--consequently, Rosine was on the alert.
+
+"Don't come in," said I to him; but he stepped a moment into the
+well-lighted vestibule. I had not wished him to see that "the water
+stood in my eyes," for his was too kind a nature ever to be needlessly
+shown such signs of sorrow. He always wished to heal--to relieve--when,
+physician as he was, neither cure nor alleviation were, perhaps, in his
+power.
+
+"Keep up your courage, Lucy. Think of my mother and myself as true
+friends. We will not forget you."
+
+"Nor will I forget you, Dr. John."
+
+My trunk was now brought in. We had shaken hands; he had turned to go,
+but he was not satisfied: he had not done or said enough to content his
+generous impulses.
+
+"Lucy,"--stepping after me--"shall you feel very solitary here?"
+
+"At first I shall."
+
+"Well, my mother will soon call to see you; and, meantime, I'll tell
+you what I'll do. I'll write--just any cheerful nonsense that comes
+into my head--shall I?"
+
+"Good, gallant heart!" thought I to myself; but I shook my head,
+smiling, and said, "Never think of it: impose on yourself no such task.
+_You_ write to _me_!--you'll not have time."
+
+"Oh! I will find or make time. Good-by!"
+
+He was gone. The heavy door crashed to: the axe had fallen--the pang
+was experienced.
+
+Allowing myself no time to think or feel--swallowing tears as if they
+had been wine--I passed to Madame's sitting-room to pay the necessary
+visit of ceremony and respect. She received me with perfectly
+well-acted cordiality--was even demonstrative, though brief, in her
+welcome. In ten minutes I was dismissed. From the salle-a-manger I
+proceeded to the refectory, where pupils and teachers were now
+assembled for evening study: again I had a welcome, and one not, I
+think, quite hollow. That over, I was free to repair to the dormitory.
+
+"And will Graham really write?" I questioned, as I sank tired on the
+edge of the bed.
+
+Reason, coming stealthily up to me through the twilight of that long,
+dim chamber, whispered sedately--"He may write once. So kind is his
+nature, it may stimulate him for once to make the effort. But it
+_cannot_ be continued--it _may_ not be repeated. Great were that folly
+which should build on such a promise--insane that credulity which
+should mistake the transitory rain-pool, holding in its hollow one
+draught, for the perennial spring yielding the supply of seasons."
+
+I bent my head: I sat thinking an hour longer. Reason still whispered
+me, laying on my shoulder a withered hand, and frostily touching my ear
+with the chill blue lips of eld.
+
+"If," muttered she, "if he _should_ write, what then? Do you meditate
+pleasure in replying? Ah, fool! I warn you! Brief be your answer. Hope
+no delight of heart--no indulgence of intellect: grant no expansion to
+feeling--give holiday to no single faculty: dally with no friendly
+exchange: foster no genial intercommunion...."
+
+"But I have talked to Graham and you did not chide," I pleaded.
+
+"No," said she, "I needed not. Talk for you is good discipline. You
+converse imperfectly. While you speak, there can be no oblivion of
+inferiority--no encouragement to delusion: pain, privation, penury
+stamp your language...."
+
+"But," I again broke in, "where the bodily presence is weak and the
+speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
+language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
+achieve?"
+
+Reason only answered, "At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
+its influence to animate any writing of yours!"
+
+"But if I feel, may I _never_ express?"
+
+"_Never!_" declared Reason.
+
+I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never--never--oh, hard word! This
+hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she
+could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and
+broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of
+bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to
+despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to
+defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
+Imagination--_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.
+We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible
+revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me
+she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has
+chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should
+have died of her ill-usage her stint, her chill, her barren board, her
+icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who
+holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often has Reason turned me out by
+night, in mid-winter, on cold snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed
+bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has she vowed her stores held nothing
+more for me--harshly denied my right to ask better things.... Then,
+looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling stars, of
+which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and attent.
+A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet
+flight to the waste--bringing all round her a sphere of air borrowed of
+eternal summer; bringing perfume of flowers which cannot
+fade--fragrance of trees whose fruit is life; bringing breezes pure
+from a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it. My hunger has this
+good angel appeased with food, sweet and strange, gathered amongst
+gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in the first fresh
+hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the insufferable
+fears which weep away life itself--kindly given rest to deadly
+weariness--generously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair.
+Divine, compassionate, succourable influence! When I bend the knee to
+other than God, it shall be at thy white and winged feet, beautiful on
+mountain or on plain. Temples have been reared to the Sun--altars
+dedicated to the Moon. Oh, greater glory! To thee neither hands build,
+nor lips consecrate: but hearts, through ages, are faithful to thy
+worship. A dwelling thou hast, too wide for walls, too high for dome--a
+temple whose floors are space--rites whose mysteries transpire in
+presence, to the kindling, the harmony of worlds!
+
+Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of
+martyrs; for achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity
+unquestioned, thine essence foils decay!
+
+This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and
+she came with comfort: "Sleep," she said. "Sleep, sweetly--I gild thy
+dreams!"
+
+She kept her word, and watched me through a night's rest; but at dawn
+Reason relieved the guard. I awoke with a sort of start; the rain was
+dashing against the panes, and the wind uttering a peevish cry at
+intervals; the night-lamp was dying on the black circular stand in the
+middle of the dormitory: day had already broken. How I pity those whom
+mental pain stuns instead of rousing! This morning the pang of waking
+snatched me out of bed like a hand with a giant's gripe. How quickly I
+dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice-cold
+water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like other
+dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin.
+
+Ere long the bell rang its _reveillee_ to the whole school. Being
+dressed, I descended alone to the refectory, where the stove was lit
+and the air was warm; through the rest of the house it was cold, with
+the nipping severity of a continental winter: though now but the
+beginning of November, a north wind had thus early brought a wintry
+blight over Europe: I remember the black stoves pleased me little when
+I first came; but now I began to associate with them a sense of
+comfort, and liked them, as in England we like a fireside.
+
+Sitting down before this dark comforter, I presently fell into a deep
+argument with myself on life and its chances, on destiny and her
+decrees. My mind, calmer and stronger now than last night, made for
+itself some imperious rules, prohibiting under deadly penalties all
+weak retrospect of happiness past; commanding a patient journeying
+through the wilderness of the present, enjoining a reliance on faith--a
+watching of the cloud and pillar which subdue while they guide, and awe
+while they illumine--hushing the impulse to fond idolatry, checking the
+longing out-look for a far-off promised land whose rivers are, perhaps,
+never to be, reached save in dying dreams, whose sweet pastures are to
+be viewed but from the desolate and sepulchral summit of a Nebo.
+
+By degrees, a composite feeling of blended strength and pain wound
+itself wirily round my heart, sustained, or at least restrained, its
+throbbings, and made me fit for the day's work. I lifted my head.
+
+As I said before, I was sitting near the stove, let into the wall
+beneath the refectory and the carre, and thus sufficing to heat both
+apartments. Piercing the same wall, and close beside the stove, was a
+window, looking also into the carre; as I looked up a cap-tassel, a
+brow, two eyes, filled a pane of that window; the fixed gaze of those
+two eyes hit right against my own glance: they were watching me. I had
+not till that moment known that tears were on my cheek, but I felt them
+now.
+
+This was a strange house, where no corner was sacred from intrusion,
+where not a tear could be shed, nor a thought pondered, but a spy was
+at hand to note and to divine. And this new, this out-door, this male
+spy, what business had brought him to the premises at this unwonted
+hour? What possible right had he to intrude on me thus? No other
+professor would have dared to cross the carre before the class-bell
+rang. M. Emanuel took no account of hours nor of claims: there was some
+book of reference in the first-class library which he had occasion to
+consult; he had come to seek it: on his way he passed the refectory. It
+was very much his habit to wear eyes before, behind, and on each side
+of him: he had seen me through the little window--he now opened the
+refectory door, and there he stood.
+
+"Mademoiselle, vous etes triste."
+
+"Monsieur, j'en ai bien le droit."
+
+"Vous etes malade de coeur et d'humeur," he pursued. "You are at once
+mournful and mutinous. I see on your cheek two tears which I know are
+hot as two sparks, and salt as two crystals of the sea. While I speak
+you eye me strangely. Shall I tell you of what I am reminded while
+watching you?"
+
+"Monsieur, I shall be called away to prayers shortly; my time for
+conversation is very scant and brief at this hour--excuse----"
+
+"I excuse everything," he interrupted; "my mood is so meek, neither
+rebuff nor, perhaps, insult could ruffle it. You remind me, then, of a
+young she wild creature, new caught, untamed, viewing with a mixture of
+fire and fear the first entrance of the breaker-in."
+
+Unwarrantable accost!--rash and rude if addressed to a pupil; to a
+teacher inadmissible. He thought to provoke a warm reply; I had seen
+him vex the passionate to explosion before now. In me his malice should
+find no gratification; I sat silent.
+
+"You look," said he, "like one who would snatch at a draught of sweet
+poison, and spurn wholesome bitters with disgust."
+
+"Indeed, I never liked bitters; nor do I believe them wholesome. And to
+whatever is sweet, be it poison or food, you cannot, at least, deny its
+own delicious quality--sweetness. Better, perhaps, to die quickly a
+pleasant death, than drag on long a charmless life."
+
+"Yet," said he, "you should take your bitter dose duly and daily, if I
+had the power to administer it; and, as to the well-beloved poison, I
+would, perhaps, break the very cup which held it."
+
+I sharply turned my head away, partly because his presence utterly
+displeased me, and partly because I wished to shun questions: lest, in
+my present mood, the effort of answering should overmaster self-command.
+
+"Come," said he, more softly, "tell me the truth--you grieve at being
+parted from friends--is it not so?"
+
+The insinuating softness was not more acceptable than the inquisitorial
+curiosity. I was silent. He came into the room, sat down on the bench
+about two yards from me, and persevered long, and, for him, patiently,
+in attempts to draw me into conversation--attempts necessarily
+unavailing, because I _could_ not talk. At last I entreated to be let
+alone. In uttering the request, my voice faltered, my head sank on my
+arms and the table. I wept bitterly, though quietly. He sat a while
+longer. I did not look up nor speak, till the closing door and his
+retreating step told me that he was gone. These tears proved a relief.
+
+I had time to bathe my eyes before breakfast, and I suppose I appeared
+at that meal as serene as any other person: not, however, quite as
+jocund-looking as the young lady who placed herself in the seat
+opposite mine, fixed on me a pair of somewhat small eyes twinkling
+gleefully, and frankly stretched across the table a white hand to be
+shaken. Miss Fanshawe's travels, gaieties, and flirtations agreed with
+her mightily; she had become quite plump, her cheeks looked as round as
+apples. I had seen her last in elegant evening attire. I don't know
+that she looked less charming now in her school-dress, a kind of
+careless peignoir of a dark-blue material, dimly and dingily plaided
+with black. I even think this dusky wrapper gave her charms a triumph;
+enhancing by contrast the fairness of her skin, the freshness of her
+bloom, the golden beauty of her tresses.
+
+"I am glad you are come back, Timon," said she. Timon was one of her
+dozen names for me. "You don't know how often I have wanted you in this
+dismal hole."
+
+"Oh, have you? Then, of course, if you wanted me, you have something
+for me to do: stockings to mend, perhaps." I never gave Ginevra a
+minute's or a farthing's credit for disinterestedness.
+
+"Crabbed and crusty as ever!" said she. "I expected as much: it would
+not be you if you did not snub one. But now, come, grand-mother, I hope
+you like coffee as much, and pistolets as little as ever: are you
+disposed to barter?"
+
+"Take your own way."
+
+This way consisted in a habit she had of making me convenient. She did
+not like the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being strong
+or sweet enough to suit her palate; and she had an excellent appetite,
+like any other healthy school-girl, for the morning pistolets or rolls,
+which were new-baked and very good, and of which a certain allowance
+was served to each. This allowance being more than I needed, I gave
+half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, though many others
+used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would sometimes give
+me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of the draught;
+hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don't know why I
+chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another; nor why, if
+two had to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel, as sometimes
+happened--for instance, when we took a long walk into the country, and
+halted for refreshment at a farm--I always contrived that she should be
+my convive, and rather liked to let her take the lion's share, whether
+of the white beer, the sweet wine, or the new milk: so it was, however,
+and she knew it; and, therefore, while we wrangled daily, we were never
+alienated.
+
+After breakfast my custom was to withdraw to the first classe, and sit
+and read, or think (oftenest the latter) there alone, till the
+nine-o'clock bell threw open all doors, admitted the gathered rush of
+externes and demi-pensionnaires, and gave the signal for entrance on
+that bustle and business to which, till five P.M., there was no relax.
+
+I was just seated this morning, when a tap came to the door.
+
+"Pardon, Mademoiselle," said a pensionnaire, entering gently; and
+having taken from her desk some necessary book or paper, she withdrew
+on tip-toe, murmuring as she passed me, "Que mademoiselle est
+appliquee!"
+
+Appliquee, indeed! The means of application were spread before me, but
+I was doing nothing; and had done nothing, and meant to do nothing.
+Thus does the world give us credit for merits we have not. Madame Beck
+herself deemed me a regular bas-bleu, and often and solemnly used to
+warn me not to study too much, lest "the blood should all go to my
+head." Indeed, everybody in the Rue Fossette held a superstition that
+"Meess Lucie" was learned; with the notable exception of M. Emanuel,
+who, by means peculiar to himself, and quite inscrutable to me, had
+obtained a not inaccurate inkling of my real qualifications, and used
+to take quiet opportunities of chuckling in my ear his malign glee over
+their scant measure. For my part, I never troubled myself about this
+penury. I dearly like to think my own thoughts; I had great pleasure in
+reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose
+style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly stamped;
+flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and
+meritorious: perceiving well that, as far as my own mind was concerned,
+God had limited its powers and, its action--thankful, I trust, for the
+gift bestowed, but unambitious of higher endowments, not restlessly
+eager after higher culture.
+
+The polite pupil was scarcely gone, when, unceremoniously, without tap,
+in burst a second intruder. Had I been blind I should have known who
+this was. A constitutional reserve of manner had by this time told with
+wholesome and, for me, commodious effect, on the manners of my
+co-inmates; rarely did I now suffer from rude or intrusive treatment.
+When I first came, it would happen once and again that a blunt German
+would clap me on the shoulder, and ask me to run a race; or a riotous
+Labassecourienne seize me by the arm and drag me towards the
+playground: urgent proposals to take a swing at the "Pas de Geant," or
+to join in a certain romping hide-and-seek game called "Un, deux,
+trois," were formerly also of hourly occurrence; but all these little
+attentions had ceased some time ago--ceased, too, without my finding it
+necessary to be at the trouble of point-blank cutting them short. I had
+now no familiar demonstration to dread or endure, save from one
+quarter; and as that was English I could bear it. Ginevra Fanshawe made
+no scruple of--at times--catching me as I was crossing the carre,
+whirling me round in a compulsory waltz, and heartily enjoying the
+mental and physical discomfiture her proceeding induced. Ginevra
+Fanshawe it was who now broke in upon "my learned leisure." She carried
+a huge music-book under her arm.
+
+"Go to your practising," said I to her at once: "away with you to the
+little salon!"
+
+"Not till I have had a talk with you, chere amie. I know where you have
+been spending your vacation, and how you have commenced sacrificing to
+the graces, and enjoying life like any other belle. I saw you at the
+concert the other night, dressed, actually, like anybody else. Who is
+your tailleuse?"
+
+"Tittle-tattle: how prettily it begins! My tailleuse!--a fiddlestick!
+Come, sheer off, Ginevra. I really don't want your company."
+
+"But when I want yours so much, ange farouche, what does a little
+reluctance on your part signify? Dieu merci! we know how to manoeuvre
+with our gifted compatriote--the learned 'ourse Britannique.' And so,
+Ourson, you know Isidore?"
+
+"I know John Bretton."
+
+"Oh, hush!" (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums
+with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell
+me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my
+behaviour the other night? Wasn't I cruel?"
+
+"Do you think I noticed you?"
+
+"It was a delightful evening. Oh, that divine de Hamal! And then to
+watch the other sulking and dying in the distance; and the old lady--my
+future mamma-in-law! But I am afraid I and Lady Sara were a little rude
+in quizzing her."
+
+"Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what _you_ did, don't make
+yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive _your_ sneer."
+
+"She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me
+what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up."
+
+"He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal."
+
+"Did he?" she cried with delight. "He noticed that? How charming! I
+thought he would be mad with jealousy.
+
+"Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to
+give you up?"
+
+"Oh! you know he _can't_ do that: but wasn't he mad?"
+
+"Quite mad," I assented; "as mad as a March hare."
+
+"Well, and how _ever_ did you get him home?"
+
+"How _ever_, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy
+us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us,
+fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong,
+somehow, and we lost our way."
+
+"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe--"
+
+"I assure you it is fact--and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would _not_
+stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and _would_ ride outside."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards--when he _did_ reach home--the scene transcends
+description."
+
+"Oh, but describe it--you know it is such fun!"
+
+"Fun for _you_, Miss Fanshawe? but" (with stern gravity) "you know the
+proverb--'What is sport to one may be death to another.'"
+
+"Go on, there's a darling Timon."
+
+"Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart."
+
+"I have--such an immensity, you don't know!"
+
+"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton
+rejecting his supper in the first instance--the chicken, the sweetbread
+prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then----but
+it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it
+to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy,
+had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that
+night."
+
+"He wouldn't lie still?"
+
+"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in,
+but the thing was to keep them tucked in."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra,
+anathematizing that demon, de Hamal--raving about golden locks, blue
+eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"
+
+"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"
+
+"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the
+first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has
+encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we
+will have an end of this. Go away to your practising."
+
+And I opened the door.
+
+"But you have not told me all."
+
+"You had better not wait until I _do_ tell you all. Such extra
+communicativeness could give you no pleasure. March!"
+
+"Cross thing!" said she; but she obeyed: and, indeed, the first classe
+was my territory, and she could not there legally resist a notice of
+quittance from me.
+
+Yet, to speak the truth, never had I been less dissatisfied with her
+than I was then. There was pleasure in thinking of the contrast between
+the reality and my description--to remember Dr. John enjoying the drive
+home, eating his supper with relish, and retiring to rest with
+Christian composure. It was only when I saw him really unhappy that I
+felt really vexed with the fair, frail cause of his suffering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A fortnight passed; I was getting once more inured to the harness of
+school, and lapsing from the passionate pain of change to the palsy of
+custom. One afternoon, in crossing the carre, on my way to the first
+classe, where I was expected to assist at a lesson of "style and
+literature," I saw, standing by one of the long and large windows,
+Rosine, the portress. Her attitude, as usual, was quite nonchalante.
+She always "stood at ease;" one of her hands rested in her
+apron-pocket, the other at this moment held to her eyes a letter,
+whereof Mademoiselle coolly perused the address, and deliberately
+studied the seal.
+
+A letter! The shape of a letter similar to that had haunted my brain in
+its very core for seven days past. I had dreamed of a letter last
+night. Strong magnetism drew me to that letter now; yet, whether I
+should have ventured to demand of Rosine so much as a glance at that
+white envelope, with the spot of red wax in the middle, I know not. No;
+I think I should have sneaked past in terror of a rebuff from
+Disappointment: my heart throbbed now as if I already heard the tramp
+of her approach. Nervous mistake! It was the rapid step of the
+Professor of Literature measuring the corridor. I fled before him.
+Could I but be seated quietly at my desk before his arrival, with the
+class under my orders all in disciplined readiness, he would, perhaps,
+exempt me from notice; but, if caught lingering in the carre, I should
+be sure to come in for a special harangue. I had time to get seated, to
+enforce perfect silence, to take out my work, and to commence it amidst
+the profoundest and best trained hush, ere M. Emanuel entered with his
+vehement burst of latch and panel, and his deep, redundant bow,
+prophetic of choler.
+
+As usual he broke upon us like a clap of thunder; but instead of
+flashing lightning-wise from the door to the estrade, his career halted
+midway at my desk. Setting his face towards me and the window, his back
+to the pupils and the room, he gave me a look--such a look as might
+have licensed me to stand straight up and demand what he meant--a look
+of scowling distrust.
+
+"Voila! pour vous," said he, drawing his hand from his waist-coat, and
+placing on my desk a letter--the very letter I had seen in Rosine's
+hand--the letter whose face of enamelled white and single Cyclop's-eye
+of vermilion-red had printed themselves so clear and perfect on the
+retina of an inward vision. I knew it, I felt it to be the letter of my
+hope, the fruition of my wish, the release from my doubt, the ransom
+from my terror. This letter M. Paul, with his unwarrantably interfering
+habits, had taken from the portress, and now delivered it himself.
+
+I might have been angry, but had not a second for the sensation. Yes: I
+held in my hand not a slight note, but an envelope, which must, at
+least, contain a sheet: it felt not flimsy, but firm, substantial,
+satisfying. And here was the direction, "Miss Lucy Snowe," in a clean,
+clear, equal, decided hand; and here was the seal, round, full, deftly
+dropped by untremulous fingers, stamped with the well-cut impress of
+initials, "J. G. B." I experienced a happy feeling--a glad emotion
+which went warm to my heart, and ran lively through all my veins. For
+once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy:
+not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy
+chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot
+live; not a mess of that manna I drearily eulogized awhile ago--which,
+indeed, at first melts on the lips with an unspeakable and
+preternatural sweetness, but which, in the end, our souls full surely
+loathe; longing deliriously for natural and earth-grown food, wildly
+praying Heaven's Spirits to reclaim their own spirit-dew and
+essence--an aliment divine, but for mortals deadly. It was neither
+sweet hail nor small coriander-seed--neither slight wafer, nor luscious
+honey, I had lighted on; it was the wild, savoury mess of the hunter,
+nourishing and salubrious meat, forest-fed or desert-reared, fresh,
+healthful, and life-sustaining. It was what the old dying patriarch
+demanded of his son Esau, promising in requital the blessing of his
+last breath. It was a godsend; and I inwardly thanked the God who had
+vouchsafed it. Outwardly I only thanked man, crying, "Thank you, thank
+you, Monsieur!"
+
+Monsieur curled his lip, gave me a vicious glance of the eye, and
+strode to his estrade. M. Paul was not at all a good little man, though
+he had good points.
+
+Did I read my letter there and then? Did I consume the venison at once
+and with haste, as if Esau's shaft flew every day?
+
+I knew better. The cover with its address--the seal, with its three
+clear letters--was bounty and abundance for the present. I stole from
+the room, I procured the key of the great dormitory, which was kept
+locked by day. I went to my bureau; with a sort of haste and trembling
+lest Madame should creep up-stairs and spy me, I opened a drawer,
+unlocked a box, and took out a case, and--having feasted my eyes with
+one more look, and approached the seal with a mixture of awe and shame
+and delight, to my lips--I folded the untasted treasure, yet all fair
+and inviolate, in silver paper, committed it to the case, shut up box
+and drawer, reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,
+feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream. Strange,
+sweet insanity! And this letter, the source of my joy, I had not yet
+read: did not yet know the number of its lines.
+
+When I re-entered the schoolroom, behold M. Paul raging like a
+pestilence! Some pupil had not spoken audibly or distinctly enough to
+suit his ear and taste, and now she and others were weeping, and he was
+raving from his estrade, almost livid. Curious to mention, as I
+appeared, he fell on me.
+
+"Was I the mistress of these girls? Did I profess to teach them the
+conduct befitting ladies?--and did I permit and, he doubted not,
+encourage them to strangle their mother-tongue in their throats, to
+mince and mash it between their teeth, as if they had some base cause
+to be ashamed of the words they uttered? Was this modesty? He knew
+better. It was a vile pseudo sentiment--the offspring or the forerunner
+of evil. Rather than submit to this mopping and mowing, this mincing
+and grimacing, this, grinding of a noble tongue, this general
+affectation and sickening stubbornness of the pupils of the first
+class, he would throw them up for a set of insupportable petites
+maitresses, and confine himself to teaching the ABC to the babies of
+the third division."
+
+What could I say to all this? Really nothing; and I hoped he would
+allow me to be silent. The storm recommenced.
+
+"Every answer to his queries was then refused? It seemed to be
+considered in _that_ place--that conceited boudoir of a first classe,
+with its pretentious book-cases, its green-baized desks, its rubbish of
+flower-stands, its trash of framed pictures and maps, and its foreign
+surveillante, forsooth!--it seemed to be the fashion to think _there_
+that the Professor of Literature was not worthy of a reply! These were
+new ideas; imported, he did not doubt, straight from 'la Grande
+Bretagne:' they savoured of island insolence and arrogance."
+
+Lull the second--the girls, not one of whom was ever known to weep a
+tear for the rebukes of any other master, now all melting like
+snow-statues before the intemperate heat of M. Emanuel: I not yet much
+shaken, sitting down, and venturing to resume my work.
+
+Something--either in my continued silence or in the movement of my
+hand, stitching--transported M. Emanuel beyond the last boundary of
+patience; he actually sprang from his estrade. The stove stood near my
+desk, he attacked it; the little iron door was nearly dashed from its
+hinges, the fuel was made to fly.
+
+"Est-ce que vous avez l'intention de m'insulter?" said he to me, in a
+low, furious voice, as he thus outraged, under pretence of arranging
+the fire.
+
+It was time to soothe him a little if possible.
+
+"Mais, Monsieur," said I, "I would not insult you for the world. I
+remember too well that you once said we should be friends."
+
+I did not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think, through
+the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still
+there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger--a kind of passion of
+emotion--that specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor
+much afraid, yet I wept.
+
+"Allons, allons!" said he presently, looking round and seeing the
+deluge universal. "Decidedly I am a monster and a ruffian. I have only
+one pocket-handkerchief," he added, "but if I had twenty, I would offer
+you each one. Your teacher shall be your representative. Here, Miss
+Lucy."
+
+And he took forth and held out to me a clean silk handkerchief. Now a
+person who did not know M. Paul, who was unused to him and his
+impulses, would naturally have bungled at this offer--declined
+accepting the same--et cetera. But I too plainly felt this would never
+do: the slightest hesitation would have been fatal to the incipient
+treaty of peace. I rose and met the handkerchief half-way, received it
+with decorum, wiped therewith my eyes, and, resuming my seat, and
+retaining the flag of truce in my hand and on my lap, took especial
+care during the remainder of the lesson to touch neither needle nor
+thimble, scissors nor muslin. Many a jealous glance did M. Paul cast at
+these implements; he hated them mortally, considering sewing a source
+of distraction from the attention due to himself. A very eloquent
+lesson he gave, and very kind and friendly was he to the close. Ere he
+had done, the clouds were dispersed and the sun shining out--tears were
+exchanged for smiles.
+
+In quitting the room he paused once more at my desk.
+
+"And your letter?" said he, this time not quite fiercely.
+
+"I have not yet read it, Monsieur."
+
+"Ah! it is too good to read at once; you save it, as, when I was a boy,
+I used to save a peach whose bloom was very ripe?"
+
+The guess came so near the truth, I could not prevent a suddenly-rising
+warmth in my face from revealing as much.
+
+"You promise yourself a pleasant moment," said he, "in reading that
+letter; you will open it when alone--n'est-ce pas? Ah! a smile answers.
+Well, well! one should not be too harsh; 'la jeunesse n'a qu'un temps.'"
+
+"Monsieur, Monsieur!" I cried, or rather whispered after him, as he
+turned to go, "do not leave me under a mistake. This is merely a
+friend's letter. Without reading it, I can vouch for that."
+
+"Je concois, je concois: on sait ce que c'est qu'un ami. Bonjour,
+Mademoiselle!"
+
+"But, Monsieur, here is your handkerchief."
+
+"Keep it, keep it, till the letter is read, then bring it me; I shall
+read the billet's tenor in your eyes."
+
+When he was gone, the pupils having already poured out of the
+schoolroom into the berceau, and thence into the garden and court to
+take their customary recreation before the five-o'clock dinner, I stood
+a moment thinking, and absently twisting the handkerchief round my arm.
+For some reason--gladdened, I think, by a sudden return of the golden
+glimmer of childhood, roused by an unwonted renewal of its buoyancy,
+made merry by the liberty of the closing hour, and, above all, solaced
+at heart by the joyous consciousness of that treasure in the case, box,
+drawer up-stairs,--I fell to playing with the handkerchief as if it
+were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it--as it fell. The
+game was stopped by another hand than mine--a hand emerging from a
+paletot-sleeve and stretched over my shoulder; it caught the
+extemporised plaything and bore it away with these sullen words:
+
+"Je vois bien que vous vous moquez de moi et de mes effets."
+
+Really that little man was dreadful: a mere sprite of caprice and,
+ubiquity: one never knew either his whim or his whereabout.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy
+recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of
+study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone home, the
+clashing door and clamorous bell hushed for the evening; when Madame
+was safely settled in the salle-a-manger in company with her mother and
+some friends; I then glided to the kitchen, begged a bougie for one
+half-hour for a particular occasion, found acceptance of my petition at
+the hands of my friend Goton, who answered, "Mais certainement,
+chou-chou, vous en aurez deux, si vous voulez;" and, light in hand, I
+mounted noiseless to the dormitory.
+
+Great was my chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed
+indisposed,--greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap
+borders, the "figure chiffonnee" of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine
+at this moment, it is true--but certain to wake and overwhelm me with
+chatter when the interruption would be least acceptable: indeed, as I
+watched her, a slight twinkling of the eyelids warned me that the
+present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, assumed to cover sly
+vigilance over "Timon's" movements; she was not to be trusted. And I
+had so wished to be alone, just to read my precious letter in peace.
+
+Well, I must go to the classes. Having sought and found my prize in its
+casket, I descended. Ill-luck pursued me. The classes were undergoing
+sweeping and purification by candle-light, according to hebdomadal
+custom: benches were piled on desks, the air was dim with dust, damp
+coffee-grounds (used by Labassecourien housemaids instead of
+tea-leaves) darkened the floor; all was hopeless confusion. Baffled,
+but not beaten, I withdrew, bent as resolutely as ever on finding
+solitude _somewhere_.
+
+Taking a key whereof I knew the repository, I mounted three staircases
+in succession, reached a dark, narrow, silent landing, opened a
+worm-eaten door, and dived into the deep, black, cold garret. Here none
+would follow me--none interrupt--not Madame herself. I shut the
+garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of
+drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter;
+trembling with sweet impatience, I broke its seal.
+
+"Will it be long--will it be short?" thought I, passing my hand across
+my eyes to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south-wind shower.
+
+It was long.
+
+"Will it be cool?--will it be kind?"
+
+It was kind.
+
+To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind:
+to my longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it
+was.
+
+So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fulness of
+delight in this taste of fruition--such, perhaps, as many a human being
+passes through life without ever knowing. The poor English teacher in
+the frosty garret, reading by a dim candle guttering in the wintry air,
+a letter simply good-natured--nothing more; though that good-nature
+then seemed to me godlike--was happier than most queens in palaces.
+
+Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could be but brief; yet,
+while it lasted it was genuine and exquisite: a bubble--but a sweet
+bubble--of real honey-dew. Dr. John had written to me at length; he had
+written to me with pleasure; he had written with benignant mood,
+dwelling with sunny satisfaction on scenes that had passed before his
+eyes and mine,--on places we had visited together--on conversations we
+had held--on all the little subject-matter, in short, of the last few
+halcyon weeks. But the cordial core of the delight was, a conviction
+the blithe, genial language generously imparted, that it had been
+poured out not merely to content _me_--but to gratify _himself_. A
+gratification he might never more desire, never more seek--an
+hypothesis in every point of view approaching the certain; but _that_
+concerned the future. This present moment had no pain, no blot, no
+want; full, pure, perfect, it deeply blessed me. A passing seraph
+seemed to have rested beside me, leaned towards my heart, and reposed
+on its throb a softening, cooling, healing, hallowing wing. Dr. John,
+you pained me afterwards: forgiven be every ill--freely forgiven--for
+the sake of that one dear remembered good!
+
+Are there wicked things, not human, which envy human bliss? Are there
+evil influences haunting the air, and poisoning it for man? What was
+near me?
+
+Something in that vast solitary garret sounded strangely. Most surely
+and certainly I heard, as it seemed, a stealthy foot on that floor: a
+sort of gliding out from the direction of the black recess haunted by
+the malefactor cloaks. I turned: my light was dim; the room was
+long--but as I live! I saw in the middle of that ghostly chamber a
+figure all black and white; the skirts straight, narrow, black; the
+head bandaged, veiled, white.
+
+Say what you will, reader--tell me I was nervous or mad; affirm that I
+was unsettled by the excitement of that letter; declare that I dreamed;
+this I vow--I saw there--in that room--on that night--an image like--a
+NUN.
+
+I cried out; I sickened. Had the shape approached me I might have
+swooned. It receded: I made for the door. How I descended all the
+stairs I know not. By instinct I shunned the refectory, and shaped my
+course to Madame's sitting-room: I burst in. I said--
+
+"There is something in the grenier; I have been there: I saw something.
+Go and look at it, all of you!"
+
+I said, "All of you;" for the room seemed to me full of people, though
+in truth there were but four present: Madame Beck; her mother, Madame
+Kint, who was out of health, and now staying with her on a visit; her
+brother, M. Victor Kint, and another gentleman, who, when I entered the
+room, was conversing with the old lady, and had his back towards the
+door.
+
+My mortal fear and faintness must have made me deadly pale. I felt cold
+and shaking. They all rose in consternation; they surrounded me. I
+urged them to go to the grenier; the sight of the gentlemen did me good
+and gave me courage: it seemed as if there were some help and hope,
+with men at hand. I turned to the door, beckoning them to follow. They
+wanted to stop me, but I said they must come this way: they must see
+what I had seen--something strange, standing in the middle of the
+garret. And, now, I remembered my letter, left on the drawers with the
+light. This precious letter! Flesh or spirit must be defied for its
+sake. I flew up-stairs, hastening the faster as I knew I was followed:
+they were obliged to come.
+
+Lo! when I reached the garret-door, all within was dark as a pit: the
+light was out. Happily some one--Madame, I think, with her usual calm
+sense--had brought a lamp from the room; speedily, therefore, as they
+came up, a ray pierced the opaque blackness. There stood the bougie
+quenched on the drawers; but where was the letter? And I looked for
+_that_ now, and not for the nun.
+
+"My letter! my letter!" I panted and plained, almost beside myself. I
+groped on the floor, wringing my hands wildly. Cruel, cruel doom! To
+have my bit of comfort preternaturally snatched from me, ere I had well
+tasted its virtue!
+
+I don't know what the others were doing; I could not watch them: they
+asked me questions I did not answer; they ransacked all corners; they
+prattled about this and that disarrangement of cloaks, a breach or
+crack in the sky-light--I know not what. "Something or somebody has
+been here," was sagely averred.
+
+"Oh! they have taken my letter!" cried the grovelling, groping,
+monomaniac.
+
+"What letter, Lucy? My dear girl, what letter?" asked a known voice in
+my ear. Could I believe that ear? No: and I looked up. Could I trust my
+eyes? Had I recognised the tone? Did I now look on the face of the
+writer of that very letter? Was this gentleman near me in this dim
+garret, John Graham--Dr. Bretton himself?
+
+Yes: it was. He had been called in that very evening to prescribe for
+some access of illness in old Madame Kint; he was the second gentleman
+present in the salle-a-manger when I entered.
+
+"Was it _my_ letter, Lucy?"
+
+"Your own: yours--the letter you wrote to me. I had come here to read
+it quietly. I could not find another spot where it was possible to have
+it to myself. I had saved it all day--never opened it till this
+evening: it was scarcely glanced over: I _cannot bear_ to lose it. Oh,
+my letter!"
+
+"Hush! don't cry and distress yourself so cruelly. What is it worth?
+Hush! Come out of this cold room; they are going to send for the police
+now to examine further: we need not stay here--come, we will go down."
+
+A warm hand, taking my cold fingers, led me down to a room where there
+was a fire. Dr. John and I sat before the stove. He talked to me and
+soothed me with unutterable goodness, promising me twenty letters for
+the one lost. If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose
+deep-inflicted lacerations never heal--cutting injuries and insults of
+serrated and poison-dripping edge--so, too, there are consolations of
+tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo:
+caressing kindnesses--loved, lingered over through a whole life,
+recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed
+shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. I have been
+told since that Dr. Bretton was not nearly so perfect as I thought him:
+that his actual character lacked the depth, height, compass, and
+endurance it possessed in my creed. I don't know: he was as good to me
+as the well is to the parched wayfarer--as the sun to the shivering
+jailbird. I remember him heroic. Heroic at this moment will I hold him
+to be.
+
+He asked me, smiling, why I cared for his letter so very much. I
+thought, but did not say, that I prized it like the blood in my veins.
+I only answered that I had so few letters to care for.
+
+"I am sure you did not read it," said he; "or you would think nothing
+of it!"
+
+"I read it, but only once. I want to read it again. I am sorry it is
+lost." And I could not help weeping afresh.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a
+relationship), here--_here_ is your letter. Why is it not better worth
+such tears, and such tenderly exaggerating faith?"
+
+Curious, characteristic manoeuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter on
+the floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it up. He
+had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had wrought with a
+whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would ever have
+acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree cooler
+than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.
+
+Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing
+torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it
+broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.
+
+"Are you satisfied now?" asked Dr. John.
+
+I replied that I was--satisfied and happy.
+
+"Well then," he proceeded, "how do you feel physically? Are you growing
+calmer? Not much: for you tremble like a leaf still."
+
+It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I felt
+no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.
+
+"You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was
+quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only
+spoke of 'something,' not defining _what_. Was it a man? Was it an
+animal? What was it?"
+
+"I never will tell exactly what I saw," said I, "unless some one else
+sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but
+otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming."
+
+"Tell me," said Dr. Bretton; "I will hear it in my professional
+character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I
+read, perhaps, all you would conceal--in your eye, which is curiously
+vivid and restless: in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in
+your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me."
+
+"You would laugh--?"
+
+"If you don't tell me you shall have no more letters."
+
+"You are laughing now."
+
+"I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I have
+a right to reclaim it."
+
+I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded
+up the letter and covered it from sight.
+
+"You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don't
+know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I
+liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of
+tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me--did you, Lucy?"
+
+"Indeed--indeed--when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more
+then than now--for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with
+subtlety. But still,--Dr. John, you have what they call in this country
+'un air fin,' that nobody can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and--"
+
+"And liked it," said he, laughing, "because she has it herself. But,
+Lucy, give me that letter--you don't really care for it."
+
+To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood
+must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile
+playing about his lips--very sweet, but it grieved me somehow--a new
+sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring. I
+rose to go--I bid him good-night a little sadly.
+
+His sensitiveness--that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of
+his--felt in a moment the unspoken complaint--the scarce-thought
+reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as
+implying a negative.
+
+"Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You
+are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in
+your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone this
+evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret--that dungeon under
+the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and catarrh:
+a place you never ought to enter--that you saw, or _thought_ you saw,
+some appearance peculiarly calculated to impress the imagination. I
+know that you _are_ not, nor ever were, subject to material terrors,
+fears of robbers, &c.--I am not so sure that a visitation, bearing a
+spectral character, would not shake your very mind. Be calm now. This
+is all a matter of the nerves, I see: but just specify the vision."
+
+"You will tell nobody?"
+
+"Nobody--most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did Pere
+Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the two,
+though he has not grey hair."
+
+"You will not laugh?"
+
+"Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a
+friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust."
+
+He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were
+gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were
+depressed; repose marked his attitude--attention sobered his aspect.
+Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had
+narrated to him the legend of the house--whiling away with that
+narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when he and I
+rode through Bois l'Etang.
+
+He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming
+down-stairs.
+
+"Are they going to interrupt?" said he, glancing at the door with an
+annoyed expression.
+
+"They will not come here," I answered; for we were in the little salon
+where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance
+that heat was still lingering in the stove. They passed the door and
+went on to the salle-a-manger.
+
+"Now," he pursued, "they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on:
+let them do so--mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of
+describing your nun to nobody. She may appear to you again: don't
+start."
+
+"You think then," I said, with secret horror, "she came out of my
+brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour and
+a day when I look not for her?"
+
+"I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and
+resulting from long-continued mental conflict."
+
+"Oh, Doctor John--I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an
+illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?--no preventive?"
+
+"Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both."
+
+No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being
+told to _cultivate_ happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is
+not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness
+is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew
+which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon
+it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
+
+"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do _you_
+cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
+
+"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged
+me. Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but we
+defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
+
+"There is no cultivation in all this."
+
+"I do not give way to melancholy."
+
+"Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling."
+
+"About Ginevra Fanshawe--eh?"
+
+"Did she not sometimes make you miserable?"
+
+"Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now."
+
+If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming
+and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he
+certainly was.
+
+"You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition," I allowed.
+
+"And why, Lucy, can't you look and feel as I do--buoyant, courageous,
+and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give
+gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manoeuvre."
+
+"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"
+
+"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one
+thing--true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no
+less a price."
+
+"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
+since."
+
+"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
+but I am a free man now!"
+
+He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
+his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
+more than ease--a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
+
+"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling
+which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
+disposed to exact love for love--passion for passion--and good measure
+of it, too."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
+difficulties--to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".
+
+He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
+sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his gloves),
+"will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"
+
+"I don't think she will."
+
+"Give her my compliments, if she does--Dr. John's compliments--and
+entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
+she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that yet;
+and _that_ is the really important point."
+
+"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes glittered."
+
+"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at
+least she had handsome eyes--bright and soft."
+
+"Cold and fixed," was the reply.
+
+"No, no, we'll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
+that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand _that_, do
+you think?"
+
+I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
+smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
+believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very
+little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
+Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and
+as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was
+rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a
+heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very
+closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure
+clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word "nun," certain
+that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and
+unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any servant,
+pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in coming to her
+private salle-a-manger, instead of carrying the tale of horror to the
+school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left secretly and
+sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange thing was of this
+world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether indeed it was only
+the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+VASHTI.
+
+
+To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my
+life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a
+dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its
+turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a
+wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks
+down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer
+pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky,
+which till now the starved hollow never saw.
+
+A new creed became mine--a belief in happiness.
+
+It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret, and I possessed
+in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed with that first letter,
+four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with
+the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort. Vital comfort it
+seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters
+enough--pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the
+two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender,
+"by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued." Time, dear reader, mellowed
+them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first tasted their
+elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a divine
+vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve.
+
+Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask
+how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of
+Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?
+
+To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed
+down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I
+wrote to these letters two answers--one for my own relief, the other
+for Graham's perusal.
+
+To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against
+her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink
+an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.
+When we had done--when two sheets were covered with the language of a
+strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude--(once, for
+all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every
+sneaking suspicion of what are called "warmer feelings:" women do not
+entertain these "warmer feelings" where, from the commencement, through
+the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been
+cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal
+absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed
+the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled waters)--when, then, I
+had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring
+attachment--an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to
+its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that
+would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and
+lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude--then,
+just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar
+would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the
+full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct,
+and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.
+
+I did not live on letters only: I was visited, I was looked after; once
+a week I was taken out to La Terrasse; always I was made much of. Dr.
+Bretton failed not to tell me _why_ he was so kind: "To keep away the
+nun," he said; "he was determined to dispute with her her prey. He had
+taken," he declared, "a thorough dislike to her, chiefly on account of
+that white face-cloth, and those cold grey eyes: the moment he heard of
+those odious particulars," he affirmed, "consummate disgust had incited
+him to oppose her; he was determined to try whether he or she was the
+cleverest, and he only wished she would once more look in upon me when
+he was present:" but _that_ she never did. In short, he regarded me
+scientifically in the light of a patient, and at once exercised his
+professional skill, and gratified his natural benevolence, by a course
+of cordial and attentive treatment.
+
+One evening, the first in December, I was walking by myself in the
+carre; it was six o'clock; the classe-doors were closed; but within,
+the pupils, rampant in the licence of evening recreation, were
+counterfeiting a miniature chaos. The carre was quite dark, except a
+red light shining under and about the stove; the wide glass-doors and
+the long windows were frosted over; a crystal sparkle of starlight,
+here and there spangling this blanched winter veil, and breaking with
+scattered brilliance the paleness of its embroidery, proved it a clear
+night, though moonless. That I should dare to remain thus alone in
+darkness, showed that my nerves were regaining a healthy tone: I
+thought of the nun, but hardly feared her; though the staircase was
+behind me, leading up, through blind, black night, from landing to
+landing, to the haunted grenier. Yet I own my heart quaked, my pulse
+leaped, when I suddenly heard breathing and rustling, and turning, saw
+in the deep shadow of the steps a deeper shadow still--a shape that
+moved and descended. It paused a while at the classe-door, and then it
+glided before me. Simultaneously came a clangor of the distant
+door-bell. Life-like sounds bring life-like feelings: this shape was
+too round and low for my gaunt nun: it was only Madame Beck on duty.
+
+"Mademoiselle Lucy!" cried Rosine, bursting in, lamp in hand, from the
+corridor, "on est la pour vous au salon."
+
+Madame saw me, I saw Madame, Rosine saw us both: there was no mutual
+recognition. I made straight for the salon. There I found what I own I
+anticipated I should find--Dr. Bretton; but he was in evening-dress.
+
+"The carriage is at the door," said he; "my mother has sent it to take
+you to the theatre; she was going herself, but an arrival has prevented
+her: she immediately said, 'Take Lucy in my place.' Will you go?"
+
+"Just now? I am not dressed," cried I, glancing despairingly at my dark
+merino.
+
+"You have half an hour to dress. I should have given you notice, but I
+only determined on going since five o'clock, when I heard there was to
+be a genuine regale in the presence of a great actress."
+
+And he mentioned a name that thrilled me--a name that, in those days,
+could thrill Europe. It is hushed now: its once restless echoes are all
+still; she who bore it went years ago to her rest: night and oblivion
+long since closed above her; but _then_ her day--a day of Sirius--stood
+at its full height, light and fervour.
+
+"I'll go; I will be ready in ten minutes," I vowed. And away I flew,
+never once checked, reader, by the thought which perhaps at this moment
+checks you: namely, that to go anywhere with Graham and without Mrs.
+Bretton could be objectionable. I could not have conceived, much less
+have expressed to Graham, such thought--such scruple--without risk of
+exciting a tyrannous self-contempt: of kindling an inward fire of shame
+so quenchless, and so devouring, that I think it would soon have licked
+up the very life in my veins. Besides, my godmother, knowing her son,
+and knowing me, would as soon have thought of chaperoning a sister with
+a brother, as of keeping anxious guard over our incomings and outgoings.
+
+The present was no occasion for showy array; my dun mist crape would
+suffice, and I sought the same in the great oak-wardrobe in the
+dormitory, where hung no less than forty dresses. But there had been
+changes and reforms, and some innovating hand had pruned this same
+crowded wardrobe, and carried divers garments to the grenier--my crape
+amongst the rest. I must fetch it. I got the key, and went aloft
+fearless, almost thoughtless. I unlocked the door, I plunged in. The
+reader may believe it or not, but when I thus suddenly entered, that
+garret was not wholly dark as it should have been: from one point there
+shone a solemn light, like a star, but broader. So plainly it shone,
+that it revealed the deep alcove with a portion of the tarnished
+scarlet curtain drawn over it. Instantly, silently, before my eyes, it
+vanished; so did the curtain and alcove: all that end of the garret
+became black as night. I ventured no research; I had not time nor will;
+snatching my dress, which hung on the wall, happily near the door, I
+rushed out, relocked the door with convulsed haste, and darted
+downwards to the dormitory.
+
+But I trembled too much to dress myself: impossible to arrange hair or
+fasten hooks-and-eyes with such fingers, so I called Rosine and bribed
+her to help me. Rosine liked a bribe, so she did her best, smoothed and
+plaited my hair as well as a coiffeur would have done, placed the lace
+collar mathematically straight, tied the neck-ribbon accurately--in
+short, did her work like the neat-handed Phillis she could be when she
+chose. Having given me my handkerchief and gloves, she took the candle
+and lighted me down-stairs. After all, I had forgotten my shawl; she
+ran back to fetch it; and I stood with Dr. John in the vestibule,
+waiting.
+
+"What is this, Lucy?" said he, looking down at me narrowly. "Here is
+the old excitement. Ha! the nun again?"
+
+But I utterly denied the charge: I was vexed to be suspected of a
+second illusion. He was sceptical.
+
+"She has been, as sure as I live," said he; "her figure crossing your
+eyes leaves on them a peculiar gleam and expression not to be mistaken."
+
+"She has _not_ been," I persisted: for, indeed, I could deny her
+apparition with truth.
+
+"The old symptoms are there," he affirmed: "a particular pale, and what
+the Scotch call a 'raised' look."
+
+He was so obstinate, I thought it better to tell him what I really
+_had_ seen. Of course with him it was held to be another effect of the
+same cause: it was all optical illusion--nervous malady, and so on. Not
+one bit did I believe him; but I dared not contradict: doctors are so
+self-opinionated, so immovable in their dry, materialist views.
+
+Rosine brought the shawl, and I was bundled into the carriage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The theatre was full--crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there:
+palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged
+and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place
+before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard
+reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if
+she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings
+severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study
+of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new
+planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising.
+
+She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come.
+She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star
+verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos--hollow,
+half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing--half lava, half glow.
+
+I had heard this woman termed "plain," and I expected bony harshness
+and grimness--something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the
+shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale
+now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.
+
+For awhile--a long while--I thought it was only a woman, though an
+unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude.
+By-and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something
+neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These
+evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble
+strength--for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and
+the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the
+pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her
+voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac
+mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.
+
+It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation.
+
+It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.
+
+Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand;
+bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the
+public--a milder condiment for a people's palate--than Vashti torn by
+seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they
+haunted, but still refused to be exorcised.
+
+Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her
+audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor, in finite measure,
+resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She
+stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular
+like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest
+crimson threw her out, white like alabaster--like silver: rather, be it
+said, like Death.
+
+Where was the artist of the Cleopatra? Let him come and sit down and
+study this different vision. Let him seek here the mighty brawn, the
+muscle, the abounding blood, the full-fed flesh he worshipped: let all
+materialists draw nigh and look on.
+
+I have said that she does not _resent_ her grief. No; the weakness of
+that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately
+embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried
+down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to
+conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends
+her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no
+result in good: tears water no harvest of wisdom: on sickness, on death
+itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but
+also she is strong; and her strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome
+Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile
+as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement
+royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. Her hair, flying loose in
+revel or war, is still an angel's hair, and glorious under a halo.
+Fallen, insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she
+rebelled. Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines,
+and discloses their forlorn remoteness.
+
+Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
+and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove
+the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him
+rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of
+his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight
+rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
+spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
+sea-ramparts.
+
+Vashti was not good, I was told; and I have said she did not look good:
+though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so much of
+unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred
+essence descend one day from above?
+
+What thought Dr. Graham of this being?
+
+For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
+question what he thought. The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart
+out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a
+fierce light, not solar--a rushing, red, cometary light--hot on vision
+and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like
+this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which
+outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely
+irritating imagination with the thought of what _might_ be done, at the
+same time fevering the nerves because it was _not_ done, disclosed
+power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in cataract, and
+bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steelly sweep of its
+descent.
+
+Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
+Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
+in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
+charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
+mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water, but,
+almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved him--metal
+could not grave, nor fire brand.
+
+Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
+action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his way,
+but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
+influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
+beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing
+summer clouds; for what belonged to storm, what was wild and intense,
+dangerous, sudden, and flaming, he had no sympathy, and held with it no
+communion. When I took time and regained inclination to glance at him,
+it amused and enlightened me to discover that he was watching that
+sinister and sovereign Vashti, not with wonder, nor worship, nor yet
+dismay, but simply with intense curiosity. Her agony did not pain him,
+her wild moan--worse than a shriek--did not much move him; her fury
+revolted him somewhat, but not to the point of horror. Cool young
+Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the
+tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian
+inspiration of that night.
+
+Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last I
+put a question tending to elicit them. At the sound of my voice he
+awoke as if out of a dream; for he had been thinking, and very intently
+thinking, his own thoughts, after his own manner. "How did he like
+Vashti?" I wished to know.
+
+"Hm-m-m," was the first scarce articulate but expressive answer; and
+then such a strange smile went wandering round his lips, a smile so
+critical, so almost callous! I suppose that for natures of that order
+his sympathies _were_ callous. In a few terse phrases he told me his
+opinion of, and feeling towards, the actress: he judged her as a woman,
+not an artist: it was a branding judgment.
+
+That night was already marked in my book of life, not with white, but
+with a deep-red cross. But I had not done with it yet; and other
+memoranda were destined to be set down in characters of tint indelible.
+
+Towards midnight, when the deepening tragedy blackened to the
+death-scene, and all held their breath, and even Graham bit his
+under-lip, and knit his brow, and sat still and struck--when the whole
+theatre was hushed, when the vision of all eyes centred in one point,
+when all ears listened towards one quarter--nothing being seen but the
+white form sunk on a seat, quivering in conflict with her last, her
+worst-hated, her visibly-conquering foe--nothing heard but her throes,
+her gaspings, breathing yet of mutiny, panting still defiance; when, as
+it seemed, an inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame,
+bent it to battle with doom and death, fought every inch of ground,
+sold every drop of blood, resisted to the latest the rape of every
+faculty, _would_ see, _would_ hear, _would_ breathe, _would_ live, up
+to, within, well-nigh _beyond_ the moment when death says to all sense
+and all being--"Thus far and no farther!"--
+
+Just then a stir, pregnant with omen, rustled behind the scenes--feet
+ran, voices spoke. What was it? demanded the whole house. A flame, a
+smell of smoke replied.
+
+"Fire!" rang through the gallery. "Fire!" was repeated, re-echoed,
+yelled forth: and then, and faster than pen can set it down, came
+panic, rushing, crushing--a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.
+
+And Dr. John? Reader, I see him yet, with his look of comely courage
+and cordial calm.
+
+"Lucy will sit still, I know," said he, glancing down at me with the
+same serene goodness, the same repose of firmness that I have seen in
+him when sitting at his side amid the secure peace of his mother's
+hearth. Yes, thus adjured, I think I would have sat still under a
+rocking crag: but, indeed, to sit still in actual circumstances was my
+instinct; and at the price of my very life, I would not have moved to
+give him trouble, thwart his will, or make demands on his attention. We
+were in the stalls, and for a few minutes there was a most terrible,
+ruthless pressure about us.
+
+"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not almost
+equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I see
+fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near, I
+could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some
+men. There is one yonder--Good God!"
+
+While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and
+steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from
+her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the
+feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham
+rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though
+grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head
+and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
+
+"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.
+
+"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her,
+and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."
+
+"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor
+incumbrance."
+
+He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to
+rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I
+could not get between or over.
+
+"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.
+
+Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a
+wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the
+flesh-and-blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to
+the fresh, freezing night.
+
+"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when
+we got into the street.
+
+"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.
+
+"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my
+carriage."
+
+"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"
+
+"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."
+
+"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder!
+They trod just here."
+
+"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no
+worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."
+
+And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position
+for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay in
+his arms quietly and patiently.
+
+"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my
+ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"
+
+"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient,
+demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I
+get anxious."
+
+The carriage drove up; her father relieved Graham; but in the exchange
+from one bearer to another she was hurt, and moaned again.
+
+"My darling!" said the father, tenderly; then turning to Graham, "You
+said, sir, you are a medical man?"
+
+"I am: Dr. Bretton, of La Terrasse."
+
+"Good. Will you step into my carriage?"
+
+"My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you."
+
+"Be pleased, then, to follow us." And he named his address: "The Hotel
+Crecy, in the Rue Crecy."
+
+We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent.
+This seemed like an adventure.
+
+Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached the
+hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an hotel
+in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an inn--a
+vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading through
+a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.
+
+We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped
+at Numero 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the abode
+of I know not what "prince Russe," as Graham informed me. On ringing
+the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite of very
+handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we entered a
+drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and whose walls
+gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a little group:
+a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women busy about it,
+the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.
+
+"Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me," said the girlish
+voice, faintly.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Hurst?" demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat
+sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.
+
+"I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave her
+leave till to-morrow."
+
+"Yes--I did--I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might go:
+I remember now," interposed the young lady; "but I am so sorry, for
+Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me
+without meaning to do so."
+
+Dr. John and the gentleman now interchanged greetings; and while they
+passed a few minutes in consultation, I approached the easy-chair, and
+seeing what the faint and sinking girl wished to have done, I did it
+for her.
+
+I was still occupied in the arrangement, when Graham drew near; he was
+no less skilled in surgery than medicine, and, on examination, found
+that no further advice than his own was necessary to the treatment of
+the present case. He ordered her to be carried to her chamber, and
+whispered to me:--"Go with the women, Lucy; they seem but dull; you can
+at least direct their movements, and thus spare her some pain. She must
+be touched very tenderly."
+
+The chamber was a room shadowy with pale-blue hangings, vaporous with
+curtainings and veilings of muslin; the bed seemed to me like
+snow-drift and mist--spotless, soft, and gauzy. Making the women stand
+apart, I undressed their mistress, without their well-meaning but
+clumsy aid. I was not in a sufficiently collected mood to note with
+separate distinctness every detail of the attire I removed, but I
+received a general impression of refinement, delicacy, and perfect
+personal cultivation; which, in a period of after-thought, offered in
+my reflections a singular contrast to notes retained of Miss Ginevra
+Fanshawe's appointments.
+
+The girl was herself a small, delicate creature, but made like a model.
+As I folded back her plentiful yet fine hair, so shining and soft, and
+so exquisitely tended, I had under my observation a young, pale, weary,
+but high-bred face. The brow was smooth and clear; the eyebrows were
+distinct, but soft, and melting to a mere trace at the temples; the
+eyes were a rich gift of nature--fine and full, large, deep, seeming to
+hold dominion over the slighter subordinate features--capable,
+probably, of much significance at another hour and under other
+circumstances than the present, but now languid and suffering. Her skin
+was perfectly fair, the neck and hands veined finely like the petals of
+a flower; a thin glazing of the ice of pride polished this delicate
+exterior, and her lip wore a curl--I doubt not inherent and
+unconscious, but which, if I had seen it first with the accompaniments
+of health and state, would have struck me as unwarranted, and proving
+in the little lady a quite mistaken view of life and her own
+consequence.
+
+Her demeanour under the Doctor's hands at first excited a smile; it was
+not puerile--rather, on the whole, patient and firm--but yet, once or
+twice she addressed him with suddenness and sharpness, saying that he
+hurt her, and must contrive to give her less pain; I saw her large
+eyes, too, settle on his face like the solemn eyes of some pretty,
+wondering child. I know not whether Graham felt this examination: if he
+did, he was cautious not to check or discomfort it by any retaliatory
+look. I think he performed his work with extreme care and gentleness,
+sparing her what pain he could; and she acknowledged as much, when he
+had done, by the words:--"Thank you, Doctor, and good-night," very
+gratefully pronounced as she uttered them, however, it was with a
+repetition of the serious, direct gaze, I thought, peculiar in its
+gravity and intentness.
+
+The injuries, it seems, were not dangerous: an assurance which her
+father received with a smile that almost made one his friend--it was so
+glad and gratified. He now expressed his obligations to Graham with as
+much earnestness as was befitting an Englishman addressing one who has
+served him, but is yet a stranger; he also begged him to call the next
+day.
+
+"Papa," said a voice from the veiled couch, "thank the lady, too; is
+she there?"
+
+I opened the curtain with a smile, and looked in at her. She lay now at
+comparative ease; she looked pretty, though pale; her face was
+delicately designed, and if at first sight it appeared proud, I believe
+custom might prove it to be soft.
+
+"I thank the lady very sincerely," said her father: "I fancy she has
+been very good to my child. I think we scarcely dare tell Mrs. Hurst
+who has been her substitute and done her work; she will feel at once
+ashamed and jealous."
+
+And thus, in the most friendly spirit, parting greetings were
+interchanged; and refreshment having been hospitably offered, but by
+us, as it was late, refused, we withdrew from the Hotel Crecy.
+
+On our way back we repassed the theatre. All was silence and darkness:
+the roaring, rushing crowd all vanished and gone--the damps, as well as
+the incipient fire, extinct and forgotten. Next morning's papers
+explained that it was but some loose drapery on which a spark had
+fallen, and which had blazed up and been quenched in a moment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+M. DE BASSOMPIERRE.
+
+
+Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the
+seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are
+liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory of
+their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps,
+and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse--some
+congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel
+would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of
+communication--there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long
+blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and
+unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the
+visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other
+token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.
+
+Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but
+knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without
+are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which
+passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the
+wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at
+milestones--that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants
+with hurry for his friends.
+
+The hermit--if he be a sensible hermit--will swallow his own thoughts,
+and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He
+will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the
+dormouse, and he will be conformable: make a tidy ball of himself,
+creep into a hole of life's wall, and submit decently to the drift
+which blows in and soon blocks him up, preserving him in ice for the
+season.
+
+Let him say, "It is quite right: it ought to be so, since so it is."
+And, perhaps, one day his snow-sepulchre will open, spring's softness
+will return, the sun and south-wind will reach him; the budding of
+hedges, and carolling of birds, and singing of liberated streams, will
+call him to kindly resurrection. _Perhaps_ this may be the case,
+perhaps not: the frost may get into his heart and never thaw more; when
+spring comes, a crow or a pie may pick out of the wall only his
+dormouse-bones. Well, even in that case, all will be right: it is to be
+supposed he knew from the first he was mortal, and must one day go the
+way of all flesh, "As well soon as syne."
+
+Following that eventful evening at the theatre, came for me seven weeks
+as bare as seven sheets of blank paper: no word was written on one of
+them; not a visit, not a token.
+
+About the middle of that time I entertained fancies that something had
+happened to my friends at La Terrasse. The mid-blank is always a
+beclouded point for the solitary: his nerves ache with the strain of
+long expectancy; the doubts hitherto repelled gather now to a mass
+and--strong in accumulation--roll back upon him with a force which
+savours of vindictiveness. Night, too, becomes an unkindly time, and
+sleep and his nature cannot agree: strange starts and struggles harass
+his couch: the sinister band of bad dreams, with horror of calamity,
+and sick dread of entire desertion at their head, join the league
+against him. Poor wretch! He does his best to bear up, but he is a
+poor, pallid, wasting wretch, despite that best.
+
+Towards the last of these long seven weeks I admitted, what through the
+other six I had jealously excluded--the conviction that these blanks
+were inevitable: the result of circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part
+of my life's lot and--above all--a matter about whose origin no
+question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever
+uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I
+had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile
+extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence,
+in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged
+them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I longed for
+better days.
+
+I tried different expedients to sustain and fill existence: I commenced
+an elaborate piece of lace-work, I studied German pretty hard, I
+undertook a course of regular reading of the driest and thickest books
+in the library; in all my efforts I was as orthodox as I knew how to
+be. Was there error somewhere? Very likely. I only know the result was
+as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank brine to quench
+thirst.
+
+My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
+well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
+knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
+disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that
+well-recognised ring.
+
+I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
+upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter.
+Oh!--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
+sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
+bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
+hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
+sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it like
+a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at my
+heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--the
+well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness in
+life I had to look for.
+
+In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
+the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
+month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
+was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every evening
+for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches to light
+it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and feasted on my
+crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me: I pined on it,
+and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.
+
+Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
+read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were losing
+all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves before my
+eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a quick
+tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step: she
+had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would come
+here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.
+
+Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
+her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
+drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
+recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
+humour seemed none of the best.
+
+"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid people," she began.
+
+"Who? Mrs. Cholmondeley? I thought you always found her house charming?"
+
+"I have not been to Mrs. Cholmondeley's."
+
+"Indeed! Have you made new acquaintance?"
+
+"My uncle de Bassompierre is come."
+
+"Your uncle de Bassompierre! Are you not glad?--I thought he was a
+favourite."
+
+"You thought wrong: the man is odious; I hate him."
+
+"Because he is a foreigner? or for what other reason of equal weight?"
+
+"He is not a foreigner. The man is English enough, goodness knows; and
+had an English name till three or four years ago; but his mother was a
+foreigner, a de Bassompierre, and some of her family are dead and have
+left him estates, a title, and this name: he is quite a great man now."
+
+"Do you hate him for that reason?"
+
+"Don't I know what mamma says about him? He is not my own uncle, but
+married mamma's sister. Mamma detests him; she says he killed aunt
+Ginevra with unkindness: he looks like a bear. Such a dismal evening!"
+she went on. "I'll go no more to his big hotel. Fancy me walking into a
+room alone, and a great man fifty years old coming forwards, and after
+a few minutes' conversation actually turning his back upon me, and then
+abruptly going out of the room. Such odd ways! I daresay his conscience
+smote him, for they all say at home I am the picture of aunt Ginevra.
+Mamma often declares the likeness is quite ridiculous."
+
+"Were you the only visitor?"
+
+"The only visitor? Yes; then there was missy, my cousin: little
+spoiled, pampered thing."
+
+"M. de Bassompierre has a daughter?"
+
+"Yes, yes: don't tease one with questions. Oh, dear! I am so tired."
+
+She yawned. Throwing herself without ceremony on my bed she added, "It
+seems Mademoiselle was nearly crushed to a jelly in a hubbub at the
+theatre some weeks ago."
+
+"Ah! indeed. And they live at a large hotel in the Rue Crecy?"
+
+"Justement. How do _you_ know?"
+
+"I have been there."
+
+"Oh, you have? Really! You go everywhere in these days. I suppose
+Mother Bretton took you. She and Esculapius have the _entree_ of the de
+Bassompierre apartments: it seems 'my son John' attended missy on the
+occasion of her accident--Accident? Bah! All affectation! I don't think
+she was squeezed more than she richly deserves for her airs. And now
+there is quite an intimacy struck up: I heard something about 'auld
+lang syne,' and what not. Oh, how stupid they all were!"
+
+"_All!_ You said you were the only visitor."
+
+"Did I? You see one forgets to particularize an old woman and her boy."
+
+"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"
+
+"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
+conceited doll it is!"
+
+Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes
+of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a
+diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had
+failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in
+the vapours.
+
+"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.
+
+"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
+and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the
+old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
+prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite sickening."
+
+"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed:
+if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."
+
+"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"
+
+"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
+mother never calls him so."
+
+"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."
+
+"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is
+now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that
+bed, and vacate this room."
+
+"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
+what always makes you so mighty testy a l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
+Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"
+
+Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly to
+have given vent--for there was no contending with that unsubstantial
+feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my taper, locked my
+bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me. Small-beer as she
+was, she had turned insufferably acid.
+
+The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
+withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
+nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
+spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
+would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
+lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
+me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
+entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
+so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and east
+owned a terrific influence, making all pain more poignant, all sorrow
+sadder. The south could calm, the west sometimes cheer: unless, indeed,
+they brought on their wings the burden of thunder-clouds, under the
+weight and warmth of which all energy died.
+
+Bitter and dark as was this January day, I remember leaving the classe,
+and running down without bonnet to the bottom of the long garden, and
+then lingering amongst the stripped shrubs, in the forlorn hope that
+the postman's ring might occur while I was out of hearing, and I might
+thus be spared the thrill which some particular nerve or nerves, almost
+gnawed through with the unremitting tooth of a fixed idea, were
+becoming wholly unfit to support. I lingered as long as I dared without
+fear of attracting attention by my absence. I muffled my head in my
+apron, and stopped my ears in terror of the torturing clang, sure to be
+followed by such blank silence, such barren vacuum for me. At last I
+ventured to re-enter the first classe, where, as it was not yet nine
+o'clock, no pupils had been admitted. The first thing seen was a white
+object on my black desk, a white, flat object. The post had, indeed,
+arrived; by me unheard. Rosine had visited my cell, and, like some
+angel, had left behind her a bright token of her presence. That shining
+thing on the desk was indeed a letter, a real letter; I saw so much at
+the distance of three yards, and as I had but one correspondent on
+earth, from that one it must come. He remembered me yet. How deep a
+pulse of gratitude sent new life through my heart.
+
+Drawing near, bending and looking on the letter, in trembling but
+almost certain hope of seeing a known hand, it was my lot to find, on
+the contrary, an autograph for the moment deemed unknown--a pale female
+scrawl, instead of a firm, masculine character. I then thought fate was
+_too_ hard for me, and I said, audibly, "This is cruel."
+
+But I got over that pain also. Life is still life, whatever its pangs:
+our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of
+what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles be
+quite silenced.
+
+I opened the billet: by this time I had recognised its handwriting as
+perfectly familiar. It was dated "La Terrasse," and it ran thus:--
+
+"DEAR LUCY,--It occurs to me to inquire what you have been doing with
+yourself for the last month or two? Not that I suspect you would have
+the least difficulty in giving an account of your proceedings. I
+daresay you have been just as busy and as happy as ourselves at La
+Terrasse. As to Graham, his professional connection extends daily: he
+is so much sought after, so much engaged, that I tell him he will grow
+quite conceited. Like a right good mother, as I am, I do my best to
+keep him down: no flattery does he get from me, as you know. And yet,
+Lucy, he is a fine fellow: his mother's heart dances at the sight of
+him. After being hurried here and there the whole day, and passing the
+ordeal of fifty sorts of tempers, and combating a hundred caprices, and
+sometimes witnessing cruel sufferings--perhaps, occasionally, as I tell
+him, inflicting them--at night he still comes home to me in such
+kindly, pleasant mood, that really, I seem to live in a sort of moral
+antipodes, and on these January evenings my day rises when other
+people's night sets in.
+
+"Still he needs keeping in order, and correcting, and repressing, and I
+do him that good service; but the boy is so elastic there is no such
+thing as vexing him thoroughly. When I think I have at last driven him
+to the sullens, he turns on me with jokes for retaliation: but you know
+him and all his iniquities, and I am but an elderly simpleton to make
+him the subject of this epistle.
+
+"As for me, I have had my old Bretton agent here on a visit, and have
+been plunged overhead and ears in business matters. I do so wish to
+regain for Graham at least some part of what his father left him. He
+laughs to scorn my anxiety on this point, bidding me look and see how
+he can provide for himself and me too, and asking what the old lady can
+possibly want that she has not; hinting about sky-blue turbans;
+accusing me of an ambition to wear diamonds, keep livery servants, have
+an hotel, and lead the fashion amongst the English clan in Villette.
+
+"Talking of sky-blue turbans, I wish you had been with us the other
+evening. He had come in really tired, and after I had given him his
+tea, he threw himself into my chair with his customary presumption. To
+my great delight, he dropped asleep. (You know how he teases me about
+being drowsy; I, who never, by any chance, close an eye by daylight.)
+While he slept, I thought he looked very bonny, Lucy: fool as I am to
+be so proud of him; but who can help it? Show me his peer. Look where I
+will, I see nothing like him in Villette. Well, I took it into my head
+to play him a trick: so I brought out the sky-blue turban, and handling
+it with gingerly precaution, I managed to invest his brows with this
+grand adornment. I assure you it did not at all misbecome him; he
+looked quite Eastern, except that he is so fair. Nobody, however, can
+accuse him of having red hair _now_--it is genuine chestnut--a dark,
+glossy chestnut; and when I put my large cashmere about him, there was
+as fine a young bey, dey, or pacha improvised as you would wish to see.
+
+"It was good entertainment; but only half-enjoyed, since I was alone:
+you should have been there.
+
+"In due time my lord awoke: the looking-glass above the fireplace soon
+intimated to him his plight: as you may imagine, I now live under
+threat and dread of vengeance.
+
+"But to come to the gist of my letter. I know Thursday is a
+half-holiday in the Rue Fossette: be ready, then, by five in the
+afternoon, at which hour I will send the carriage to take you out to La
+Terrasse. Be sure to come: you may meet some old acquaintance. Good-by,
+my wise, dear, grave little god-daughter.--Very truly yours,
+
+"LOUISA BRETTON."
+
+Now, a letter like that sets one to rights! I might still be sad after
+reading that letter, but I was more composed; not exactly cheered,
+perhaps, but relieved. My friends, at least, were well and happy: no
+accident had occurred to Graham; no illness had seized his
+mother--calamities that had so long been my dream and thought. Their
+feelings for me too were--as they had been. Yet, how strange it was to
+look on Mrs. Bretton's seven weeks and contrast them with my seven
+weeks! Also, how very wise it is in people placed in an exceptional
+position to hold their tongues and not rashly declare how such position
+galls them! The world can understand well enough the process of
+perishing for want of food: perhaps few persons can enter into or
+follow out that of going mad from solitary confinement. They see the
+long-buried prisoner disinterred, a maniac or an idiot!--how his senses
+left him--how his nerves, first inflamed, underwent nameless agony, and
+then sunk to palsy--is a subject too intricate for examination, too
+abstract for popular comprehension. Speak of it! you might almost as
+well stand up in an European market-place, and propound dark sayings in
+that language and mood wherein Nebuchadnezzar, the imperial
+hypochondriac, communed with his baffled Chaldeans. And long, long may
+the minds to whom such themes are no mystery--by whom their bearings
+are sympathetically seized--be few in number, and rare of rencounter.
+Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit
+compassion, and that the rest is a figment. When the world was younger
+and haler than now, moral trials were a deeper mystery still: perhaps
+in all the land of Israel there was but one Saul--certainly but one
+David to soothe or comprehend him.
+
+The keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day, by
+a sharp breathing from Russian wastes: the cold zone sighed over the
+temperate zone, and froze it fast. A heavy firmament, dull, and thick
+with snow, sailed up from the north, and settled over expectant Europe.
+Towards afternoon began the descent. I feared no carriage would come,
+the white tempest raged so dense and wild. But trust my godmother! Once
+having asked, she would have her guest. About six o'clock I was lifted
+from the carriage over the already blocked-up front steps of the
+chateau, and put in at the door of La Terrasse.
+
+Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room, there
+I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been twice
+as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have warmed me.
+Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards, black benches,
+desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its
+Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and crimson splendour which
+quite dazzled me.
+
+When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted with
+me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last saw me,
+she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my hair,
+and sent me up-stairs to make it neat and remove my shawl.
+
+Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright
+fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the
+great looking glass; but between the candles, and before the glass,
+appeared something dressing itself--an airy, fairy thing--small,
+slight, white--a winter spirit.
+
+I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral
+illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new vision.
+It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its girdle was
+red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining--a little wreath
+with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was nothing
+frightful, and I advanced.
+
+Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me,
+the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with
+their pencilling the orb they guarded.
+
+"Ah! you are come!" she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she
+smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
+
+I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast
+of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
+
+"Miss de Bassompierre," I pronounced.
+
+"No," was the reply, "not Miss de Bassompierre for _you!_" I did not
+inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
+
+"You are changed, but still you are yourself," she said, approaching
+nearer. "I remember you well--your countenance, the colour of your
+hair, the outline of your face...."
+
+I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and
+as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of
+thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.
+
+"It makes me almost cry to look so far back," said she: "but as to
+being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am
+quite pleased and glad."
+
+Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I
+stammered, "I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago,
+when you were hurt...?"
+
+She smiled. "You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been
+lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember
+the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to
+your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the comfort
+and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to
+Bretton. Remember Mr. Home."
+
+At last I saw it all. "And you are little Polly?"
+
+"I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre."
+
+How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her
+fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest
+and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful--not with the beauty
+that strikes the eye like a rose--orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with
+the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra;
+but her seventeen years had brought her a refined and tender charm
+which did not lie in complexion, though hers was fair and clear; nor in
+outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs perfectly
+turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward.
+This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp
+chastely lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship,
+a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not
+exaggerate language; but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and
+engaging. What though all was on a small scale, it was the perfume
+which gave this white violet distinction, and made it superior to the
+broadest camelia--the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed.
+
+"Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?"
+
+"Better," said she, "better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with
+minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and
+the hours of the days."
+
+"You must have forgotten some things?"
+
+"Very little, I imagine."
+
+"You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere
+this, have outgrown the impressions with which joy and grief, affection
+and bereavement, stamped your mind ten years ago."
+
+"You think I have forgotten whom I liked, and in what degree I liked
+them when a child?"
+
+"The sharpness must be gone--the point, the poignancy--the deep imprint
+must be softened away and effaced?"
+
+"I have a good memory for those days."
+
+She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can
+remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose
+youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and
+incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on
+another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement,
+and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I
+could not quite admit the conviction that _all_ the pictures which now
+crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond attachments,
+her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, true
+devotion of her child's heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her
+little trials, the last piercing pain of separation.... I retraced
+these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. "The child
+of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen," said she.
+
+"You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton," I remarked,
+intending to test her. She set me right at once.
+
+"Not _excessively_ fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her as I
+should do now: she seems to me very little altered."
+
+"She is not much changed," I assented.
+
+We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room she said, "There
+are several things here that used to be at Bretton! I remember that
+pincushion and that looking-glass."
+
+Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not,
+at least, so far.
+
+"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.
+
+"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive
+complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."
+
+"Dr. Bretton, of course," I pursued, "would be out of the question:
+and, indeed, as I saw your first interview with him, I am aware that he
+appeared to you as a stranger."
+
+"That first night I was puzzled," she answered.
+
+"How did the recognition between him and your father come about?"
+
+"They exchanged cards. The names Graham Bretton and Home de
+Bassompierre gave rise to questions and explanations. That was on the
+second day; but before then I was beginning to know something."
+
+"How--know something?"
+
+"Why," she said, "how strange it is that most people seem so slow to
+feel the truth--not to see, but _feel_! When Dr. Bretton had visited me
+a few times, and sat near and talked to me; when I had observed the
+look in his eyes, the expression about his mouth, the form of his chin,
+the carriage of his head, and all that we _do_ observe in persons who
+approach us--how could I avoid being led by association to think of
+Graham Bretton? Graham was slighter than he, and not grown so tall, and
+had a smoother face, and longer and lighter hair, and spoke--not so
+deeply--more like a girl; but yet _he_ is Graham, just as _I_ am little
+Polly, or you are Lucy Snowe."
+
+I thought the same, but I wondered to find my thoughts hers: there are
+certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems
+a miracle when that chance befalls.
+
+"You and Graham were once playmates."
+
+"And do you remember that?" she questioned in her turn.
+
+"No doubt he will remember it also," said I.
+
+"I have not asked him: few things would surprise me so much as to find
+that he did. I suppose his disposition is still gay and careless?"
+
+"Was it so formerly? Did it so strike you? Do you thus remember him?"
+
+"I scarcely remember him in any other light. Sometimes he was studious;
+sometimes he was merry: but whether busy with his books or disposed for
+play, it was chiefly the books or game he thought of; not much heeding
+those with whom he read or amused himself."
+
+"Yet to you he was partial."
+
+"Partial to me? Oh, no! he had other playmates--his school-fellows; I
+was of little consequence to him, except on Sundays: yes, he was kind
+on Sundays. I remember walking with him hand-in-hand to St. Mary's, and
+his finding the places in my prayer-book; and how good and still he was
+on Sunday evenings! So mild for such a proud, lively boy; so patient
+with all my blunders in reading; and so wonderfully to be depended on,
+for he never spent those evenings from home: I had a constant fear that
+he would accept some invitation and forsake us; but he never did, nor
+seemed ever to wish to do it. Thus, of course, it can be no more. I
+suppose Sunday will now be Dr. Bretton's dining-out day....?"
+
+"Children, come down!" here called Mrs. Bretton from below. Paulina
+would still have lingered, but I inclined to descend: we went down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
+
+
+Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our
+sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that
+evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the
+winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while
+women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and
+imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their
+persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare
+stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely
+gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and
+hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.
+
+Father and son came at last to the chateau: for the Count de
+Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of
+our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the
+weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the
+two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance:
+both were white--two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing
+their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting
+them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till
+they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now
+affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them:
+it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little
+white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire,
+clapping her hands and crying, "Papa, papa, you look like an enormous
+Polar bear."
+
+The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen
+shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing
+the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought,
+threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
+
+"Come, then," said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was
+playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some
+little chamois.
+
+Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten;
+her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took
+her sire's cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his
+lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving
+delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men _do_
+look on what is the apple of their eye.
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said he: "what am I to do with this daughter or
+daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don't
+you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?"
+
+"She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine," said Mrs.
+Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress
+she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against
+the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm's length.
+
+"Come, mamma," said he, "by way of compromise, and to secure for us
+inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup,
+and toast Old England here, on the hearth."
+
+So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to
+and fro--happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen--Mrs.
+Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl,
+and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round,
+reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as
+Graham's christening-cup.
+
+"Here's to Auld Lang Syne!" said the Count; holding the glancing cup on
+high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.--
+
+  "We twa ha' paidlet i' the burn
+      Fra morning sun till dine,
+  But seas between us braid ha' roared
+      Sin' auld lane syne.
+
+  "And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
+      And surely I'll be mine;
+  And we'll taste a cup o' kindness yet
+      For auld lang syne."
+
+"Scotch! Scotch!" cried Paulina; "papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he
+is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic."
+
+"And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked
+her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the
+middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite
+cannie: she is a strange little mortal."
+
+"Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe."
+
+Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as
+of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly,
+"he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less
+trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter's lips, and he had
+listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old
+acquaintance."
+
+Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de
+fee, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so
+profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of
+her mortal privileges.
+
+"Let me taste," said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the
+shelf of the dresser out of her reach.
+
+Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John
+had not been unobservant of the fairy's dance; he had watched it, and
+he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the
+movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his
+mother's house charmed him, for it set _him_ at ease: again she seemed
+a child for him--again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would
+speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words
+proved that the old days of "little Polly" had been recalled to his
+mind by this evening's child-like light-heartedness.
+
+"Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?"
+
+"I think I said so. I think I intimated as much."
+
+"Couldn't consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it,
+but couldn't do it."
+
+"Why? I am quite well now: it can't break my collar-bone again, or
+dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?"
+
+"No; nor dew."
+
+"I don't want dew; I don't like dew: but what is it?"
+
+"Ale--strong ale--old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born."
+
+"It must be curious: is it good?"
+
+"Excessively good."
+
+And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this
+mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment
+with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.
+
+"I should like a little," said Paulina, looking up; "I never had any
+'old October:' is it sweet?"
+
+"Perilously sweet," said Graham.
+
+She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that
+longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it
+down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste
+from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of
+pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it _was_ a
+gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the
+cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by
+which its brim was courted.
+
+"A little more--a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand
+with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and
+yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your
+wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy."
+
+He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: "Don't tell my
+mother or Lucy; they wouldn't approve."
+
+"Nor do I," said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as
+she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her
+like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: "I find
+it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath.
+Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no
+more."
+
+And, with a slight bend--careless, but as graceful as her dance--she
+glided from him and rejoined her father.
+
+I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of
+seventeen.
+
+Graham looked after her a little baffled, a little puzzled; his eye was
+on her a good deal during the rest of the evening, but she did not seem
+to notice him.
+
+As we ascended to the drawing-room for tea, she took her father's arm:
+her natural place seemed to be at his side; her eyes and her ears were
+dedicated to him. He and Mrs. Bretton were the chief talkers of our
+little party, and Paulina was their best listener, attending closely to
+all that was said, prompting the repetition of this or that trait or
+adventure.
+
+"And where were you at such a time, papa? And what did you say then?
+And tell Mrs. Bretton what happened on that occasion." Thus she drew
+him out.
+
+She did not again yield to any effervescence of glee; the infantine
+sparkle was exhaled for the night: she was soft, thoughtful, and
+docile. It was pretty to see her bid good-night; her manner to Graham
+was touched with dignity: in her very slight smile and quiet bow spoke
+the Countess, and Graham could not but look grave, and bend responsive.
+I saw he hardly knew how to blend together in his ideas the dancing
+fairy and delicate dame.
+
+Next day, when we were all assembled round the breakfast-table,
+shivering and fresh from the morning's chill ablutions, Mrs. Bretton
+pronounced a decree that nobody, who was not forced by dire necessity,
+should quit her house that day.
+
+Indeed, egress seemed next to impossible; the drift darkened the lower
+panes of the casement, and, on looking out, one saw the sky and air
+vexed and dim, the wind and snow in angry conflict. There was no fall
+now, but what had already descended was torn up from the earth, whirled
+round by brief shrieking gusts, and cast into a hundred fantastic forms.
+
+The Countess seconded Mrs. Bretton.
+
+"Papa shall not go out," said she, placing a seat for herself beside
+her father's arm-chair. "I will look after him. You won't go into town,
+will you, papa?"
+
+"Ay, and No," was the answer. "If you and Mrs. Bretton are _very_ good
+to me, Polly--kind, you know, and attentive; if you pet me in a very
+nice manner, and make much of me, I may possibly be induced to wait an
+hour after breakfast and see whether this razor-edged wind settles.
+But, you see, you give me no breakfast; you offer me nothing: you let
+me starve."
+
+"Quick! please, Mrs. Bretton, and pour out the coffee," entreated
+Paulina, "whilst I take care of the Count de Bassompierre in other
+respects: since he grew into a Count, he has needed _so_ much
+attention."
+
+She separated and prepared a roll.
+
+"There, papa, are your 'pistolets' charged," said she. "And there is
+some marmalade, just the same sort of marmalade we used to have at
+Bretton, and which you said was as good as if it had been conserved in
+Scotland--"
+
+"And which your little ladyship used to beg for my boy--do you remember
+that?" interposed Mrs. Bretton. "Have you forgotten how you would come
+to my elbow and touch my sleeve with the whisper, 'Please, ma'am,
+something good for Graham--a little marmalade, or honey, or jam?"'
+
+"No, mamma," broke in Dr. John, laughing, yet reddening; "it surely was
+not so: I could not have cared for these things."
+
+"Did he or did he not, Paulina?"
+
+"He liked them," asserted Paulina.
+
+"Never blush for it, John," said Mr. Home, encouragingly. "I like them
+myself yet, and always did. And Polly showed her sense in catering for
+a friend's material comforts: it was I who put her into the way of such
+good manners--nor do I let her forget them. Polly, offer me a small
+slice of that tongue."
+
+"There, papa: but remember you are only waited upon with this
+assiduity; on condition of being persuadable, and reconciling yourself
+to La Terrasse for the day."
+
+"Mrs. Bretton," said the Count, "I want to get rid of my daughter--to
+send her to school. Do you know of any good school?"
+
+"There is Lucy's place--Madame Beck's."
+
+"Miss Snowe is in a school?"
+
+"I am a teacher," I said, and was rather glad of the opportunity of
+saying this. For a little while I had been feeling as if placed in a
+false position. Mrs. Bretton and son knew my circumstances; but the
+Count and his daughter did not. They might choose to vary by some
+shades their hitherto cordial manner towards me, when aware of my grade
+in society. I spoke then readily: but a swarm of thoughts I had not
+anticipated nor invoked, rose dim at the words, making me sigh
+involuntarily. Mr. Home did not lift his eyes from his breakfast-plate
+for about two minutes, nor did he speak; perhaps he had not caught the
+words--perhaps he thought that on a confession of that nature,
+politeness would interdict comment: the Scotch are proverbially proud;
+and homely as was Mr. Home in look, simple in habits and tastes, I have
+all along intimated that he was not without his share of the national
+quality. Was his a pseudo pride? was it real dignity? I leave the
+question undecided in its wide sense. Where it concerned me
+individually I can only answer: then, and always, he showed himself a
+true-hearted gentleman.
+
+By nature he was a feeler and a thinker; over his emotions and his
+reflections spread a mellowing of melancholy; more than a mellowing: in
+trouble and bereavement it became a cloud. He did not know much about
+Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend: indeed
+his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he saw my
+walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave me
+credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight; he
+would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping, he
+still wished me well. When he did look at me, his eye was kind; when he
+did speak, his voice was benevolent.
+
+"Yours," said he, "is an arduous calling. I wish you health and
+strength to win in it--success."
+
+His fair little daughter did not take the information quite so
+composedly: she fixed on me a pair of eyes wide with wonder--almost
+with dismay.
+
+"Are you a teacher?" cried she. Then, having paused on the unpalatable
+idea, "Well, I never knew what you were, nor ever thought of asking:
+for me, you were always Lucy Snowe."
+
+"And what am I now?" I could not forbear inquiring.
+
+"Yourself, of course. But do you really teach here, in Villette?"
+
+"I really do."
+
+"And do you like it?"
+
+"Not always."
+
+"And why do you go on with it?"
+
+Her father looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he
+only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism--prove yourself
+the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and look
+confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and I
+would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only smiles,
+so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. Well, Miss Snowe, why
+do you go on with it?"
+
+"Chiefly, I fear, for the sake of the money I get."
+
+"Not then from motives of pure philanthropy? Polly and I were clinging
+to that hypothesis as the most lenient way of accounting for your
+eccentricity."
+
+"No--no, sir. Rather for the roof of shelter I am thus enabled to keep
+over my head; and for the comfort of mind it gives me to think that
+while I can work for myself, I am spared the pain of being a burden to
+anybody."
+
+"Papa, say what you will, I pity Lucy."
+
+"Take up that pity, Miss de Bassompierre; take it up in both hands, as
+you might a little callow gosling squattering out of bounds without
+leave; put it back in the warm nest of a heart whence it issued, and
+receive in your ear this whisper. If my Polly ever came to know by
+experience the uncertain nature of this world's goods, I should like
+her to act as Lucy acts: to work for herself, that she might burden
+neither kith nor kin."
+
+"Yes, papa," said she, pensively and tractably. "But poor Lucy! I
+thought she was a rich lady, and had rich friends."
+
+"You thought like a little simpleton. _I_ never thought so. When I had
+time to consider Lucy's manner and aspect, which was not often, I saw
+she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not be
+served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience for
+which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she may yet
+bless Providence. But this school," he pursued, changing his tone from
+grave to gay: "would Madame Beck admit my Polly, do you think, Miss
+Lucy?"
+
+I said, there needed but to try Madame; it would soon be seen: she was
+fond of English pupils. "If you, sir," I added, "will but take Miss de
+Bassompierre in your carriage this very afternoon, I think I can answer
+for it that Rosine, the portress, will not be very slow in answering
+your ring; and Madame, I am sure, will put on her best pair of gloves
+to come into the salon to receive you."
+
+"In that case," responded Mr. Home, "I see no sort of necessity there
+is for delay. Mrs. Hurst can send what she calls her young lady's
+'things' after her; Polly can settle down to her horn-book before
+night; and you, Miss Lucy, I trust, will not disdain to cast an
+occasional eye upon her, and let me know, from time to time, how she
+gets on. I hope you approve of the arrangement, Countess de
+Bassompierre?"
+
+The Countess hemmed and hesitated. "I thought," said she, "I thought I
+had finished my education--"
+
+"That only proves how much we may be mistaken in our thoughts. I hold a
+far different opinion, as most of these will who have been auditors of
+your profound knowledge of life this morning. Ah, my little girl, thou
+hast much to learn; and papa ought to have taught thee more than he has
+done! Come, there is nothing for it but to try Madame Beck; and the
+weather seems settling, and I have finished my breakfast--"
+
+"But, papa!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see an obstacle."
+
+"I don't at all."
+
+"It is enormous, papa; it can never be got over; it is as large as you
+in your greatcoat, and the snowdrift on the top."
+
+"And, like that snowdrift, capable of melting?"
+
+"No! it is of too--too solid flesh: it is just your own self. Miss
+Lucy, warn Madame Beck not to listen to any overtures about taking me,
+because, in the end, it would turn out that she would have to take papa
+too: as he is so teasing, I will just tell tales about him. Mrs.
+Bretton and all of you listen: About five years ago, when I was twelve
+years old, he took it into his head that he was spoiling me; that I was
+growing unfitted for the world, and I don't know what, and nothing
+would serve or satisfy him, but I must go to school. I cried, and so
+on; but M. de Bassompierre proved hard-hearted, quite firm and flinty,
+and to school I went. What was the result? In the most admirable
+manner, papa came to school likewise: every other day he called to see
+me. Madame Aigredoux grumbled, but it was of no use; and so, at last,
+papa and I were both, in a manner, expelled. Lucy can just tell Madame
+Beck this little trait: it is only fair to let her know what she has to
+expect."
+
+Mrs. Bretton asked Mr. Home what he had to say in answer to this
+statement. As he made no defence, judgment was given against him, and
+Paulina triumphed.
+
+But she had other moods besides the arch and naive. After breakfast;
+when the two elders withdrew--I suppose to talk over certain of Mrs.
+Bretton's business matters--and the Countess, Dr. Bretton, and I, were
+for a short time alone together--all the child left her; with us, more
+nearly her companions in age, she rose at once to the little lady: her
+very face seemed to alter; that play of feature, and candour of look,
+which, when she spoke to her father, made it quite dimpled and round,
+yielded to an aspect more thoughtful, and lines distincter and less
+_mobile_.
+
+No doubt Graham noted the change as well as I. He stood for some
+minutes near the window, looking out at the snow; presently he,
+approached the hearth, and entered into conversation, but not quite
+with his usual ease: fit topics did not seem to rise to his lips; he
+chose them fastidiously, hesitatingly, and consequently infelicitously:
+he spoke vaguely of Villette--its inhabitants, its notable sights and
+buildings. He was answered by Miss de Bassompierre in quite womanly
+sort; with intelligence, with a manner not indeed wholly
+disindividualized: a tone, a glance, a gesture, here and there, rather
+animated and quick than measured and stately, still recalled little
+Polly; but yet there was so fine and even a polish, so calm and
+courteous a grace, gilding and sustaining these peculiarities, that a
+less sensitive man than Graham would not have ventured to seize upon
+them as vantage points, leading to franker intimacy.
+
+Yet while Dr. Bretton continued subdued, and, for him, sedate, he was
+still observant. Not one of those petty impulses and natural breaks
+escaped him. He did not miss one characteristic movement, one
+hesitation in language, or one lisp in utterance. At times, in speaking
+fast, she still lisped; but coloured whenever such lapse occurred, and
+in a painstaking, conscientious manner, quite as amusing as the slight
+error, repeated the word more distinctly.
+
+Whenever she did this, Dr. Bretton smiled. Gradually, as they
+conversed, the restraint on each side slackened: might the conference
+have but been prolonged, I believe it would soon have become genial:
+already to Paulina's lip and cheek returned the wreathing, dimpling
+smile; she lisped once, and forgot to correct herself. And Dr. John, I
+know not how _he_ changed, but change he did. He did not grow gayer--no
+raillery, no levity sparkled across his aspect--but his position seemed
+to become one of more pleasure to himself, and he spoke his augmented
+comfort in readier language, in tones more suave. Ten years ago this
+pair had always found abundance to say to each other; the intervening
+decade had not narrowed the experience or impoverished the intelligence
+of either: besides, there are certain natures of which the mutual
+influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say.
+For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion,
+amalgamation.
+
+Graham, however, must go: his was a profession whose claims are neither
+to be ignored nor deferred. He left the room; but before he could leave
+the house there was a return. I am sure he came back--not for the
+paper, or card in his desk, which formed his ostensible errand--but to
+assure himself, by one more glance, that Paulina's aspect was really
+such as memory was bearing away: that he had not been viewing her
+somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a fond mistake. No!
+he found the impression true--rather, indeed, he gained than lost by
+this return: he took away with him a parting look--shy, but very
+soft--as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn could lift out of
+its cover of fern, or any lamb from its meadow-bed.
+
+Being left alone, Paulina and I kept silence for some time: we both
+took out some work, and plied a mute and diligent task. The white-wood
+workbox of old days was now replaced by one inlaid with precious
+mosaic, and furnished with implements of gold; the tiny and trembling
+fingers that could scarce guide the needle, though tiny still, were now
+swift and skilful: but there was the same busy knitting of the brow,
+the same little dainty mannerisms, the same quick turns and
+movements--now to replace a stray tress, and anon to shake from the
+silken skirt some imaginary atom of dust--some clinging fibre of thread.
+
+That morning I was disposed for silence: the austere fury of the
+winter-day had on me an awing, hushing influence. That passion of
+January, so white and so bloodless, was not yet spent: the storm had
+raved itself hoarse, but seemed no nearer exhaustion. Had Ginevra
+Fanshawe been my companion in that drawing-room, she would not have
+suffered me to muse and listen undisturbed. The presence just gone from
+us would have been her theme; and how she would have rung the changes
+on one topic! how she would have pursued and pestered me with questions
+and surmises--worried and oppressed me with comments and confidences I
+did not want, and longed to avoid.
+
+Paulina Mary cast once or twice towards me a quiet but penetrating
+glance of her dark, full eye; her lips half opened, as if to the
+impulse of coming utterance: but she saw and delicately respected my
+inclination for silence.
+
+"This will not hold long," I thought to myself; for I was not
+accustomed to find in women or girls any power of self-control, or
+strength of self-denial. As far as I knew them, the chance of a gossip
+about their usually trivial secrets, their often very washy and paltry
+feelings, was a treat not to be readily foregone.
+
+The little Countess promised an exception: she sewed till she was tired
+of sewing, and then she took a book.
+
+As chance would have it, she had sought it in Dr. Bretton's own
+compartment of the bookcase; and it proved to be an old Bretton
+book--some illustrated work of natural history. Often had I seen her
+standing at Graham's side, resting that volume on his knee, and reading
+to his tuition; and, when the lesson was over, begging, as a treat,
+that he would tell her all about the pictures. I watched her keenly:
+here was a true test of that memory she had boasted; would her
+recollections now be faithful?
+
+Faithful? It could not be doubted. As she turned the leaves, over her
+face passed gleam after gleam of expression, the least intelligent of
+which was a full greeting to the Past. And then she turned to the
+title-page, and looked at the name written in the schoolboy hand. She
+looked at it long; nor was she satisfied with merely looking: she
+gently passed over the characters the tips of her fingers, accompanying
+the action with an unconscious but tender smile, which converted the
+touch into a caress. Paulina loved the Past; but the peculiarity of
+this little scene was, that she _said_ nothing: she could feel without
+pouring out her feelings in a flux of words.
+
+She now occupied herself at the bookcase for nearly an hour; taking
+down volume after volume, and renewing her acquaintance with each. This
+done, she seated herself on a low stool, rested her cheek on her hand,
+and thought, and still was mute.
+
+The sound of the front door opened below, a rush of cold wind, and her
+father's voice speaking to Mrs. Bretton in the hall, startled her at
+last. She sprang up: she was down-stairs in one second.
+
+"Papa! papa! you are not going out?"
+
+"My pet, I must go into town."
+
+"But it is too--_too_ cold, papa."
+
+And then I heard M. de Bassompierre showing to her how he was well
+provided against the weather; and how he was going to have the
+carriage, and to be quite snugly sheltered; and, in short, proving that
+she need not fear for his comfort.
+
+"But you will promise to come back here this evening, before it is
+quite dark;--you and Dr. Bretton, both, in the carriage? It is not fit
+to ride."
+
+"Well, if I see the Doctor, I will tell him a lady has laid on him her
+commands to take care of his precious health and come home early under
+my escort."
+
+"Yes, you must say a lady; and he will think it is his mother, and be
+obedient. And, papa, mind to come soon, for I _shall_ watch and listen."
+
+The door closed, and the carriage rolled softly through the snow; and
+back returned the Countess, pensive and anxious.
+
+She _did_ listen, and watch, when evening closed; but it was in
+stillest sort: walking the drawing-room with quite noiseless step. She
+checked at intervals her velvet march; inclined her ear, and consulted
+the night sounds: I should rather say, the night silence; for now, at
+last, the wind was fallen. The sky, relieved of its avalanche, lay
+naked and pale: through the barren boughs of the avenue we could see it
+well, and note also the polar splendour of the new-year moon--an orb
+white as a world of ice. Nor was it late when we saw also the return of
+the carriage.
+
+Paulina had no dance of welcome for this evening. It was with a sort of
+gravity that she took immediate possession of her father, as he entered
+the room; but she at once made him her entire property, led him to the
+seat of her choice, and, while softly showering round him honeyed words
+of commendation for being so good and coming home so soon, you would
+have thought it was entirely by the power of her little hands he was
+put into his chair, and settled and arranged; for the strong man seemed
+to take pleasure in wholly yielding himself to this dominion-potent
+only by love.
+
+Graham did not appear till some minutes after the Count. Paulina half
+turned when his step was heard: they spoke, but only a word or two;
+their fingers met a moment, but obviously with slight contact. Paulina
+remained beside her father; Graham threw himself into a seat on the
+other side of the room.
+
+It was well that Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home had a great deal to say to
+each other--almost an inexhaustible fund of discourse in old
+recollections; otherwise, I think, our party would have been but a
+still one that evening.
+
+After tea, Paulina's quick needle and pretty golden thimble were busily
+plied by the lamp-light, but her tongue rested, and her eyes seemed
+reluctant to raise often their lids, so smooth and so full-fringed.
+Graham, too, must have been tired with his day's work: he listened
+dutifully to his elders and betters, said very little himself, and
+followed with his eye the gilded glance of Paulina's thimble; as if it
+had been some bright moth on the wing, or the golden head of some
+darting little yellow serpent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A BURIAL.
+
+
+From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal,
+with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the
+grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from the
+first treated me otherwise than with respect; and when she found that I
+was liable to frequent invitations from a chateau and a great hotel,
+respect improved into distinction.
+
+Not that she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was
+in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of
+self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain;
+without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and
+a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected
+with her establishment should frequent such associates as must
+cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and
+depress. She never praised either me or my friends; only once when she
+was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and
+the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable, and I came up and
+asked leave of absence for the evening, she delivered herself in this
+gracious sort:--
+
+"Oui, oui, ma bonne amie: je vous donne la permission de coeur et de
+gre. Votre travail dans ma maison a toujours ete admirable, rempli de
+zele et de discretion: vous avez bien le droit de vous amuser. Sortez
+donc tant que vous voudrez. Quant a votre choix de connaissances, j'en
+suis contente; c'est sage, digne, laudable."
+
+She closed her lips and resumed the Gazette.
+
+The reader will not too gravely regard the little circumstance that
+about this time the triply-enclosed packet of five letters temporarily
+disappeared from my bureau. Blank dismay was naturally my first
+sensation on making the discovery; but in a moment I took heart of
+grace.
+
+"Patience!" whispered I to myself. "Let me say nothing, but wait
+peaceably; they will come back again."
+
+And they did come back: they had only been on a short visit to Madame's
+chamber; having passed their examination, they came back duly and
+truly: I found them all right the next day.
+
+I wonder what she thought of my correspondence? What estimate did she
+form of Dr. John Bretton's epistolary powers? In what light did the
+often very pithy thoughts, the generally sound, and sometimes original
+opinions, set, without pretension, in an easily-flowing, spirited
+style, appear to her? How did she like that genial, half humorous vein,
+which to me gave such delight? What did she think of the few kind words
+scattered here and there--not thickly, as the diamonds were scattered in
+the valley of Sindbad, but sparely, as those gems lie in unfabled beds?
+Oh, Madame Beck! how seemed these things to you?
+
+I think in Madame Beck's eyes the five letters found a certain favour.
+One day after she had _borrowed_ them of me (in speaking of so suave a
+little woman, one ought to use suave terms), I caught her examining me
+with a steady contemplative gaze, a little puzzled, but not at all
+malevolent. It was during that brief space between lessons, when the
+pupils turned out into the court for a quarter of an hour's recreation;
+she and I remained in the first classe alone: when I met her eye, her
+thoughts forced themselves partially through her lips.
+
+"Il y a," said she, "quelquechose de bien remarquable dans le caractere
+Anglais."
+
+"How, Madame?"
+
+She gave a little laugh, repeating the word "how" in English.
+
+"Je ne saurais vous dire 'how;' mais, enfin, les Anglais ont des idees
+a eux, en amitie, en amour, en tout. Mais au moins il n'est pas besoin
+de les surveiller," she added, getting up and trotting away like the
+compact little pony she was.
+
+"Then I hope," murmured I to myself, "you will graciously let alone my
+letters for the future."
+
+Alas! something came rushing into my eyes, dimming utterly their
+vision, blotting from sight the schoolroom, the garden, the bright
+winter sun, as I remembered that never more would letters, such as she
+had read, come to me. I had seen the last of them. That goodly river on
+whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops had
+trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving my
+little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of waters
+far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could be
+said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my Ganges,
+and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish
+like a false mirage. Though stoical, I was not quite a stoic; drops
+streamed fast on my hands, on my desk: I wept one sultry shower, heavy
+and brief.
+
+But soon I said to myself, "The Hope I am bemoaning suffered and made
+me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
+agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."
+
+Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a
+habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and
+composed its limbs with great calm.
+
+The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
+undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
+mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
+by sharp revival of regret.
+
+One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
+intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
+a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
+the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
+untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been
+visited.
+
+This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
+discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
+ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
+casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
+inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
+understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
+ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
+had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my
+eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now
+saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul
+Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she was much in the
+habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him matters she
+broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that gentleman
+had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from
+Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that blue,
+yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now.
+_He_, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair
+point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always
+found him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere
+friendly letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again,
+into his hands, jarred my very soul.
+
+What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
+was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
+safeguard, or a padlock a barrier?
+
+In the grenier? No, I did not like the grenier. Besides, most of the
+boxes and drawers there were mouldering, and did not lock. Rats, too,
+gnawed their way through the decayed wood; and mice made nests amongst
+the litter of their contents: my dear letters (most dear still, though
+Ichabod was written on their covers) might be consumed by vermin;
+certainly the writing would soon become obliterated by damp. No; the
+grenier would not do--but where then?
+
+While pondering this problem, I sat in the dormitory window-seat. It
+was a fine frosty afternoon; the winter sun, already setting, gleamed
+pale on the tops of the garden-shrubs in the "allee defendue." One
+great old pear-tree--the nun's pear-tree--stood up a tall dryad
+skeleton, grey, gaunt, and stripped. A thought struck me--one of those
+queer fantastic thoughts that will sometimes strike solitary people. I
+put on my bonnet, cloak, and furs, and went out into the city.
+
+Bending my steps to the old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax
+and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy
+moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half
+deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's
+shop; an ancient place, full of ancient things. What I wanted was a
+metal box which might be soldered, or a thick glass jar or bottle which
+might be stoppered or sealed hermetically. Amongst miscellaneous heaps,
+I found and purchased the latter article.
+
+I then made a little roll of my letters, wrapped them in oiled silk,
+bound them with twine, and, having put them in the bottle, got the old
+Jew broker to stopper, seal, and make it air-tight. While obeying my
+directions, he glanced at me now and then suspiciously from under his
+frost-white eyelashes. I believe he thought there was some evil deed on
+hand. In all this I had a dreary something--not pleasure--but a sad,
+lonely satisfaction. The impulse under which I acted, the mood
+controlling me, were similar to the impulse and the mood which had
+induced me to visit the confessional. With quick walking I regained the
+pensionnat just at dark, and in time for dinner.
+
+At seven o'clock the moon rose. At half-past seven, when the pupils and
+teachers were at study, and Madame Beck was with her mother and
+children in the salle-a-manger, when the half-boarders were all gone
+home, and Rosine had left the vestibule, and all was still--I shawled
+myself, and, taking the sealed jar, stole out through the first-classe
+door, into the berceau and thence into the "allee defendue."
+
+Methusaleh, the pear-tree, stood at the further end of this walk, near
+my seat: he rose up, dim and gray, above the lower shrubs round him.
+Now Methusaleh, though so very old, was of sound timber still; only
+there was a hole, or rather a deep hollow, near his root. I knew there
+was such a hollow, hidden partly by ivy and creepers growing thick
+round; and there I meditated hiding my treasure. But I was not only
+going to hide a treasure--I meant also to bury a grief. That grief over
+which I had lately been weeping, as I wrapped it in its winding-sheet,
+must be interred.
+
+Well, I cleared away the ivy, and found the hole; it was large enough
+to receive the jar, and I thrust it deep in. In a tool-shed at the
+bottom of the garden, lay the relics of building-materials, left by
+masons lately employed to repair a part of the premises. I fetched
+thence a slate and some mortar, put the slate on the hollow, secured it
+with cement, covered the hole with black mould, and, finally, replaced
+the ivy. This done, I rested, leaning against the tree; lingering, like
+any other mourner, beside a newly-sodded grave.
+
+The air of the night was very still, but dim with a peculiar mist,
+which changed the moonlight into a luminous haze. In this air, or this
+mist, there was some quality--electrical, perhaps--which acted in
+strange sort upon me. I felt then as I had felt a year ago in
+England--on a night when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping
+round heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch
+that mustering of an army with banners--that quivering of serried
+lances--that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to
+the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far
+otherwise, but strong with reinforced strength.
+
+If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I
+pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters--to leave an encampment
+where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another
+pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the
+encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain. But what
+road was open?--what plan available?
+
+On this question I was still pausing, when the moon, so dim hitherto,
+seemed to shine out somewhat brighter: a ray gleamed even white before
+me, and a shadow became distinct and marked. I looked more narrowly, to
+make out the cause of this well-defined contrast appearing a little
+suddenly in the obscure alley: whiter and blacker it grew on my eye: it
+took shape with instantaneous transformation. I stood about three yards
+from a tall, sable-robed, snowy-veiled woman.
+
+Five minutes passed. I neither fled nor shrieked. She was there still.
+I spoke.
+
+"Who are you? and why do you come to me?"
+
+She stood mute. She had no face--no features: all below her brow was
+masked with a white cloth; but she had eyes, and they viewed me.
+
+I felt, if not brave, yet a little desperate; and desperation will
+often suffice to fill the post and do the work of courage. I advanced
+one step. I stretched out my hand, for I meant to touch her. She seemed
+to recede. I drew nearer: her recession, still silent, became swift. A
+mass of shrubs, full-leaved evergreens, laurel and dense yew,
+intervened between me and what I followed. Having passed that obstacle,
+I looked and saw nothing. I waited. I said,--"If you have any errand to
+men, come back and deliver it." Nothing spoke or re-appeared.
+
+This time there was no Dr. John to whom to have recourse: there was no
+one to whom I dared whisper the words, "I have again seen the nun."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paulina Mary sought my frequent presence in the Rue Crecy. In the old
+Bretton days, though she had never professed herself fond of me, my
+society had soon become to her a sort of unconscious necessary. I used
+to notice that if I withdrew to my room, she would speedily come
+trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her
+little peremptory accent,--"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself?
+You must come into the parlour."
+
+In the same spirit she urged me now--"Leave the Rue Fossette," she
+said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than
+Madame Beck gives you."
+
+Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present
+salary--if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I
+declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was,
+and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future
+prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons;
+but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to
+me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
+deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
+gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in
+peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made
+shirts and starved.
+
+I was no bright lady's shadow--not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast
+enough it was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the
+dimness and depression must both be voluntary--such as kept me docile
+at my desk, in the midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame
+Beck's first classe; or alone, at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or
+in the alley and seat which were called mine, in her garden: my
+qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they could not be
+made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage of
+any greatness in Christendom. Madame Beck and I, without assimilating,
+understood each other well. I was not _her_ companion, nor her
+children's governess; she left me free: she tied me to nothing--not to
+herself--not even to her interests: once, when she had for a fortnight
+been called from home by a near relation's illness, and on her return,
+all anxious and full of care about her establishment, lest something in
+her absence should have gone wrong finding that matters had proceeded
+much as usual, and that there was no evidence of glaring neglect--she
+made each of the teachers a present, in acknowledgment of steadiness.
+To my bedside she came at twelve o'clock at night, and told me she had
+no present for me: "I must make fidelity advantageous to the St.
+Pierre," said she; "if I attempt to make it advantageous to you, there
+will arise misunderstanding between us--perhaps separation. One thing,
+however, I _can_ do to please you--leave you alone with your liberty:
+c'est-ce que je ferai." She kept her word. Every slight shackle she had
+ever laid on me, she, from that time, with quiet hand removed. Thus I
+had pleasure in voluntarily respecting her rules: gratification in
+devoting double time, in taking double pains with the pupils she
+committed to my charge.
+
+As to Mary de Bassompierre, I visited her with pleasure, though I would
+not live with her. My visits soon taught me that it was unlikely even
+my occasional and voluntary society would long be indispensable to her.
+M. de Bassompierre, for his part, seemed impervious to this conjecture,
+blind to this possibility; unconscious as any child to the signs, the
+likelihoods, the fitful beginnings of what, when it drew to an end, he
+might not approve.
+
+Whether or not he would cordially approve, I used to speculate.
+Difficult to say. He was much taken up with scientific interests; keen,
+intent, and somewhat oppugnant in what concerned his favourite
+pursuits, but unsuspicious and trustful in the ordinary affairs of
+life. From all I could gather, he seemed to regard his "daughterling"
+as still but a child, and probably had not yet admitted the notion that
+others might look on her in a different light: he would speak of what
+should be done when "Polly" was a woman, when she should be grown up;
+and "Polly," standing beside his chair, would sometimes smile and take
+his honoured head between her little hands, and kiss his iron-grey
+locks; and, at other times, she would pout and toss her curls: but she
+never said, "Papa, I _am_ grown up."
+
+She had different moods for different people. With her father she
+really was still a child, or child-like, affectionate, merry, and
+playful. With me she was serious, and as womanly as thought and feeling
+could make her. With Mrs. Bretton she was docile and reliant, but not
+expansive. With Graham she was shy, at present very shy; at moments she
+tried to be cold; on occasion she endeavoured to shun him. His step
+made her start; his entrance hushed her; when he spoke, her answers
+failed of fluency; when he took leave, she remained self-vexed and
+disconcerted. Even her father noticed this demeanour in her.
+
+"My little Polly," he said once, "you live too retired a life; if you
+grow to be a woman with these shy manners, you will hardly be fitted
+for society. You really make quite a stranger of Dr. Bretton: how is
+this? Don't you remember that, as a little girl, you used to be rather
+partial to him?"
+
+"_Rather_, papa," echoed she, with her slightly dry, yet gentle and
+simple tone.
+
+"And you don't like him now? What has he done?"
+
+"Nothing. Y--e--s, I like him a little; but we are grown strange to
+each other."
+
+"Then rub it off, Polly; rub the rust and the strangeness off. Talk
+away when he is here, and have no fear of him?"
+
+"_He_ does not talk much. Is he afraid of me, do you think, papa?"
+
+"Oh, to be sure, what man would not be afraid of such a little silent
+lady?"
+
+"Then tell him some day not to mind my being silent. Say that it is my
+way, and that I have no unfriendly intention."
+
+"Your way, you little chatter-box? So far from being your way, it is
+only your whim!"
+
+"Well, I'll improve, papa."
+
+And very pretty was the grace with which, the next day, she tried to
+keep her word. I saw her make the effort to converse affably with Dr.
+John on general topics. The attention called into her guest's face a
+pleasurable glow; he met her with caution, and replied to her in his
+softest tones, as if there was a kind of gossamer happiness hanging in
+the air which he feared to disturb by drawing too deep a breath.
+Certainly, in her timid yet earnest advance to friendship, it could not
+be denied that there was a most exquisite and fairy charm.
+
+When the Doctor was gone, she approached her father's chair.
+
+"Did I keep my word, papa? Did I behave better?"
+
+"My Polly behaved like a queen. I shall become quite proud of her if
+this improvement continues. By-and-by we shall see her receiving my
+guests with quite a calm, grand manner. Miss Lucy and I will have to
+look about us, and polish up all our best airs and graces lest we
+should be thrown into the shade. Still, Polly, there is a little
+flutter, a little tendency to stammer now and then, and even, to lisp
+as you lisped when you were six years old."
+
+"No, papa," interrupted she indignantly, "that can't be true."
+
+"I appeal to Miss Lucy. Did she not, in answering Dr. Bretton's
+question as to whether she had ever seen the palace of the Prince of
+Bois l'Etang, say, 'yeth,' she had been there 'theveral' times?"
+
+"Papa, you are satirical, you are mechant! I can pronounce all the
+letters of the alphabet as clearly as you can. But tell me this you are
+very particular in making me be civil to Dr. Bretton, do you like him
+yourself?"
+
+"To be sure: for old acquaintance sake I like him: then he is a very
+good son to his mother; besides being a kind-hearted fellow and clever
+in his profession: yes, the callant is well enough."
+
+"_Callant_! Ah, Scotchman! Papa, is it the Edinburgh or the Aberdeen
+accent you have?"
+
+"Both, my pet, both: and doubtless the Glaswegian into the bargain. It
+is that which enables me to speak French so well: a gude Scots tongue
+always succeeds well at the French."
+
+"_The_ French! Scotch again: incorrigible papa. You, too, need
+schooling."
+
+"Well, Polly, you must persuade Miss Snowe to undertake both you and
+me; to make you steady and womanly, and me refined and classical."
+
+The light in which M. de Bassompierre evidently regarded "Miss Snowe,"
+used to occasion me much inward edification. What contradictory
+attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to
+the eye with which we are viewed! Madame Beck esteemed me learned and
+blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical; Mr. Home, a model
+teacher, the essence of the sedate and discreet: somewhat conventional,
+perhaps, too strict, limited, and scrupulous, but still the pink and
+pattern of governess-correctness; whilst another person, Professor Paul
+Emanuel, to wit, never lost an opportunity of intimating his opinion
+that mine was rather a fiery and rash nature--adventurous, indocile,
+and audacious. I smiled at them all. If any one knew me it was little
+Paulina Mary.
+
+As I would not be Paulina's nominal and paid companion, genial and
+harmonious as I began to find her intercourse, she persuaded me to join
+her in some study, as a regular and settled means of sustaining
+communication: she proposed the German language, which, like myself,
+she found difficult of mastery. We agreed to take our lessons in the
+Rue Crecy of the same mistress; this arrangement threw us together for
+some hours of every week. M. de Bassompierre seemed quite pleased: it
+perfectly met his approbation, that Madame Minerva Gravity should
+associate a portion of her leisure with that of his fair and dear child.
+
+That other self-elected judge of mine, the professor in the Rue
+Fossette, discovering by some surreptitious spying means, that I was no
+longer so stationary as hitherto, but went out regularly at certain
+hours of certain days, took it upon himself to place me under
+surveillance. People said M. Emanuel had been brought up amongst
+Jesuits. I should more readily have accredited this report had his
+manoeuvres been better masked. As it was, I doubted it. Never was a
+more undisguised schemer, a franker, looser intriguer. He would analyze
+his own machinations: elaborately contrive plots, and forthwith indulge
+in explanatory boasts of their skill. I know not whether I was more
+amused or provoked, by his stepping up to me one morning and whispering
+solemnly that he "had his eye on me: _he_ at least would discharge the
+duty of a friend, and not leave me entirely to my own devices. My
+proceedings seemed at present very unsettled: he did not know what to
+make of them: he thought his cousin Beck very much to blame in
+suffering this sort of fluttering inconsistency in a teacher attached
+to her house. What had a person devoted to a serious calling, that of
+education, to do with Counts and Countesses, hotels and chateaux? To
+him, I seemed altogether 'en l'air.' On his faith, he believed I went
+out six days in the seven."
+
+I said, "Monsieur exaggerated. I certainly had enjoyed the advantage of
+a little change lately, but not before it had become necessary; and the
+privilege was by no means exercised in excess."
+
+"Necessary! How was it necessary? I was well enough, he supposed?
+Change necessary! He would recommend me to look at the Catholic
+'religieuses,' and study _their_ lives. _They_ asked no change."
+
+I am no judge of what expression crossed my face when he thus spoke,
+but it was one which provoked him: he accused me of being reckless,
+worldly, and epicurean; ambitious of greatness, and feverishly athirst
+for the pomps and vanities of life. It seems I had no "devouement," no
+"recueillement" in my character; no spirit of grace, faith, sacrifice,
+or self-abasement. Feeling the inutility of answering these charges, I
+mutely continued the correction of a pile of English exercises.
+
+"He could see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I
+revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism."
+
+I slightly turned from him, nestling still closer under the wing of
+silence.
+
+A vague sound grumbled between his teeth; it could not surely be a
+"juron:" he was too religious for that; but I am certain I heard the
+word _sacre_. Grievous to relate, the same word was repeated, with the
+unequivocal addition of _mille_ something, when I passed him about two
+hours afterwards in the corridor, prepared to go and take my German
+lesson in the Rue Crecy. Never was a better little man, in some points,
+than M. Paul: never, in others, a more waspish little despot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our German mistress, Fraeulein Anna Braun, was a worthy, hearty woman,
+of about forty-five; she ought, perhaps, to have lived in the days of
+Queen Elizabeth, as she habitually consumed, for her first and second
+breakfasts, beer and beef: also, her direct and downright Deutsch
+nature seemed to suffer a sensation of cruel restraint from what she
+called our English reserve; though we thought we were very cordial with
+her: but we did not slap her on the shoulder, and if we consented to
+kiss her cheek, it was done quietly, and without any explosive smack.
+These omissions oppressed and depressed her considerably; still, on the
+whole, we got on very well. Accustomed to instruct foreign girls, who
+hardly ever will think and study for themselves--who have no idea of
+grappling with a difficulty, and overcoming it by dint of reflection or
+application--our progress, which in truth was very leisurely, seemed to
+astound her. In her eyes, we were a pair of glacial prodigies, cold,
+proud, and preternatural.
+
+The young Countess _was_ a little proud, a little fastidious: and
+perhaps, with her native delicacy and beauty, she had a right to these
+feelings; but I think it was a total mistake to ascribe them to me. I
+never evaded the morning salute, which Paulina would slip when she
+could; nor was a certain little manner of still disdain a weapon known
+in my armoury of defence; whereas, Paulina always kept it clear, fine,
+and bright, and any rough German sally called forth at once its steelly
+glisten.
+
+Honest Anna Braun, in some measure, felt this difference; and while she
+half-feared, half-worshipped Paulina, as a sort of dainty nymph--an
+Undine--she took refuge with me, as a being all mortal, and of easier
+mood.
+
+A book we liked well to read and translate was Schiller's Ballads;
+Paulina soon learned to read them beautifully; the Fraeulein would
+listen to her with a broad smile of pleasure, and say her voice sounded
+like music. She translated them, too, with a facile flow of language,
+and in a strain of kindred and poetic fervour: her cheek would flush,
+her lips tremblingly smile, her beauteous eyes kindle or melt as she
+went on. She learnt the best by heart, and would often recite them when
+we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des Maedchens Klage:"
+that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody
+in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat
+over the fire one evening:--
+
+  Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zurueck,
+  Ich habe genossen das irdische Glueck,
+    Ich habe gelebt und geliebet!
+
+"Lived and loved!" said she, "is that the summit of earthly happiness,
+the end of life--to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of
+mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of
+feeling. If Schiller had said to _be_ loved, he might have come nearer
+the truth. Is not that another thing, Lucy, to be loved?"
+
+"I suppose it may be: but why consider the subject? What is love to
+you? What do you know about it?"
+
+She crimsoned, half in irritation, half in shame.
+
+"Now, Lucy," she said, "I won't take that from you. It may be well for
+papa to look on me as a baby: I rather prefer that he should thus view
+me; but _you_ know and shall learn to acknowledge that I am verging on
+my nineteenth year."
+
+"No matter if it were your twenty-ninth; we will anticipate no feelings
+by discussion and conversation; we will not talk about love."
+
+"Indeed, indeed!" said she--all in hurry and heat--"you may think to
+check and hold me in, as much as you please; but I _have_ talked about
+it, and heard about it too; and a great deal and lately, and
+disagreeably and detrimentally: and in a way you wouldn't approve."
+
+And the vexed, triumphant, pretty, naughty being laughed. I could not
+discern what she meant, and I would not ask her: I was nonplussed.
+Seeing, however, the utmost innocence in her countenance--combined with
+some transient perverseness and petulance--I said at last,--
+
+"Who talks to you disagreeably and detrimentally on such matters? Who
+that has near access to you would dare to do it?"
+
+"Lucy," replied she more softly, "it is a person who makes me miserable
+sometimes; and I wish she would keep away--I don't want her."
+
+"But who, Paulina, can it be? You puzzle me much."
+
+"It is--it is my cousin Ginevra. Every time she has leave to visit Mrs.
+Cholmondeley she calls here, and whenever she finds me alone she begins
+to talk about her admirers. Love, indeed! You should hear all she has
+to say about love."
+
+"Oh, I have heard it," said I, quite coolly; "and on the whole, perhaps
+it is as well you should have heard it too: it is not to be regretted,
+it is all right. Yet, surely, Ginevra's mind cannot influence yours.
+You can look over both her head and her heart."
+
+"She does influence me very much. She has the art of disturbing my
+happiness and unsettling my opinions. She hurts me through the feelings
+and people dearest to me."
+
+"What does she say, Paulina? Give me some idea. There may be
+counteraction of the damage done."
+
+"The people I have longest and most esteemed are degraded by her. She
+does not spare Mrs. Bretton--she does not spare.... Graham."
+
+"No, I daresay: and how does she mix up these with her sentiment and
+her...._love_? She does mix them, I suppose?"
+
+"Lucy, she is insolent; and, I believe, false. You know Dr. Bretton. We
+both know him. He may be careless and proud; but when was he ever mean
+or slavish? Day after day she shows him to me kneeling at her feet,
+pursuing her like her shadow. She--repulsing him with insult, and he
+imploring her with infatuation. Lucy, is it true? Is any of it true?"
+
+"It may be true that he once thought her handsome: does she give him
+out as still her suitor?"
+
+"She says she might marry him any day: he only waits her consent."
+
+"It is these tales which have caused that reserve in your manner
+towards Graham which your father noticed."
+
+"They have certainly made me all doubtful about his character. As
+Ginevra speaks, they do not carry with them the sound of unmixed truth:
+I believe she exaggerates--perhaps invents--but I want to know how far."
+
+"Suppose we bring Miss Fanshawe to some proof. Give her an opportunity
+of displaying the power she boasts."
+
+"I could do that to-morrow. Papa has asked some gentlemen to dinner,
+all savants. Graham, who, papa is beginning to discover, is a savant,
+too--skilled, they say, in more than one branch of science--is among
+the number. Now I should be miserable to sit at table unsupported,
+amidst such a party. I could not talk to Messieurs A---- and Z----, the
+Parisian Academicians: all my new credit for manner would be put in
+peril. You and Mrs. Bretton must come for my sake; Ginevra, at a word,
+will join you."
+
+"Yes; then I will carry a message of invitation, and she shall have the
+chance of justifying her character for veracity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE HOTEL CRECY.
+
+
+The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we--or than I, at
+least--had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young
+princes of Labassecour--the eldest, I think, the Duc de Dindonneau, and
+a general holiday was given in his honour at the schools, and
+especially at the principal "Athenee," or college. The youth of that
+institution had also concocted, and were to present a loyal address;
+for which purpose they were to be assembled in the public building
+where the yearly examinations were conducted, and the prizes
+distributed. After the ceremony of presentation, an oration, or
+"discours," was to follow from one of the professors.
+
+Several of M. de Bassompierre's friends--the savants--being more or less
+connected with the Athenee, they were expected to attend on this
+occasion; together with the worshipful municipality of Villette, M. le
+Chevalier Staas, the burgomaster, and the parents and kinsfolk of the
+Athenians in general. M. de Bassompierre was engaged by his friends to
+accompany them; his fair daughter would, of course, be of the party,
+and she wrote a little note to Ginevra and myself, bidding us come
+early that we might join her.
+
+As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the Rue
+Fossette, she (Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.
+
+"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging
+her attire, and was gazing at me.
+
+"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest
+half-insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a
+level, visiting in the same sphere; having the same connections."
+
+"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you
+chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never
+have suited me at all."
+
+"Who _are_ you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone of such
+undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn.
+
+"You used to call yourself a nursery governess; when you first came
+here you really had the care of the children in this house: I have seen
+you carry little Georgette in your arms, like a bonne--few governesses
+would have condescended so far--and now Madame Beck treats you with
+more courtesy than she treats the Parisienne, St. Pierre; and that
+proud chit, my cousin, makes you her bosom friend!"
+
+"Wonderful!" I agreed, much amused at her mystification. "Who am I
+indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. Pity I don't look the
+character."
+
+"I wonder you are not more flattered by all this," she went on; "you
+take it with strange composure. If you really are the nobody I once
+thought you, you must be a cool hand."
+
+"The nobody you once thought me!" I repeated, and my face grew a little
+hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-girl's
+crude use of the terms nobody and somebody? I confined myself,
+therefore, to the remark that I had merely met with civility; and asked
+"what she saw in civility to throw the recipient into a fever of
+confusion?"
+
+"One can't help wondering at some things," she persisted.
+
+"Wondering at marvels of your own manufacture. Are you ready at last?"
+
+"Yes; let me take your arm."
+
+"I would rather not: we will walk side by side."
+
+When she took my arm, she always leaned upon me her whole weight; and,
+as I was not a gentleman, or her lover, I did not like it.
+
+"There, again!" she cried. "I thought, by offering to take your arm, to
+intimate approbation of your dress and general appearance: I meant it
+as a compliment."
+
+"You did? You meant, in short, to express that you are not ashamed to
+be seen in the street with me? That if Mrs. Cholmondeley should be
+fondling her lapdog at some window, or Colonel de Hamal picking his
+teeth in a balcony, and should catch a glimpse of us, you would not
+quite blush for your companion?"
+
+"Yes," said she, with that directness which was her best point--which
+gave an honest plainness to her very fibs when she told them--which
+was, in short, the salt, the sole preservative ingredient of a
+character otherwise not formed to keep.
+
+I delegated the trouble of commenting on this "yes" to my countenance;
+or rather, my under-lip voluntarily anticipated my tongue of course,
+reverence and solemnity were not the feelings expressed in the look I
+gave her.
+
+"Scornful, sneering creature!" she went on, as we crossed a great
+square, and entered the quiet, pleasant park, our nearest way to the
+Rue Crecy. "Nobody in this world was ever such a Turk to me as you are!"
+
+"You bring it on yourself: let me alone: have the sense to be quiet: I
+will let you alone."
+
+"As if one _could_ let you alone, when you are so peculiar and so
+mysterious!"
+
+"The mystery and peculiarity being entirely the conception of your own
+brain--maggots--neither more nor less, be so good as to keep them out
+of my sight."
+
+"But _are_ you anybody?" persevered she, pushing her hand, in spite of
+me, under my arm; and that arm pressed itself with inhospitable
+closeness against my side, by way of keeping out the intruder.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am a rising character: once an old lady's companion,
+then a nursery-governess, now a school-teacher."
+
+"Do--_do_ tell me who you are? I'll not repeat it," she urged, adhering
+with ludicrous tenacity to the wise notion of an incognito she had got
+hold of; and she squeezed the arm of which she had now obtained full
+possession, and coaxed and conjured till I was obliged to pause in the
+park to laugh. Throughout our walk she rang the most fanciful changes
+on this theme; proving, by her obstinate credulity, or incredulity, her
+incapacity to conceive how any person not bolstered up by birth or
+wealth, not supported by some consciousness of name or connection,
+could maintain an attitude of reasonable integrity. As for me, it quite
+sufficed to my mental tranquillity that I was known where it imported
+that known I should be; the rest sat on me easily: pedigree, social
+position, and recondite intellectual acquisition, occupied about the
+same space and place in my interests and thoughts; they were my
+third-class lodgers--to whom could be assigned only the small
+sitting-room and the little back bedroom: even if the dining and
+drawing-rooms stood empty, I never confessed it to them, as thinking
+minor accommodations better suited to their circumstances. The world, I
+soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world
+is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong
+in mine.
+
+There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss
+of connection costs loss of self-respect: are not these justified in
+placing the highest value on that station and association which is
+their safeguard from debasement? If a man feels that he would become
+contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry
+were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not
+capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these
+fatal facts out of sight--for starting, trembling, quailing at the
+chance which threatens exposure? The longer we live, the more out
+experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's
+conduct, to question the world's wisdom: wherever an accumulation of
+small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the
+man of the world's respectability, there, be sure, it is needed.
+
+We reached the Hotel Crecy; Paulina was ready; Mrs. Bretton was with
+her; and, under her escort and that of M. de Bassompierre, we were soon
+conducted to the place of assembly, and seated in good seats, at a
+convenient distance from the Tribune. The youth of the Athenee were
+marshalled before us, the municipality and their bourgmestre were in
+places of honour, the young princes, with their tutors, occupied a
+conspicuous position, and the body of the building was crowded with the
+aristocracy and first burghers of the town.
+
+Concerning the identity of the professor by whom the "discours" was to
+be delivered, I had as yet entertained neither care nor question. Some
+vague expectation I had that a savant would stand up and deliver a
+formal speech, half dogmatism to the Athenians, half flattery to the
+princes.
+
+The Tribune was yet empty when we entered, but in ten minutes after it
+was filled; suddenly, in a second of time, a head, chest, and arms grew
+above the crimson desk. This head I knew: its colour, shape, port,
+expression, were familiar both to me and Miss Fanshawe; the blackness
+and closeness of cranium, the amplitude and paleness of brow, the
+blueness and fire of glance, were details so domesticated in the
+memory, and so knit with many a whimsical association, as almost by
+this their sudden apparition, to tickle fancy to a laugh. Indeed, I
+confess, for my part, I did laugh till I was warm; but then I bent my
+head, and made my handkerchief and a lowered veil the sole confidants
+of my mirth.
+
+I think I was glad to see M. Paul; I think it was rather pleasant than
+otherwise, to behold him set up there, fierce and frank, dark and
+candid, testy and fearless, as when regnant on his estrade in class.
+His presence was such a surprise: I had not once thought of expecting
+him, though I knew he filled the chair of Belles Lettres in the
+college. With _him_ in that Tribune, I felt sure that neither formalism
+nor flattery would be our doom; but for what was vouchsafed us, for
+what was poured suddenly, rapidly, continuously, on our heads--I own I
+was not prepared.
+
+He spoke to the princes, the nobles, the magistrates, and the burghers,
+with just the same ease, with almost the same pointed, choleric
+earnestness, with which he was wont to harangue the three divisions of
+the Rue Fossette. The collegians he addressed, not as schoolboys, but
+as future citizens and embryo patriots. The times which have since come
+on Europe had not been foretold yet, and M. Emanuel's spirit seemed new
+to me. Who would have thought the flat and fat soil of Labassecour
+could yield political convictions and national feelings, such as were
+now strongly expressed? Of the bearing of his opinions I need here give
+no special indication; yet it may be permitted me to say that I
+believed the little man not more earnest than right in what he said:
+with all his fire he was severe and sensible; he trampled Utopian
+theories under his heel; he rejected wild dreams with scorn;--but when
+he looked in the face of tyranny--oh, then there opened a light in his
+eye worth seeing; and when he spoke of injustice, his voice gave no
+uncertain sound, but reminded me rather of the band-trumpet, ringing at
+twilight from the park.
+
+I do not think his audience were generally susceptible of sharing his
+flame in its purity; but some of the college youth caught fire as he
+eloquently told them what should be their path and endeavour in their
+country's and in Europe's future. They gave him a long, loud, ringing
+cheer, as he concluded: with all his fierceness, he was their favourite
+professor.
+
+As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and knew
+me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the
+words "Qu'en dites vous?"--question eminently characteristic, and
+reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive
+restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control,
+which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just then to
+ask what I thought, or what anybody thought, but he _did_ care, and he
+was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well! if
+I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his _naivete_. I would have
+praised him: I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on
+my lips. Who _has_ words at the right moment? I stammered some lame
+expressions; but was truly glad when other people, coming up with
+profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.
+
+A gentleman introduced him to M. de Bassompierre; and the Count, who
+had likewise been highly gratified, asked him to join his friends (for
+the most part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the
+Hotel Crecy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy
+at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy
+independence in the stringing of his sinews--not obtrusive, but
+pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his
+character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A----,
+a French Academician, in the course of the evening.
+
+At dinner that day, Ginevra and Paulina each looked, in her own way,
+very beautiful; the former, perhaps, boasted the advantage in material
+charms, but the latter shone pre-eminent for attractions more subtle
+and spiritual: for light and eloquence of eye, for grace of mien, for
+winning variety of expression. Ginevra's dress of deep crimson relieved
+well her light curls, and harmonized with her rose-like bloom.
+Paulina's attire--in fashion close, though faultlessly neat, but in
+texture clear and white--made the eye grateful for the delicate life of
+her complexion, for the soft animation of her countenance, for the
+tender depth of her eyes, for the brown shadow and bounteous flow of
+her hair--darker than that of her Saxon cousin, as were also her
+eyebrows, her eyelashes, her full irids, and large mobile pupils.
+Nature having traced all these details slightly, and with a careless
+hand, in Miss Fanshawe's case; and in Miss de Bassompierre's, wrought
+them to a high and delicate finish.
+
+Paulina was awed by the savants, but not quite to mutism: she conversed
+modestly, diffidently; not without effort, but with so true a
+sweetness, so fine and penetrating a sense, that her father more than
+once suspended his own discourse to listen, and fixed on her an eye of
+proud delight. It was a polite Frenchman, M. Z----, a very learned, but
+quite a courtly man, who had drawn her into discourse. I was charmed
+with her French; it was faultless--the structure correct, the idioms
+true, the accent pure; Ginevra, who had lived half her life on the
+Continent, could do nothing like it not that words ever failed Miss
+Fanshawe, but real accuracy and purity she neither possessed, nor in
+any number of years would acquire. Here, too, M. de Bassompierre was
+gratified; for, on the point of language, he was critical.
+
+Another listener and observer there was; one who, detained by some
+exigency of his profession, had come in late to dinner. Both ladies
+were quietly scanned by Dr. Bretton, at the moment of taking his seat
+at the table; and that guarded survey was more than once renewed. His
+arrival roused Miss Fanshawe, who had hitherto appeared listless: she
+now became smiling and complacent, talked--though what she said was
+rarely to the purpose--or rather, was of a purpose somewhat
+mortifyingly below the standard of the occasion. Her light,
+disconnected prattle might have gratified Graham once; perhaps it
+pleased him still: perhaps it was only fancy which suggested the
+thought that, while his eye was filled and his ear fed, his taste, his
+keen zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and
+regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the demand
+on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required: his
+manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his neighbour,
+and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined his notice.
+She appeared satisfied, and passed to the drawing-room in very good
+spirits.
+
+Yet, no sooner had we reached that place of refuge, than she again
+became flat and listless: throwing herself on a couch, she denounced
+both the "discours" and the dinner as stupid affairs, and inquired of
+her cousin how she could hear such a set of prosaic "gros-bonnets" as
+her father gathered about him. The moment the gentlemen were heard to
+move, her railings ceased: she started up, flew to the piano, and
+dashed at it with spirit. Dr. Bretton entering, one of the first, took
+up his station beside her. I thought he would not long maintain that
+post: there was a position near the hearth to which I expected to see
+him attracted: this position he only scanned with his eye; while _he_
+looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina charmed these
+thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the soft courtesy of
+her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact, pleased their
+national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to talk science;
+which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many subjects in
+letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon appeared that she
+had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure that though Graham
+stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well as his vision was
+very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered the conversation;
+I felt that the mode in which it was sustained suited him
+exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.
+
+In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
+most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
+show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there
+is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement,
+without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well
+might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless
+tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature.
+For a little while, the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round
+weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it soon fades, even in serenest
+sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered
+of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I who
+had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong
+root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.
+
+While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
+his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance
+on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de
+Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a
+two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a
+tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how
+I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
+thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
+me--a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
+silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
+were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
+forms--studied both faces.
+
+Several new guests, ladies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
+since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the
+gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
+glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
+inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen
+present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting
+myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and
+naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton
+also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there
+would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding
+back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so
+ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph
+Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very
+moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch
+succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the
+instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!
+
+"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
+glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe is
+certainly a fine girl."
+
+Of course I assented.
+
+"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"
+
+"I think there is not another as handsome."
+
+"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste,
+I think; or at least in judgment."
+
+"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
+god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
+our opinions would have melted into each other."
+
+He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
+shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
+solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
+Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same
+but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would
+your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they
+actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer
+blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was
+a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if a cloud
+crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand
+more at fault than you.
+
+Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my
+heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
+others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
+more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
+calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"
+
+"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
+for the possession; yet I have it."
+
+"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
+estimate them differently?"
+
+"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
+to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the
+room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A----
+and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?"
+
+"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
+A---- and Z----."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
+now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."
+
+"You don't remember her as a child?"
+
+"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."
+
+"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
+persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under
+certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind,
+revive."
+
+"That is possible enough."
+
+"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
+partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of
+a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
+corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
+Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
+stay with mamma?"
+
+"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."
+
+"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
+I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly
+about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't recollect
+me, of course?"
+
+"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
+personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."
+
+"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What
+am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"
+
+"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."
+
+"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
+instance."
+
+"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality."
+
+"_This_, however, I _do_ remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of
+my grace."
+
+"As little of your cruelty."
+
+"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being
+inoffensive as a shadow."
+
+I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!--I just wished he would let me
+alone--cease allusion to me. These epithets--these attributes I put
+from me. His "quiet Lucy Snowe," his "inoffensive shadow," I gave him
+back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness: theirs was the
+coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such
+weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.
+
+"On what terms were 'little Polly' and I? Unless my recollections
+deceive me, we were not foes--"
+
+"You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly's memory, not more
+definite?"
+
+"Oh! we don't talk of 'little Polly' _now_. Pray say, Miss de
+Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers
+nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word
+in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a
+horn-book? She does not know that I partly taught her to read."
+
+"In the Bible on Sunday nights?"
+
+"She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little
+restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child's
+preference--what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of
+me!"
+
+"I think she was in some measure fond of you," said I, moderately.
+
+"You don't remember then? _I_ had forgotten; but I remember _now_. She
+liked me the best of whatever there was at Bretton."
+
+"You thought so."
+
+"I quite well recall it. I wish I could tell her all I recall; or
+rather, I wish some one, you for instance, would go behind and whisper
+it all in her ear, and I could have the delight--here, as I sit--of
+watching her look under the intelligence. Could you manage that, think
+you, Lucy, and make me ever grateful?"
+
+"Could I manage to make you ever grateful?" said I. "No, _I could
+not_." And I felt my fingers work and my hands interlock: I felt, too,
+an inward courage, warm and resistant. In this matter I was not
+disposed to gratify Dr. John: not at all. With now welcome force, I
+realized his entire misapprehension of my character and nature. He
+wanted always to give me a role not mine. Nature and I opposed him. He
+did not at all guess what I felt: he did not read my eyes, or face, or
+gestures; though, I doubt not, all spoke. Leaning towards me coaxingly,
+he said, softly, "_Do_ content me, Lucy."
+
+And I would have contented, or, at least, I would clearly have
+enlightened him, and taught him well never again to expect of me the
+part of officious soubrette in a love drama; when, following his, soft,
+eager, murmur, meeting almost his pleading, mellow--"_Do_ content me,
+Lucy!" a sharp hiss pierced my ear on the other side.
+
+"Petite chatte, doucerette, coquette!" sibillated the sudden
+boa-constrictor; "vous avez l'air bien triste, soumis, reveur, mais
+vous ne l'etes pas: c'est moi qui vous le dis: Sauvage! la flamme a
+l'ame, l'eclair aux yeux!"
+
+"Oui; j'ai la flamme a l'ame, et je dois l'avoir!" retorted I, turning
+in just wrath: but Professor Emanuel had hissed his insult and was gone.
+
+The worst of the matter was, that Dr. Bretton, whose ears, as I have
+said, were quick and fine, caught every word of this apostrophe; he put
+his handkerchief to his face, and laughed till he shook.
+
+"Well done, Lucy," cried he; "capital! petite chatte, petite coquette!
+Oh, I must tell my mother! Is it true, Lucy, or half-true? I believe it
+is: you redden to the colour of Miss Fanshawe's gown. And really, by my
+word, now I examine him, that is the same little man who was so savage
+with you at the concert: the very same, and in his soul he is frantic
+at this moment because he sees me laughing. Oh! I must tease him."
+
+And Graham, yielding to his bent for mischief, laughed, jested, and
+whispered on till I could bear no more, and my eyes filled.
+
+Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de
+Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This
+movement was instantly caught by Graham's eye--ever-vigilant, even
+while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed the
+room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole
+life, was a man of luck--a man of success. And why? Because he had the
+eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action,
+the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged
+him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he
+looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached her
+side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated,
+yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a
+glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and
+unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I
+gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my observation--time
+failed me, had inclination served: the night wore late; Ginevra and I
+ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I rose, and bade
+good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.
+
+I know not whether Professor Emanuel had noticed my reluctant
+acceptance of Dr. Bretton's badinage, or whether he perceived that I
+was pained, and that, on the whole, the evening had not been one flow
+of exultant enjoyment for the volatile, pleasure-loving Mademoiselle
+Lucie; but, as I was leaving the room, he stepped up and inquired
+whether I had any one to attend me to the Rue Fossette. The professor
+_now_ spoke politely, and even deferentially, and he looked apologetic
+and repentant; but I could not recognise his civility at a word, nor
+meet his contrition with crude, premature oblivion. Never hitherto had
+I felt seriously disposed to resent his brusqueries, or freeze before
+his fierceness; what he had said to-night, however, I considered
+unwarranted: my extreme disapprobation of the proceeding must be
+marked, however slightly. I merely said:--"I am provided with
+attendance."
+
+Which was true, as Ginevra and I were to be sent home in the carriage;
+and I passed him with the sliding obeisance with which he was wont to
+be saluted in classe by pupils crossing his estrade.
+
+Having sought my shawl, I returned to the vestibule. M. Emanuel stood
+there as if waiting. He observed that the night was fine.
+
+"Is it?" I said, with a tone and manner whose consummate chariness and
+frostiness I could not but applaud. It was so seldom I could properly
+act out my own resolution to be reserved and cool where I had been
+grieved or hurt, that I felt almost proud of this one successful
+effort. That "Is it?" sounded just like the manner of other people. I
+had heard hundreds of such little minced, docked, dry phrases, from the
+pursed-up coral lips of a score of self-possessed, self-sufficing
+misses and mesdemoiselles. That M. Paul would not stand any prolonged
+experience of this sort of dialogue I knew; but he certainly merited a
+sample of the curt and arid. I believe he thought so himself, for he
+took the dose quietly. He looked at my shawl and objected to its
+lightness. I decidedly told him it was as heavy as I wished. Receding
+aloof, and standing apart, I leaned on the banister of the stairs,
+folded my shawl about me, and fixed my eyes on a dreary religious
+painting darkening the wall.
+
+Ginevra was long in coming: tedious seemed her loitering. M. Paul was
+still there; my ear expected from his lips an angry tone. He came
+nearer. "Now for another hiss!" thought I: had not the action been too
+uncivil I could have, stopped my ears with my fingers in terror of the
+thrill. Nothing happens as we expect: listen for a coo or a murmur; it
+is then you will hear a cry of prey or pain. Await a piercing shriek,
+an angry threat, and welcome an amicable greeting, a low kind whisper.
+M. Paul spoke gently:--"Friends," said he, "do not quarrel for a word.
+Tell me, was it I or ce grand fat d'Anglais" (so he profanely
+denominated Dr. Bretton), "who made your eyes so humid, and your cheeks
+so hot as they are even now?"
+
+"I am not conscious of you, monsieur, or of any other having excited
+such emotion as you indicate," was my answer; and in giving it, I again
+surpassed my usual self, and achieved a neat, frosty falsehood.
+
+"But what did I say?" he pursued; "tell me: I was angry: I have
+forgotten my words; what were they?"
+
+"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
+
+"Then it was _my_ words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit
+my retractation; accord my pardon."
+
+"I am not angry, Monsieur."
+
+"Then you are worse than angry--grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
+
+"M. Emanuel, I _do_ forgive you."
+
+"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that
+alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
+
+He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his
+simplicity, his earnestness?
+
+"Bon!" he cried. "Voila que le jour va poindre! Dites donc, mon ami."
+
+"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
+
+"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe
+you sincere: another effort--_mon ami_, or else in English,--my friend!"
+
+Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy than "_mon
+ami_;" it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate
+affection; "_mon ami_" I could _not_ say to M. Paul; "my friend," I
+could, and did say without difficulty. This distinction existed not for
+him, however, and he was quite satisfied with the English phrase. He
+smiled. You should have seen him smile, reader; and you should have
+marked the difference between his countenance now, and that he wore
+half an hour ago. I cannot affirm that I had ever witnessed the smile
+of pleasure, or content, or kindness round M. Paul's lips, or in his
+eyes before. The ironic, the sarcastic, the disdainful, the
+passionately exultant, I had hundreds of times seen him express by what
+he called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer
+feelings struck me as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a
+mask to a face: the deep lines left his features; the very complexion
+seemed clearer and fresher; that swart, sallow, southern darkness which
+spoke his Spanish blood, became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not
+that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis
+from a similar cause. He now took me to the carriage: at the same
+moment M. de Bassompierre came out with his niece.
+
+In a pretty humour was Mistress Fanshawe; she had found the evening a
+grand failure: completely upset as to temper, she gave way to the most
+uncontrolled moroseness as soon as we were seated, and the
+carriage-door closed. Her invectives against Dr. Bretton had something
+venomous in them. Having found herself impotent either to charm or
+sting him, hatred was her only resource; and this hatred she expressed
+in terms so unmeasured and proportion so monstrous, that, after
+listening for a while with assumed stoicism, my outraged sense of
+justice at last and suddenly caught fire. An explosion ensued: for I
+could be passionate, too; especially with my present fair but faulty
+associate, who never failed to stir the worst dregs of me. It was well
+that the carriage-wheels made a tremendous rattle over the flinty
+Choseville pavement, for I can assure the reader there was neither dead
+silence nor calm discussion within the vehicle. Half in earnest, half
+in seeming, I made it my business to storm down Ginevra. She had set
+out rampant from the Rue Crecy; it was necessary to tame her before we
+reached the Rue Fossette: to this end it was indispensable to show up
+her sterling value and high deserts; and this must be done in language
+of which the fidelity and homeliness might challenge comparison with
+the compliments of a John Knox to a Mary Stuart. This was the right
+discipline for Ginevra; it suited her. I am quite sure she went to bed
+that night all the better and more settled in mind and mood, and slept
+all the more sweetly for having undergone a sound moral drubbing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE WATCHGUARD.
+
+
+M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of
+interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to
+pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered by the
+teachers and pupils of the school, individually and collectively, to be
+as much as a woman's or girl's life was worth.
+
+Madame Beck herself, if forced to the enterprise, would "skurry"
+through, retrenching her skirts, and carefully coasting the formidable
+estrade, like a ship dreading breakers. As to Rosine, the portress--on
+whom, every half-hour, devolved the fearful duty of fetching pupils out
+of the very heart of one or other of the divisions to take their
+music-lessons in the oratory, the great or little saloon, the
+salle-a-manger, or some other piano-station--she would, upon her second
+or third attempt, frequently become almost tongue-tied from excess of
+consternation--a sentiment inspired by the unspeakable looks levelled
+at her through a pair of dart-dealing spectacles.
+
+One morning I was sitting in the carre, at work upon a piece of
+embroidery which one of the pupils had commenced but delayed to finish,
+and while my fingers wrought at the frame, my ears regaled themselves
+with listening to the crescendos and cadences of a voice haranguing in
+the neighbouring classe, in tones that waxed momentarily more unquiet,
+more ominously varied. There was a good strong partition-wall between
+me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile means of flight through
+the glass-door to the court, in case it swept this way; so I am afraid
+I derived more amusement than alarm from these thickening symptoms.
+Poor Rosine was not safe: four times that blessed morning had she made
+the passage of peril; and now, for the fifth time, it became her
+dangerous duty to snatch, as it were, a brand from the burning--a pupil
+from under M. Paul's nose.
+
+"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried she. "Que vais-je devenir? Monsieur va me
+tuer, je suis sure; car il est d'une colere!"
+
+Nerved by the courage of desperation, she opened the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle La Malle au piano!" was her cry.
+
+Ere she could make good her retreat, or quite close the door, this
+voice uttered itself:--
+
+"Des ce moment!--la classe est defendue. La premiere qui ouvrira cette
+porte, ou passera par cette division, sera pendue--fut-ce Madame Beck
+elle-meme!"
+
+Ten minutes had not succeeded the promulgation of this decree when
+Rosine's French pantoufles were again heard shuffling along the
+corridor.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I would not for a five-franc piece go into
+that classe again just now: Monsieur's lunettes are really terrible;
+and here is a commissionaire come with a message from the Athenee. I
+have told Madame Beck I dare not deliver it, and she says I am to
+charge you with it."
+
+"Me? No, that is rather too bad! It is not in my line of duty. Come,
+come, Rosine! bear your own burden. Be brave--charge once more!"
+
+"I, Mademoiselle?--impossible! Five times I have crossed him this day.
+Madame must really hire a gendarme for this service. Ouf! Je n'en puis
+plus!"
+
+"Bah! you are only a coward. What is the message?"
+
+"Precisely of the kind with which Monsieur least likes to be pestered:
+an urgent summons to go directly to the Athenee, as there is an
+official visitor--inspector--I know not what--arrived, and Monsieur
+_must_ meet him: you know how he hates a _must_."
+
+Yes, I knew well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb:
+against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt.
+However, I accepted the responsibility--not, certainly, without fear,
+but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst them. I opened
+the door, I entered, I closed it behind me as quickly and quietly as a
+rather unsteady hand would permit; for to be slow or bustling, to
+rattle a latch, or leave a door gaping wide, were aggravations of crime
+often more disastrous in result than the main crime itself. There I
+stood then, and there he sat; his humour was visibly bad--almost at its
+worst; he had been giving a lesson in arithmetic--for he gave lessons
+on any and every subject that struck his fancy--and arithmetic being a
+dry subject, invariably disagreed with him: not a pupil but trembled
+when he spoke of figures. He sat, bent above his desk: to look up at
+the sound of an entrance, at the occurrence of a direct breach of his
+will and law, was an effort he could not for the moment bring himself
+to make. It was quite as well: I thus gained time to walk up the long
+classe; and it suited my idiosyncracy far better to encounter the near
+burst of anger like his, than to bear its menace at a distance.
+
+At his estrade I paused, just in front; of course I was not worthy of
+immediate attention: he proceeded with his lesson. Disdain would not
+do: he must hear and he must answer my message.
+
+Not being quite tall enough to lift my head over his desk, elevated
+upon the estrade, and thus suffering eclipse in my present position, I
+ventured to peep round, with the design, at first, of merely getting a
+better view of his face, which had struck me when I entered as bearing
+a close and picturesque resemblance to that of a black and sallow
+tiger. Twice did I enjoy this side-view with impunity, advancing and
+receding unseen; the third time my eye had scarce dawned beyond the
+obscuration of the desk, when it was caught and transfixed through its
+very pupil--transfixed by the "lunettes." Rosine was right; these
+utensils had in them a blank and immutable terror, beyond the mobile
+wrath of the wearer's own unglazed eyes.
+
+I now found the advantage of proximity: these short-sighted "lunettes"
+were useless for the inspection of a criminal under Monsieur's nose;
+accordingly, he doffed them, and he and I stood on more equal terms.
+
+I am glad I was not really much afraid of him--that, indeed, close in
+his presence, I felt no terror at all; for upon his demanding cord and
+gibbet to execute the sentence recently pronounced, I was able to
+furnish him with a needleful of embroidering thread with such
+accommodating civility as could not but allay some portion at least of
+his surplus irritation. Of course I did not parade this courtesy before
+public view: I merely handed the thread round the angle of the desk,
+and attached it, ready noosed, to the barred back of the Professor's
+chair.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said he in a growl of which the music was wholly
+confined to his chest and throat, for he kept his teeth clenched; and
+seemed registering to himself an inward vow that nothing earthly should
+wring from him a smile.
+
+My answer commenced uncompromisingly: "Monsieur," I said, "je veux
+l'impossible, des choses inouies;" and thinking it best not to mince
+matters, but to administer the "douche" with decision, in a low but
+quick voice, I delivered the Athenian message, floridly exaggerating
+its urgency.
+
+Of course, he would not hear a word of it. "He would not go; he would
+not leave his present class, let all the officials of Villette send for
+him. He would not put himself an inch out of his way at the bidding of
+king, cabinet, and chambers together."
+
+I knew, however, that he _must_ go; that, talk as he would, both his
+duty and interest commanded an immediate and literal compliance with
+the summons: I stood, therefore, waiting in silence, as if he had not
+yet spoken. He asked what more I wanted.
+
+"Only Monsieur's answer to deliver to the commissionaire."
+
+He waved an impatient negative.
+
+I ventured to stretch my hand to the bonnet-grec which lay in grim
+repose on the window-sill. He followed this daring movement with his
+eye, no doubt in mixed pity and amazement at its presumption.
+
+"Ah!" he muttered, "if it came to that--if Miss Lucy meddled with his
+bonnet-grec--she might just put it on herself, turn garcon for the
+occasion, and benevolently go to the Athenee in his stead."
+
+With great respect, I laid the bonnet on the desk, where its tassel
+seemed to give me an awful nod.
+
+"I'll write a note of apology--that will do!" said he, still bent on
+evasion.
+
+Knowing well it would _not_ do, I gently pushed the bonnet towards his
+hand. Thus impelled, it slid down the polished slope of the varnished
+and unbaized desk, carried before it the light steel-framed "lunettes,"
+and, fearful to relate, they fell to the estrade. A score of times ere
+now had I seen them fall and receive no damage--_this_ time, as Lucy
+Snowe's hapless luck would have it, they so fell that each clear pebble
+became a shivered and shapeless star.
+
+Now, indeed, dismay seized me--dismay and regret. I knew the value of
+these "lunettes": M. Paul's sight was peculiar, not easily fitted, and
+these glasses suited him. I had heard him call them his treasures: as I
+picked them up, cracked and worthless, my hand trembled. Frightened
+through all my nerves I was to see the mischief I had done, but I think
+I was even more sorry than afraid. For some seconds I dared not look
+the bereaved Professor in the face; he was the first to speak.
+
+"La!" said he: "me voila veuf de mes lunettes! I think Mademoiselle
+Lucy will now confess that the cord and gallows are amply earned; she
+trembles in anticipation of her doom. Ah, traitress! traitress! You are
+resolved to have me quite blind and helpless in your hands!"
+
+I lifted my eyes: his face, instead of being irate, lowering, and
+furrowed, was overflowing with the smile, coloured with the bloom I had
+seen brightening it that evening at the Hotel Crecy. He was not
+angry--not even grieved. For the real injury he showed himself full of
+clemency; under the real provocation, patient as a saint. This event,
+which seemed so untoward--which I thought had ruined at once my chance
+of successful persuasion--proved my best help. Difficult of management
+so long as I had done him no harm, he became graciously pliant as soon
+as I stood in his presence a conscious and contrite offender.
+
+Still gently railing at me as "une forte femme--une Anglaise
+terrible--une petite casse-tout"--he declared that he dared not but
+obey one who had given such an instance of her dangerous prowess; it
+was absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire
+dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and taking
+his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon and
+encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athenee in
+first-rate humour and spirits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After all this amiability, the reader will be sorry for my sake to hear
+that I was quarrelling with M. Paul again before night; yet so it was,
+and I could not help it.
+
+It was his occasional custom--and a very laudable, acceptable custom,
+too--to arrive of an evening, always a l'improviste, unannounced, burst
+in on the silent hour of study, establish a sudden despotism over us
+and our occupations, cause books to be put away, work-bags to be
+brought out, and, drawing forth a single thick volume, or a handful of
+pamphlets, substitute for the besotted "lecture pieuse," drawled by a
+sleepy pupil, some tragedy made grand by grand reading, ardent by fiery
+action--some drama, whereof, for my part, I rarely studied the
+intrinsic merit; for M. Emanuel made it a vessel for an outpouring, and
+filled it with his native verve and passion like a cup with a vital
+brewage. Or else he would flash through our conventual darkness a
+reflex of a brighter world, show us a glimpse of the current literature
+of the day, read us passages from some enchanting tale, or the last
+witty feuilleton which had awakened laughter in the saloons of Paris;
+taking care always to expunge, with the severest hand, whether from
+tragedy, melodrama, tale, or essay, whatever passage, phrase, or word,
+could be deemed unsuited to an audience of "jeunes filles." I noticed
+more than once, that where retrenchment without substitute would have
+left unmeaning vacancy, or introduced weakness, he could, and did,
+improvise whole paragraphs, no less vigorous than irreproachable; the
+dialogue--the description--he engrafted was often far better than that
+he pruned away.
+
+Well, on the evening in question, we were sitting silent as nuns in a
+"retreat," the pupils studying, the teachers working. I remember my
+work; it was a slight matter of fancy, and it rather interested me; it
+had a purpose; I was not doing it merely to kill time; I meant it when
+finished as a gift; and the occasion of presentation being near, haste
+was requisite, and my fingers were busy.
+
+We heard the sharp bell-peal which we all knew; then the rapid step
+familiar to each ear: the words "Voila Monsieur!" had scarcely broken
+simultaneously from every lip, when the two-leaved door split (as split
+it always did for his admission--such a slow word as "open" is
+inefficient to describe his movements), and he stood in the midst of us.
+
+There were two study tables, both long and flanked with benches; over
+the centre of each hung a lamp; beneath this lamp, on either side the
+table, sat a teacher; the girls were arranged to the right hand and the
+left; the eldest and most studious nearest the lamps or tropics; the
+idlers and little ones towards the north and south poles. Monsieur's
+habit was politely to hand a chair to some teacher, generally Zelie St.
+Pierre, the senior mistress; then to take her vacated seat; and thus
+avail himself of the full beam of Cancer or Capricorn, which, owing to
+his near sight, he needed.
+
+As usual, Zelie rose with alacrity, smiling to the whole extent of her
+mouth, and the full display of her upper and under rows of teeth--that
+strange smile which passes from ear to ear, and is marked only by a
+sharp thin curve, which fails to spread over the countenance, and
+neither dimples the cheek nor lights the eye. I suppose Monsieur did
+not see her, or he had taken a whim that he would not notice her, for
+he was as capricious as women are said to be; then his "lunettes" (he
+had got another pair) served him as an excuse for all sorts of little
+oversights and shortcomings. Whatever might be his reason, he passed by
+Zelie, came to the other side of the table, and before I could start up
+to clear the way, whispered, "Ne bougez pas," and established himself
+between me and Miss Fanshawe, who always would be my neighbour, and
+have her elbow in my side, however often I declared to her, "Ginevra, I
+wish you were at Jericho."
+
+It was easy to say, "Ne bougez pas;" but how could I help it? I must
+make him room, and I must request the pupils to recede that _I_ might
+recede. It was very well for Ginevra to be gummed to me, "keeping
+herself warm," as she said, on the winter evenings, and harassing my
+very heart with her fidgetings and pokings, obliging me, indeed,
+sometimes to put an artful pin in my girdle by way of protection
+against her elbow; but I suppose M. Emanuel was not to be subjected to
+the same kind of treatment, so I swept away my working materials, to
+clear space for his book, and withdrew myself to make room for his
+person; not, however, leaving more than a yard of interval, just what
+any reasonable man would have regarded as a convenient, respectful
+allowance of bench. But M. Emanuel never _was_ reasonable; flint and
+tinder that he was! he struck and took fire directly.
+
+"Vous ne voulez pas de moi pour voisin," he growled: "vous vous donnez
+des airs de caste; vous me traitez en paria;" he scowled. "Soit! je
+vais arranger la chose!" And he set to work.
+
+"Levez vous toutes, Mesdemoiselles!" cried he.
+
+The girls rose. He made them all file off to the other table. He then
+placed me at one extremity of the long bench, and having duly and
+carefully brought me my work-basket, silk, scissors, all my implements,
+he fixed himself quite at the other end.
+
+At this arrangement, highly absurd as it was, not a soul in the room
+dared to laugh; luckless for the giggler would have been the giggle. As
+for me, I took it with entire coolness. There I sat, isolated and cut
+off from human intercourse; I sat and minded my work, and was quiet,
+and not at all unhappy.
+
+"Est ce assez de distance?" he demanded.
+
+"Monsieur en est l'arbitre," said I.
+
+"Vous savez bien que non. C'est vous qui avez cree ce vide immense: moi
+je n'y ai pas mis la main."
+
+And with this assertion he commenced the reading.
+
+For his misfortune he had chosen a French translation of what he called
+"un drame de Williams Shackspire; le faux dieu," he further announced,
+"de ces sots paiens, les Anglais." How far otherwise he would have
+characterized him had his temper not been upset, I scarcely need
+intimate.
+
+Of course, the translation being French, was very inefficient; nor did
+I make any particular effort to conceal the contempt which some of its
+forlorn lapses were calculated to excite. Not that it behoved or
+beseemed me to say anything: but one can occasionally _look_ the
+opinion it is forbidden to embody in words. Monsieur's lunettes being
+on the alert, he gleaned up every stray look; I don't think he lost
+one: the consequence was, his eyes soon discarded a screen, that their
+blaze might sparkle free, and he waxed hotter at the north pole to
+which he had voluntarily exiled himself, than, considering the general
+temperature of the room, it would have been reasonable to become under
+the vertical ray of Cancer itself.
+
+The reading over, it appeared problematic whether he would depart with
+his anger unexpressed, or whether he would give it vent. Suppression
+was not much in his habits; but still, what had been done to him
+definite enough to afford matter for overt reproof? I had not uttered a
+sound, and could not justly be deemed amenable to reprimand or penalty
+for having permitted a slightly freer action than usual to the muscles
+about my eyes and mouth.
+
+The supper, consisting of bread, and milk diluted with tepid water, was
+brought in. In respectful consideration of the Professor's presence,
+the rolls and glasses were allowed to stand instead of being
+immediately handed round.
+
+"Take your supper, ladies," said he, seeming to be occupied in making
+marginal notes to his "Williams Shackspire." They took it. I also
+accepted a roll and glass, but being now more than ever interested in
+my work, I kept my seat of punishment, and wrought while I munched my
+bread and sipped my beverage, the whole with easy _sang-froid_; with a
+certain snugness of composure, indeed, scarcely in my habits, and
+pleasantly novel to my feelings. It seemed as if the presence of a
+nature so restless, chafing, thorny as that of M. Paul absorbed all
+feverish and unsettling influences like a magnet, and left me none but
+such as were placid and harmonious.
+
+He rose. "Will he go away without saying another word?" Yes; he turned
+to the door.
+
+No: he _re_-turned on his steps; but only, perhaps, to take his
+pencil-case, which had been left on the table.
+
+He took it--shut the pencil in and out, broke its point against the
+wood, re-cut and pocketed it, and . . . walked promptly up to me.
+
+The girls and teachers, gathered round the other table, were talking
+pretty freely: they always talked at meals; and, from the constant
+habit of speaking fast and loud at such times, did not now subdue their
+voices much.
+
+M. Paul came and stood behind me. He asked at what I was working; and I
+said I was making a watchguard.
+
+He asked, "For whom?" And I answered, "For a gentleman--one of my
+friends."
+
+M. Paul stooped down and proceeded--as novel-writers say, and, as was
+literally true in his case--to "hiss" into my ear some poignant words.
+
+He said that, of all the women he knew, I was the one who could make
+herself the most consummately unpleasant: I was she with whom it was
+least possible to live on friendly terms. I had a "caractere
+intraitable," and perverse to a miracle. How I managed it, or what
+possessed me, he, for his part, did not know; but with whatever pacific
+and amicable intentions a person accosted me--crac! I turned concord to
+discord, good-will to enmity. He was sure, he--M. Paul--wished me well
+enough; he had never done me any harm that he knew of; he might, at
+least, he supposed, claim a right to be regarded as a neutral
+acquaintance, guiltless of hostile sentiments: yet, how I behaved to
+him! With what pungent vivacities--what an impetus of mutiny--what a
+"fougue" of injustice!
+
+Here I could not avoid opening my eyes somewhat wide, and even slipping
+in a slight interjectional observation: "Vivacities? Impetus? Fougue? I
+didn't know...."
+
+"Chut! a l'instant! There! there I went--vive comme la poudre!" He was
+sorry--he was very sorry: for my sake he grieved over the hapless
+peculiarity. This "emportement," this "chaleur"--generous, perhaps, but
+excessive--would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity: I was
+not--he believed, in his soul--wholly without good qualities: and would
+I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less "en l'air,"
+less "coquette," less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value
+on outside excellence--to make much of the attentions of people
+remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, "des couleurs de
+poupee," "un nez plus ou moins bien fait," and an enormous amount of
+fatuity--I might yet prove an useful, perhaps an exemplary character.
+But, as it was--And here, the little man's voice was for a minute
+choked.
+
+I would have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing
+word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so
+odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching and the absurd.
+
+I thought he had nearly done: but no; he sat down that he might go on
+at his ease.
+
+"While he, M. Paul, was on these painful topics, he would dare my anger
+for the sake of my good, and would venture to refer to a change he had
+noticed in my dress. He was free to confess that when he first knew
+me--or, rather, was in the habit of catching a passing glimpse of me
+from time to time--I satisfied him on this point: the gravity, the
+austere simplicity, obvious in this particular, were such as to inspire
+the highest hopes for my best interests. What fatal influence had
+impelled me lately to introduce flowers under the brim of my bonnet, to
+wear 'des cols brodes,' and even to appear on one occasion in a
+_scarlet gown_--he might indeed conjecture, but, for the present, would
+not openly declare."
+
+Again I interrupted, and this time not without an accent at once
+indignant and horror-struck.
+
+"Scarlet, Monsieur Paul? It was not scarlet! It was pink, and pale pink
+too, and further subdued by black lace."
+
+"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, it was all
+one: these were all flaunting, giddy colours; and as to the lace I
+talked of, _that_ was but a 'colifichet de plus.'" And he sighed over
+my degeneracy. "He could not, he was sorry to say, be so particular on
+this theme as he could wish: not possessing the exact names of these
+'babioles,' he might run into small verbal errors which would not fail
+to lay him open to my sarcasm, and excite my unhappily sudden and
+passionate disposition. He would merely say, in general terms--and in
+these general terms he knew he was correct--that my costume had of late
+assumed 'des facons mondaines,' which it wounded him to see."
+
+What "facons mondaines" he discovered in my present winter merino and
+plain white collar, I own it puzzled me to guess: and when I asked him,
+he said it was all made with too much attention to effect--and besides,
+"had I not a bow of ribbon at my neck?"
+
+"And if you condemn a bow of ribbon for a lady, Monsieur, you would
+necessarily disapprove of a thing like this for a gentleman?"--holding
+up my bright little chainlet of silk and gold. His sole reply was a
+groan--I suppose over my levity.
+
+After sitting some minutes in silence, and watching the progress of the
+chain, at which I now wrought more assiduously than ever, he inquired:
+"Whether what he had just said would have the effect of making me
+entirely detest him?"
+
+I hardly remember what answer I made, or how it came about; I don't
+think I spoke at all, but I know we managed to bid good-night on
+friendly terms: and, even after M. Paul had reached the door, he turned
+back just to explain, "that he would not be understood to speak in
+entire condemnation of the scarlet dress" ("Pink! pink!" I threw in);
+"that he had no intention to deny it the merit of _looking_ rather
+well" (the fact was, M. Emanuel's taste in colours decidedly leaned to
+the brilliant); "only he wished to counsel me, whenever, I wore it, to
+do so in the same spirit as if its material were 'bure,' and its hue
+'gris de poussiere.'"
+
+"And the flowers under my bonnet, Monsieur?" I asked. "They are very
+little ones--?"
+
+"Keep them little, then," said he. "Permit them not to become
+full-blown."
+
+"And the bow, Monsieur--the bit of ribbon?"
+
+"Va pour le ruban!" was the propitious answer.
+
+And so we settled it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well done, Lucy Snowe!" cried I to myself; "you have come in for a
+pretty lecture--brought on yourself a 'rude savant,' and all through
+your wicked fondness for worldly vanities! Who would have thought it?
+You deemed yourself a melancholy sober-sides enough! Miss Fanshawe
+there regards you as a second Diogenes. M. de Bassompierre, the other
+day, politely turned the conversation when it ran on the wild gifts of
+the actress Vashti, because, as he kindly said, 'Miss Snowe looked
+uncomfortable.' Dr. John Bretton knows you only as 'quiet Lucy'--'a
+creature inoffensive as a shadow;' he has said, and you have heard him
+say it: 'Lucy's disadvantages spring from over-gravity in tastes and
+manner--want of colour in character and costume.' Such are your own and
+your friends' impressions; and behold! there starts up a little man,
+differing diametrically from all these, roundly charging you with being
+too airy and cheery--too volatile and versatile--too flowery and
+coloury. This harsh little man--this pitiless censor--gathers up all
+your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of
+rose-colour, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon,
+your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for
+each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in
+Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand
+to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+MONSIEUR'S FETE.
+
+
+I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my
+guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the
+benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded in its last
+watch.
+
+All my materials--my whole stock of beads and silk--were used up before
+the chain assumed the length and richness I wished; I had wrought it
+double, as I knew, by the rule of contraries, that to, suit the
+particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective
+appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament, a
+little gold clasp was needed; fortunately I possessed it in the
+fastening of my sole necklace; I duly detached and re-attached it, then
+coiled compactly the completed guard; and enclosed it in a small box I
+had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour
+called "nacarat," and decked with a little coronal of sparkling blue
+stones. Within the lid of the box, I carefully graved with my scissors'
+point certain initials.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reader will, perhaps, remember the description of Madame Beck's
+fete; nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary, a handsome
+present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of
+this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and, in a
+modified form, to her kinsman and counsellor, M. Emanuel. In the latter
+case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived
+beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many others, of
+the estimation in which--despite his partialities, prejudices, and
+irritabilities--the professor of literature was held by his pupils. No
+article of value was offered to him: he distinctly gave it to be
+understood, that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery. Yet he
+liked a slight tribute; the cost, the money-value, did not touch him: a
+diamond ring, a gold snuff-box, presented, with pomp, would have
+pleased him less than a flower, or a drawing, offered simply and with
+sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man, not wise in his
+generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with "the dayspring on
+high."
+
+M. Paul's fete fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a
+fine sunny day; and being likewise the morning on which it was
+customary to attend mass; being also otherwise distinguished by the
+half-holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping, or
+paying visits in the afternoon: these combined considerations induced a
+general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were in vogue;
+the ordinary dingy woollen classe-dress was exchanged for something
+lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zelie St. Pierre, on this particular
+Thursday, even assumed a "robe de soie," deemed in economical
+Labassecour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury; nay, it was
+remarked that she sent for a "coiffeur" to dress her hair that morning;
+there were pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her
+handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor
+Zelie! It was much her wont to declare about this time, that she was
+tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour; that she longed to
+have the means and leisure for relaxation; to have some one to work for
+her--a husband who would pay her debts (she was woefully encumbered
+with debt), supply her wardrobe, and leave her at liberty, as she said,
+to "gouter un peu les plaisirs." It had long been rumoured, that her
+eye was upon M. Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's eye was certainly often
+upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes
+together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while
+the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade,
+unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would
+writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would
+follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some
+cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration of instinct, and
+pierced in its hiding-place the last lurking thought of the heart, and
+discerned under florid veilings the bare; barren places of the spirit:
+yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves--all
+that men and women would not have known--the twisted spine, the
+malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse, the stain or
+disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves. No calamity so
+accursed but M. Emanuel could pity and forgive, if it were acknowledged
+candidly; but where his questioning eyes met dishonest denial--where
+his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment--oh, then, he could
+be cruel, and I thought wicked! he would exultantly snatch the screen
+from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of
+the mount of exposure, and there show them all naked, all false--poor
+living lies--the spawn of that horrid Truth which cannot be looked on
+unveiled. He thought he did justice; for my part I doubt whether man
+has a right to do such justice on man: more than once in these his
+visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and
+not spared ire and keen reproach to himself. He deserved it; but it was
+difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was
+righteous and needed.
+
+Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school-bell rang and the
+rooms filled: a very pretty spectacle was presented in classe. Pupils
+and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing in
+her hand the bouquet of felicitation--the prettiest spring-flowers all
+fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance: I only had no bouquet.
+I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease
+to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their
+likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I
+never wish to receive them from hands dear to me. Mademoiselle St.
+Pierre marked my empty hands--she could not believe I had been so
+remiss; with avidity her eye roved over and round me: surely I must
+have some solitary symbolic flower somewhere: some small knot of
+violets, something to win myself praise for taste, commendation for
+ingenuity. The unimaginative "Anglaise" proved better than the
+Parisienne's fears: she sat literally unprovided, as bare of bloom or
+leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zelie smiled, well pleased.
+
+"How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Miss Lucie," she said:
+"silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot-house
+flowers!"
+
+And she showed with pride her splendid nosegay.
+
+But hush! a step: _the_ step. It came prompt, as usual, but with a
+promptitude, we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by other
+feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of intent. We
+thought our Professor's "foot-fall" (to speak romantically) had in it a
+friendly promise this morning; and so it had.
+
+He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the
+already well-lit first classe. The morning light playing amongst our
+plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from M. Paul's
+all-benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman (though I don't know why I
+should say so, for he was of strain neither French nor Labassecourien),
+he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion. Not by the vague
+folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot-dark paletot were the
+outlines of his person obscured; on the contrary, his figure (such as
+it was, I don't boast of it) was well set off by a civilized coat and a
+silken vest quite pretty to behold. The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec
+had vanished: bare-headed, he came upon us, carrying a Christian hat in
+his gloved hand. The little man looked well, very well; there was a
+clearness of amity in his blue eye, and a glow of good feeling on his
+dark complexion, which passed perfectly in the place of beauty: one
+really did not care to observe that his nose, though far from small,
+was of no particular shape, his cheek thin, his brow marked and square,
+his mouth no rose-bud: one accepted him as he was, and felt his
+presence the reverse of damping or insignificant.
+
+He passed to his desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon
+jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some
+amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund,
+good-fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice
+he had belonging to himself--a voice used when his heart passed the
+words to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an
+irritable, it was not an ossified organ: in its core was a place,
+tender beyond a man's tenderness; a place that humbled him to little
+children, that bound him to girls and women to whom, rebel as he would,
+he could not disown his affinity, nor quite deny that, on the whole, he
+was better with them than with his own sex.
+
+"We all wish Monsieur a good day, and present to him our
+congratulations on the anniversary of his fete," said Mademoiselle
+Zelie, constituting herself spokeswoman of the assembly; and advancing
+with no more twists of affectation than were with her indispensable to
+the achievement of motion, she laid her costly bouquet before him. He
+bowed over it.
+
+The long train of offerings followed: all the pupils, sweeping past
+with the gliding step foreigners practise, left their tributes as they
+went by. Each girl so dexterously adjusted her separate gift, that when
+the last bouquet was laid on the desk, it formed the apex to a blooming
+pyramid--a pyramid blooming, spreading, and towering with such
+exuberance as, in the end, to eclipse the hero behind it. This ceremony
+over, seats were resumed, and we sat in dead silence, expectant of a
+speech.
+
+I suppose five minutes might have elapsed, and the hush remained
+unbroken; ten--and there was no sound.
+
+Many present began, doubtless, to wonder for what Monsieur waited; as
+well they might. Voiceless and viewless, stirless and wordless, he kept
+his station behind the pile of flowers.
+
+At last there issued forth a voice, rather deep, as if it spoke out of
+a hollow:--
+
+"Est-ce la tout?"
+
+Mademoiselle Zelie looked round.
+
+"You have all presented your bouquets?" inquired she of the pupils.
+
+Yes; they had all given their nosegays, from the eldest to the
+youngest, from the tallest to the most diminutive. The senior mistress
+signified as much.
+
+"Est-ce la tout?" was reiterated in an intonation which, deep before,
+had now descended some notes lower.
+
+"Monsieur," said Mademoiselle St. Pierre, rising, and this time
+speaking with her own sweet smile, "I have the honour to tell you that,
+with a single exception, every person in classe has offered her
+bouquet. For Meess Lucie, Monsieur will kindly make allowance; as a
+foreigner she probably did not know our customs, or did not appreciate
+their significance. Meess Lucie has regarded this ceremony as too
+frivolous to be honoured by her observance."
+
+"Famous!" I muttered between my teeth: "you are no bad speaker, Zelie,
+when you begin."
+
+The answer vouchsafed to Mademoiselle St Pierre from the estrade was
+given in the gesticulation of a hand from behind the pyramid. This
+manual action seemed to deprecate words, to enjoin silence.
+
+A form, ere long, followed the hand. Monsieur emerged from his eclipse;
+and producing himself on the front of his estrade, and gazing straight
+and fixedly before him at a vast "mappe-monde" covering the wall
+opposite, he demanded a third time, and now in really tragic tones--
+
+"Est-ce la tout?"
+
+I might yet have made all right, by stepping forwards and slipping into
+his hand the ruddy little shell-box I at that moment held tight in my
+own. It was what I had fully purposed to do; but, first, the comic side
+of Monsieur's behaviour had tempted me to delay, and now, Mademoiselle
+St. Pierre's affected interference provoked contumacity. The reader not
+having hitherto had any cause to ascribe to Miss Snowe's character the
+most distant pretensions to perfection, will be scarcely surprised to
+learn that she felt too perverse to defend herself from any imputation
+the Parisienne might choose to insinuate and besides, M. Paul was so
+tragic, and took my defection so seriously, he deserved to be vexed. I
+kept, then, both my box and my countenance, and sat insensate as any
+stone.
+
+"It is well!" dropped at length from the lips of M. Paul; and having
+uttered this phrase, the shadow of some great paroxysm--the swell of
+wrath, scorn, resolve--passed over his brow, rippled his lips, and
+lined his cheeks. Gulping down all further comment, he launched into
+his customary "discours."
+
+I can't at all remember what this "discours" was; I did not listen to
+it: the gulping-down process, the abrupt dismissal of his mortification
+or vexation, had given me a sensation which half-counteracted the
+ludicrous effect of the reiterated "Est-ce la tout?"
+
+Towards the close of the speech there came a pleasing diversion my
+attention was again amusingly arrested.
+
+Owing to some little accidental movement--I think I dropped my thimble
+on the floor, and in stooping to regain it, hit the crown of my head
+against the sharp corner of my desk; which casualties (exasperating to
+me, by rights, if to anybody) naturally made a slight bustle--M. Paul
+became irritated, and dismissing his forced equanimity, and casting to
+the winds that dignity and self-control with which he never cared long
+to encumber himself, he broke forth into the strain best calculated to
+give him ease.
+
+I don't know how, in the progress of his "discours," he had contrived
+to cross the Channel and land on British ground; but there I found him
+when I began to listen.
+
+Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room--a glance which scathed,
+or was intended to scathe, as it crossed me--he fell with fury upon
+"les Anglaises."
+
+Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning
+handled them: he spared nothing--neither their minds, morals, manners,
+nor personal appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall
+stature, their long necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their
+pedantic education, their impious scepticism(!), their insufferable
+pride, their pretentious virtue: over which he ground his teeth
+malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would have said
+singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
+consequence, detestably ugly.
+
+"Little wicked venomous man!" thought I; "am I going to harass myself
+with fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed;
+you shall be indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your
+pyramid."
+
+I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some
+time the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I
+bore it some fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing
+cockatrice was determined to sting, and he said such things at
+last--fastening not only upon our women, but upon our greatest names
+and best men; sullying, the shield of Britannia, and dabbling the union
+jack in mud--that I was stung. With vicious relish he brought up the
+most spicy current continental historical falsehoods--than which
+nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zelie, and the whole class,
+became one grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover
+how these clowns of Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I
+struck a sharp stroke on my desk, opened my lips, and let loose this
+cry:--
+
+"Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Heros! A bas la France, la
+Fiction et les Faquins!"
+
+The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The
+Professor put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its
+folds. Little monster of malice! He now thought he had got the victory,
+since he had made me angry. In a second he became good-humoured. With
+great blandness he resumed the subject of his flowers; talked
+poetically and symbolically of their sweetness, perfume, purity,
+etcetera; made Frenchified comparisons between the "jeunes filles" and
+the sweet blossoms before him; paid Mademoiselle St. Pierre a very
+full-blown compliment on the superiority of her bouquet; and ended by
+announcing that the first really fine, mild, and balmy morning in
+spring, he intended to take the whole class out to breakfast in the
+country. "Such of the class, at least," he added, with emphasis, "as he
+could count amongst the number of his friends."
+
+"Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
+
+"Soit!" was his response; and, gathering his flowers in his arms, he
+flashed out of classe; while I, consigning my work, scissors, thimble,
+and the neglected little box, to my desk, swept up-stairs. I don't know
+whether _he_ felt hot and angry, but I am free to confess that _I_ did.
+
+Yet with a strange evanescent anger, I had not sat an hour on the edge
+of my bed, picturing and repicturing his look, manner, words ere I
+smiled at the whole scene. A little pang of regret I underwent that the
+box had not been offered. I had meant to gratify him. Fate would not
+have it so.
+
+In the course of the afternoon, remembering that desks in classe were
+by no means inviolate repositories, and thinking that it was as well to
+secure the box, on account of the initials in the lid, P. C. D. E., for
+Paul Carl (or Carlos) David Emanuel--such was his full name--these
+foreigners must always have a string of baptismals--I descended to the
+schoolroom.
+
+It slept in holiday repose. The day pupils were all gone home, the
+boarders were out walking, the teachers, except the surveillante of the
+week, were in town, visiting or shopping; the suite of divisions was
+vacant; so was the grande salle, with its huge solemn globe hanging in
+the midst, its pair of many-branched chandeliers, and its horizontal
+grand piano closed, silent, enjoying its mid-week Sabbath. I rather
+wondered to find the first classe door ajar; this room being usually
+locked when empty, and being then inaccessible to any save Madame Beck
+and myself, who possessed a duplicate key. I wondered still more, on
+approaching, to hear a vague movement as of life--a step, a chair
+stirred, a sound like the opening of a desk.
+
+"It is only Madame Beck doing inspection duty," was the conclusion
+following a moment's reflection. The partially-opened door gave
+opportunity for assurance on this point. I looked. Behold! not the
+inspecting garb of Madame Beck--the shawl and the clean cap--but the
+coat, and the close-shorn, dark head of a man. This person occupied my
+chair; his olive hand held my desk open, his nose was lost to view
+amongst my papers. His back was towards me, but there could not be a
+moment's question about identity. Already was the attire of ceremony
+discarded: the cherished and ink-stained paletot was resumed; the
+perverse bonnet-grec lay on the floor, as if just dropped from the
+hand, culpably busy.
+
+Now I knew, and I had long known, that that hand of M. Emanuel's was on
+the most intimate terms with my desk; that it raised and lowered the
+lid, ransacked and arranged the contents, almost as familiarly as my
+own. The fact was not dubious, nor did he wish it to be so: he left
+signs of each visit palpable and unmistakable; hitherto, however, I had
+never caught him in the act: watch as I would, I could not detect the
+hours and moments of his coming. I saw the brownie's work in exercises
+left overnight full of faults, and found next morning carefully
+corrected: I profited by his capricious good-will in loans full welcome
+and refreshing. Between a sallow dictionary and worn-out grammar would
+magically grow a fresh interesting new work, or a classic, mellow and
+sweet in its ripe age. Out of my work-basket would laughingly peep a
+romance, under it would lurk the pamphlet, the magazine, whence last
+evening's reading had been extracted. Impossible to doubt the source
+whence these treasures flowed: had there been no other indication, one
+condemning and traitor peculiarity, common to them all, settled the
+question--_they smelt of cigars_. This was very shocking, of course:
+_I_ thought so at first, and used to open the window with some bustle,
+to air my desk, and with fastidious finger and thumb, to hold the
+peccant brochures forth to the purifying breeze. I was cured of that
+formality suddenly. Monsieur caught me at it one day, understood the
+inference, instantly relieved my hand of its burden, and, in another
+moment, would have thrust the same into the glowing stove. It chanced
+to be a book, on the perusal of which I was bent; so for once I proved
+as decided and quicker than himself; recaptured the spoil, and--having
+saved this volume--never hazarded a second. With all this, I had never
+yet been able to arrest in his visits the freakish, friendly,
+cigar-loving phantom.
+
+But now at last I had him: there he was--the very brownie himself; and
+there, curling from his lips, was the pale blue breath of his Indian
+darling: he was smoking into my desk: it might well betray him.
+Provoked at this particular, and yet pleased to surprise him--pleased,
+that is, with the mixed feeling of the housewife who discovers at last
+her strange elfin ally busy in the dairy at the untimely churn--I
+softly stole forward, stood behind him, bent with precaution over his
+shoulder.
+
+My heart smote me to see that--after this morning's hostility, after my
+seeming remissness, after the puncture experienced by his feelings, and
+the ruffling undergone by his temper--he, all willing to forget and
+forgive, had brought me a couple of handsome volumes, of which the
+title and authorship were guarantees for interest. Now, as he sat
+bending above the desk, he was stirring up its contents; but with
+gentle and careful hand; disarranging indeed, but not harming. My heart
+smote me: as I bent over him, as he sat unconscious, doing me what good
+he could, and I daresay not feeling towards me unkindly, my morning's
+anger quite melted: I did not dislike Professor Emanuel.
+
+I think he heard me breathe. He turned suddenly: his temperament was
+nervous, yet he never started, and seldom changed colour: there was
+something hardy about him.
+
+"I thought you were gone into town with the other teachers," said he,
+taking a grim gripe of his self-possession, which half-escaped him--"It
+is as well you are not. Do you think I care for being caught? Not I. I
+often visit your desk."
+
+"Monsieur, I know it."
+
+"You find a brochure or tome now and then; but you don't read them,
+because they have passed under this?"--touching his cigar.
+
+"They have, and are no better for the process; but I read them."
+
+"Without pleasure?"
+
+"Monsieur must not be contradicted."
+
+"Do you like them, or any of them?--are they acceptable?" "Monsieur has
+seen me reading them a hundred times, and knows I have not so many
+recreations as to undervalue those he provides."
+
+"I mean well; and, if you see that I mean well, and derive some little
+amusement from my efforts, why can we not be friends?"
+
+"A fatalist would say--because we cannot."
+
+"This morning," he continued, "I awoke in a bright mood, and came into
+classe happy; you spoiled my day."
+
+"No, Monsieur, only an hour or two of it, and that unintentionally."
+
+"Unintentionally! No. It was my fete-day; everybody wished me happiness
+but you. The little children of the third division gave each her knot
+of violets, lisped each her congratulation:--you--nothing. Not a bud,
+leaf, whisper--not a glance. Was this unintentional?"
+
+"I meant no harm."
+
+"Then you really did not know our custom? You were unprepared? You
+would willingly have laid out a few centimes on a flower to give me
+pleasure, had you been aware that it was expected? Say so, and all is
+forgotten, and the pain soothed."
+
+"I did know that it was expected: I _was_ prepared; yet I laid out no
+centimes on flowers."
+
+"It is well--you do right to be honest. I should almost have hated you
+had you flattered and lied. Better declare at once 'Paul Carl
+Emanuel--je te deteste, mon garcon!'--than smile an interest, look an
+affection, and be false and cold at heart. False and cold I don't think
+you are; but you have made a great mistake in life, that I believe; I
+think your judgment is warped--that you are indifferent where you ought
+to be grateful--and perhaps devoted and infatuated, where you ought to
+be cool as your name. Don't suppose that I wish you to have a passion
+for me, Mademoiselle; Dieu vous en garde! What do you start for?
+Because I said passion? Well, I say it again. There is such a word, and
+there is such a thing--though not within these walls, thank heaven! You
+are no child that one should not speak of what exists; but I only
+uttered the word--the thing, I assure you, is alien to my whole life
+and views. It died in the past--in the present it lies buried--its
+grave is deep-dug, well-heaped, and many winters old: in the future
+there will be a resurrection, as I believe to my souls consolation; but
+all will then be changed--form and feeling: the mortal will have put on
+immortality--it will rise, not for earth, but heaven. All I say to
+_you_, Miss Lucy Snowe, is--that you ought to treat Professor Paul
+Emanuel decently."
+
+I could not, and did not contradict such a sentiment.
+
+"Tell me," he pursued, "when it is _your_ fete-day, and I will not
+grudge a few centimes for a small offering."
+
+"You will be like me, Monsieur: this cost more than a few centimes, and
+I did not grudge its price."
+
+And taking from the open desk the little box, I put it into his hand.
+
+"It lay ready in my lap this morning," I continued; "and if Monsieur
+had been rather more patient, and Mademoiselle St. Pierre less
+interfering--perhaps I should say, too, if _I_ had been calmer and
+wiser--I should have given it then."
+
+He looked at the box: I saw its clear warm tint and bright azure
+circlet, pleased his eyes. I told him to open it.
+
+"My initials!" said he, indicating the letters in the lid. "Who told
+you I was called Carl David?"
+
+"A little bird, Monsieur."
+
+"Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing
+when needful."
+
+He took out the chain--a trifle indeed as to value, but glossy with
+silk and sparkling with beads. He liked that too--admired it artlessly,
+like a child.
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes, for you."
+
+"This is the thing you were working at last night?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You finished it this morning?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You commenced it with the intention that it should be mine?"
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"And offered on my fete-day?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This purpose continued as you wove it?"
+
+Again I assented.
+
+"Then it is not necessary that I should cut out any portion--saying,
+this part is not mine: it was plaited under the idea and for the
+adornment of another?"
+
+"By no means. It is neither necessary, nor would it be just."
+
+"This object is _all_ mine?"
+
+"That object is yours entirely."
+
+Straightway Monsieur opened his paletot, arranged the guard splendidly
+across his chest, displaying as much and suppressing as little as he
+could: for he had no notion of concealing what he admired and thought
+decorative. As to the box, he pronounced it a superb bonbonniere--he
+was fond of bonbons, by the way--and as he always liked to share with
+others what pleased himself, he would give his "dragees" as freely as
+he lent his books. Amongst the kind brownie's gifts left in my desk, I
+forgot to enumerate many a paper of chocolate comfits. His tastes in
+these matters were southern, and what we think infantine. His simple
+lunch consisted frequently of a "brioche," which, as often as not, he
+shared with some child of the third division.
+
+"A present c'est un fait accompli," said he, re-adjusting his paletot;
+and we had no more words on the subject. After looking over the two
+volumes he had brought, and cutting away some pages with his penknife
+(he generally pruned before lending his books, especially if they were
+novels, and sometimes I was a little provoked at the severity of his
+censorship, the retrenchments interrupting the narrative), he rose,
+politely touched his bonnet-grec, and bade me a civil good-day.
+
+"We are friends now," thought I, "till the next time we quarrel."
+
+We _might_ have quarrelled again that very same evening, but, wonderful
+to relate, failed, for once, to make the most of our opportunity.
+
+Contrary to all expectation, M. Paul arrived at the study-hour. Having
+seen so much of him in the morning, we did not look for his presence at
+night. No sooner were we seated at lessons, however, than he appeared.
+I own I was glad to see him, so glad that I could not help greeting his
+arrival with a smile; and when he made his way to the same seat about
+which so serious a misunderstanding had formerly arisen, I took good
+care not to make too much room for him; he watched with a jealous,
+side-long look, to see whether I shrank away, but I did not, though the
+bench was a little crowded. I was losing the early impulse to recoil
+from M. Paul. Habituated to the paletot and bonnet-grec, the
+neighbourhood of these garments seemed no longer uncomfortable or very
+formidable. I did not now sit restrained, "asphyxiee" (as he used to
+say) at his side; I stirred when I wished to stir, coughed when it was
+necessary, even yawned when I was tired--did, in short, what I pleased,
+blindly reliant upon his indulgence. Nor did my temerity, this evening
+at least, meet the punishment it perhaps merited; he was both indulgent
+and good-natured; not a cross glance shot from his eyes, not a hasty
+word left his lips. Till the very close of the evening, he did not
+indeed address me at all, yet I felt, somehow, that he was full of
+friendliness. Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different
+meanings; no words could inspire a pleasanter content than did M.
+Paul's worldless presence. When the tray came in, and the bustle of
+supper commenced, he just said, as he retired, that he wished me a good
+night and sweet dreams; and a good night and sweet dreams I had.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+M. PAUL.
+
+
+Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly
+conclusions, or to suppose, with an over-hasty charity, that from that
+day M. Paul became a changed character--easy to live with, and no
+longer apt to flash danger and discomfort round him.
+
+No; he was naturally a little man of unreasonable moods. When
+over-wrought, which he often was, he became acutely irritable; and,
+besides, his veins were dark with a livid belladonna tincture, the
+essence of jealousy. I do not mean merely the tender jealousy of the
+heart, but that sterner, narrower sentiment whose seat is in the head.
+
+I used to think, as I sat looking at M. Paul, while he was knitting his
+brow or protruding his lip over some exercise of mine, which had not as
+many faults as he wished (for he liked me to commit faults: a knot of
+blunders was sweet to him as a cluster of nuts), that he had points of
+resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte. I think so still.
+
+In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great
+Emperor. M. Paul would have quarrelled with twenty learned women, would
+have unblushingly carried on a system of petty bickering and
+recrimination with a whole capital of coteries, never troubling himself
+about loss or lack of dignity. He would have exiled fifty Madame de
+Staels, if, they had annoyed, offended, outrivalled, or opposed him.
+
+I well remember a hot episode of his with a certain Madame Panache--a
+lady temporarily employed by Madame Beck to give lessons in history.
+She was clever--that is, she knew a good deal; and, besides, thoroughly
+possessed the art of making the most of what she knew; of words and
+confidence she held unlimited command. Her personal appearance was far
+from destitute of advantages; I believe many people would have
+pronounced her "a fine woman;" and yet there were points in her robust
+and ample attractions, as well as in her bustling and demonstrative
+presence, which, it appeared, the nice and capricious tastes of M. Paul
+could not away with. The sound of her voice, echoing through the carre,
+would put him into a strange taking; her long free step--almost
+stride--along the corridor, would often make him snatch up his papers
+and decamp on the instant.
+
+With malicious intent he bethought himself, one day, to intrude on her
+class; as quick as lightning he gathered her method of instruction; it
+differed from a pet plan of his own. With little ceremony, and less
+courtesy, he pointed out what he termed her errors. Whether he expected
+submission and attention, I know not; he met an acrid opposition,
+accompanied by a round reprimand for his certainly unjustifiable
+interference.
+
+Instead of withdrawing with dignity, as he might still have done, he
+threw down the gauntlet of defiance. Madame Panache, bellicose as a
+Penthesilea, picked it up in a minute. She snapped her fingers in the
+intermeddler's face; she rushed upon him with a storm of words. M.
+Emanuel was eloquent; but Madame Panache was voluble. A system of
+fierce antagonism ensued. Instead of laughing in his sleeve at his fair
+foe, with all her sore amour-propre and loud self-assertion, M. Paul
+detested her with intense seriousness; he honoured her with his earnest
+fury; he pursued her vindictively and implacably, refusing to rest
+peaceably in his bed, to derive due benefit from his meals, or even
+serenely to relish his cigar, till she was fairly rooted out of the
+establishment. The Professor conquered, but I cannot say that the
+laurels of this victory shadowed gracefully his temples. Once I
+ventured to hint as much. To my great surprise he allowed that I might
+be right, but averred that when brought into contact with either men or
+women of the coarse, self-complacent quality, whereof Madame Panache
+was a specimen, he had no control over his own passions; an unspeakable
+and active aversion impelled him to a war of extermination.
+
+Three months afterwards, hearing that his vanquished foe had met with
+reverses, and was likely to be really distressed for want of
+employment, he forgot his hatred, and alike active in good and evil, he
+moved heaven and earth till he found her a place. Upon her coming to
+make up former differences, and thank him for his recent kindness, the
+old voice--a little loud--the old manner--a little forward--so acted
+upon him that in ten minutes he started up and bowed her, or rather
+himself, out of the room, in a transport of nervous irritation.
+
+To pursue a somewhat audacious parallel, in a love of power, in an
+eager grasp after supremacy, M. Emanuel was like Bonaparte. He was a
+man not always to be submitted to. Sometimes it was needful to resist;
+it was right to stand still, to look up into his eyes and tell him that
+his requirements went beyond reason--that his absolutism verged on
+tyranny.
+
+The dawnings, the first developments of peculiar talent appearing
+within his range, and under his rule, curiously excited, even disturbed
+him. He watched its struggle into life with a scowl; he held back his
+hand--perhaps said, "Come on if you have strength," but would not aid
+the birth.
+
+When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
+breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
+when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
+yet offer to foster.
+
+"Prove yourself true ere I cherish you," was his ordinance; and how
+difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
+strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
+tearlessly--ordeals that he exacted should be passed
+through--fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached
+the bourne, were sometimes marked in blood--followed them grimly,
+holding the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And
+when at last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids,
+he opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and
+gazed deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the
+heart, to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its
+subtlest forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence.
+If, at last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke
+him suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when
+he was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and
+the health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied
+and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and
+failed to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in
+clouded silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
+
+I speak not ignorant of these evils.
+
+Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my
+professor--he had not given me lessons, but about that time,
+accidentally hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch
+of education (I think it was arithmetic), which would have disgraced a
+charity-school boy, as he very truly remarked, he took me in hand,
+examined me first, found me, I need not say, abundantly deficient, gave
+me some books and appointed me some tasks.
+
+He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation,
+condescending to say that he believed I was "bonne et pas trop faible"
+(i.e. well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts), but,
+owing he supposed to adverse circumstances, "as yet in a state of
+wretchedly imperfect mental development."
+
+The beginning of all effort has indeed with me been marked by a
+preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common
+acquaintance, assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A
+depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every new page I have
+turned in life.
+
+So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
+forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty
+humiliation imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly
+do justice to his tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would
+moisten, when tears of shame and effort clouded mine; burdened as he
+was with work, he would steal half his brief space of recreation to
+give to me.
+
+But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to
+yield to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves, free, and
+my time of energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled,
+trebled, quadrupled the tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his
+kindness became sternness; the light changed in his eyes from a beam to
+a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he curbed me imperiously; the more I
+did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed content. Sarcasms of which
+the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears; then flowed out
+the bitterest inuendoes against the "pride of intellect." I was vaguely
+threatened with I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits
+proper to my sex, and conceived a contraband appetite for unfeminine
+knowledge. Alas! I had no such appetite. What I loved, it joyed me by
+any effort to content; but the noble hunger for science in the
+abstract--the godlike thirst after discovery--these feelings were known
+to me but by briefest flashes.
+
+Yet, when M. Paul sneered at me, I wanted to possess them more fully;
+his injustice stirred in me ambitious wishes--it imparted a strong
+stimulus--it gave wings to aspiration.
+
+In the beginning, before I had penetrated to motives, that
+uncomprehended sneer of his made my heart ache, but by-and-by it only
+warmed the blood in my veins, and sent added action to my pulses.
+Whatever my powers--feminine or the contrary--God had given them, and I
+felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.
+
+The combat was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's
+affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would
+insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called
+"faible"--that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false
+incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the
+most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that
+I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard
+of--and over the perusal of which I should infallibly have fallen down
+in a sleep as deep as that of Eutychus.
+
+Once, upon his preferring such an accusation, I turned upon him--I rose
+against him. Gathering an armful of his books out of my desk, I filled
+my apron and poured them in a heap upon his estrade, at his feet.
+
+"Take them away, M. Paul," I said, "and teach me no more. I never asked
+to be made learned, and you compel me to feel very profoundly that
+learning is not happiness."
+
+And returning to my desk, I laid my head on my arms, nor would I speak
+to him for two days afterwards. He pained and chagrined me. His
+affection had been very sweet and dear--a pleasure new and
+incomparable: now that this seemed withdrawn, I cared not for his
+lessons.
+
+The books, however, were not taken away; they were all restored with
+careful hand to their places, and he came as usual to teach me. He made
+his peace somehow--too readily, perhaps: I ought to have stood out
+longer, but when he looked kind and good, and held out his hand with
+amity, memory refused to reproduce with due force his oppressive
+moments. And then, reconcilement is always sweet!
+
+On a certain morning a message came from my godmother, inviting me to
+attend some notable lecture to be delivered in the same public rooms
+before described. Dr. John had brought the message himself, and
+delivered it verbally to Rosine, who had not scrupled to follow the
+steps of M. Emanuel, then passing to the first classe, and, in his
+presence, stand "carrement" before my desk, hand in apron-pocket, and
+rehearse the same, saucily and aloud, concluding with the words, "Qu'il
+est vraiment beau, Mademoiselle, ce jeune docteur! Quels yeux--quel
+regard! Tenez! J'en ai le coeur tout emu!"
+
+When she was gone, my professor demanded of me why I suffered "cette
+fille effrontee, cette creature sans pudeur," to address me in such
+terms.
+
+I had no pacifying answer to give. The terms were precisely such as
+Rosine--a young lady in whose skull the organs of reverence and reserve
+were not largely developed--was in the constant habit of using.
+Besides, what she said about the young doctor was true enough. Graham
+_was_ handsome; he had fine eyes and a thrilling glance. An
+observation to that effect actually formed itself into sound on my lips.
+
+"Elle ne dit que la verite," I said.
+
+"Ah! vous trouvez?"
+
+"Mais, sans doute."
+
+The lesson to which we had that day to submit was such as to make us
+very glad when it terminated. At its close, the released, pupils rushed
+out, half-trembling, half-exultant. I, too, was going. A mandate to
+remain arrested me. I muttered that I wanted some fresh air sadly--the
+stove was in a glow, the classe over-heated. An inexorable voice merely
+recommended silence; and this salamander--for whom no room ever seemed
+too hot--sitting down between my desk and the stove--a situation in
+which he ought to have felt broiled, but did not--proceeded to confront
+me with--a Greek quotation!
+
+In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek
+and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they
+would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of
+its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of
+knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal. The
+privileges of a "classical education," it was insinuated, had been
+mine; on flowers of Hymettus I had revelled; a golden store, hived in
+memory, now silently sustained my efforts, and privily nurtured my wits.
+
+A hundred expedients did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret--to
+wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed
+Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's
+jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait
+for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages,
+and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones
+fell musically from his lips--for he had a good voice--remarkable for
+compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a
+vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he
+sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however;
+not comprehending, of course I could neither be charmed nor annoyed.
+
+Baffled--almost angry--he still clung to his fixed idea; my
+susceptibilities were pronounced marble--my face a mask. It appeared as
+if he could not be brought to accept the homely truth, and take me for
+what I was: men, and women too, must have delusion of some sort; if not
+made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.
+
+At moments I _did_ wish that his suspicions had been better founded.
+There were times when I would have given my right hand to possess the
+treasures he ascribed to me. He deserved condign punishment for his
+testy crotchets. I could have gloried in bringing home to him his worst
+apprehensions astoundingly realized. I could have exulted to burst on
+his vision, confront and confound his "lunettes," one blaze of
+acquirements. Oh! why did nobody undertake to make me clever while I
+was young enough to learn, that I might, by one grand, sudden, inhuman
+revelation--one cold, cruel, overwhelming triumph--have for ever
+crushed the mocking spirit out of Paul Carl David Emanuel!
+
+Alas! no such feat was in my power. To-day, as usual, his quotations
+fell ineffectual: he soon shifted his ground.
+
+"Women of intellect" was his next theme: here he was at home. A "woman
+of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of "lusus naturae," a luckless
+accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in
+creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in
+the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and
+passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought
+and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male
+mind alone could work to any good practical result--hein?
+
+This "hein?" was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me
+contradiction or objection. However, I only said--"Cela ne me regarde
+pas: je ne m'en soucie pas;" and presently added--"May I go, Monsieur?
+They have rung the bell for the second dejeuner" (_i.e._ luncheon).
+
+"What of that? You are not hungry?"
+
+"Indeed I was," I said; "I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven,
+and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell."
+
+"Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him."
+
+And he broke in two the "brioche" intended for his own refreshment, and
+gave me half. Truly his bark was worse than his bite; but the really
+formidable attack was yet to come. While eating his cake, I could not
+forbear expressing my secret wish that I really knew all of which he
+accused me.
+
+"Did I sincerely feel myself to be an ignoramus?" he asked, in a
+softened tone.
+
+If I had replied meekly by an unqualified affirmative, I believe he
+would have stretched out his hand, and we should have been friends on
+the spot, but I answered--
+
+"Not exactly. I am ignorant, Monsieur, in the knowledge you ascribe to
+me, but I _sometimes_, not _always_, feel a knowledge of my own."
+
+"What did I mean?" he inquired, sharply.
+
+Unable to answer this question in a breath, I evaded it by change of
+subject. He had now finished his half of the brioche feeling sure that
+on so trifling a fragment he could not have satisfied his appetite, as
+indeed I had not appeased mine, and inhaling the fragrance of baked
+apples afar from the refectory, I ventured to inquire whether he did
+not also perceive that agreeable odour. He confessed that he did. I
+said if he would let me out by the garden-door, and permit me just to
+run across the court, I would fetch him a plateful; and added that I
+believed they were excellent, as Goton had a very good method of
+baking, or rather stewing fruit, putting in a little spice, sugar, and
+a glass or two of vin blanc--might I go?
+
+"Petite gourmande!" said he, smiling, "I have not forgotten how pleased
+you were with the pate a la creme I once gave you, and you know very
+well, at this moment, that to fetch the apples for me will be the same
+as getting them for yourself. Go, then, but come back quickly."
+
+And at last he liberated me on parole. My own plan was to go and return
+with speed and good faith, to put the plate in at the door, and then to
+vanish incontinent, leaving all consequences for future settlement.
+
+That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my
+scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed
+me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my
+hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered me
+to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I suppose,
+by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery. All he had
+yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing: not
+so of the present attack.
+
+It consisted in an unreasonable proposition with which he had before
+afflicted me: namely, that on the next public examination-day I should
+engage--foreigner as I was--to take my place on the first form of
+first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French, on
+any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of grammar or
+lexicon.
+
+I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom
+nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public, was by nature
+a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under
+the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the
+recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence
+of his presence, one proof of his force; I, with whom that Impulse was
+the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of
+masters (him before me always excepted)--a deity which sometimes, under
+circumstances--apparently propitious, would not speak when questioned,
+would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; but
+would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with
+carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a
+tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some
+long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen
+stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited,
+would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a
+perturbed Dagon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the
+hour--to its victim for some blood, or some breath, whatever the
+circumstance or scene--rousing its priest, treacherously promising
+vaticination, perhaps filling its temple with a strange hum of oracles,
+but sure to give half the significance to fateful winds, and grudging
+to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant--yielding it
+sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of
+its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and
+make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and
+a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure, and to the
+inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour!
+
+Upon this argument M. Paul and I did battle more than once--strong
+battle, with confused noise of demand and rejection, exaction and
+repulse.
+
+On this particular day I was soundly rated. "The obstinacy of my whole
+sex," it seems, was concentrated in me; I had an "orgueil de diable." I
+feared to fail, forsooth! What did it matter whether I failed or not?
+Who was I that I should not fail, like my betters? It would do me good
+to fail. He wanted to see me worsted (I knew he did), and one minute he
+paused to take breath.
+
+"Would I speak now, and be tractable?"
+
+"Never would I be tractable in this matter. Law itself should not
+compel me. I would pay a fine, or undergo an imprisonment, rather than
+write for a show and to order, perched up on a platform."
+
+"Could softer motives influence me? Would I yield for friendship's
+sake?"
+
+"Not a whit, not a hair-breadth. No form of friendship under the sun
+had a right to exact such a concession. No true friendship would harass
+me thus."
+
+He supposed then (with a sneer--M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling
+his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)--he supposed
+there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen, and of that
+form it was not for him to make use.
+
+"Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters, je vous vois d'ici,"
+said he, "eagerly subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming for
+the effort."
+
+"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
+hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."
+
+And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
+to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.
+
+"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away; _he_
+was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer,
+thoroughly screened by his person?"
+
+"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
+history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
+and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to
+the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
+thirsty?"
+
+"If that was all, he would do my errand."
+
+He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
+behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
+prey had escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DRYAD.
+
+
+The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
+This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many
+others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this time
+left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid days.
+
+One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
+the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
+refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
+down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
+
+Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
+watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
+foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
+entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
+centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
+and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
+
+My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
+in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
+a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
+she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
+between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers, and
+the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul was not
+of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him ere
+now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to judge, she
+seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an indulgent
+guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his, and
+hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had struck
+through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the family of
+presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell upon it.
+While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and following
+the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly dressed, for
+she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the glancing leaves
+of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they closed; my lassitude,
+the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and birds, all lulled me, and at
+last I slept.
+
+Two hours stole over me. Ere I woke, the sun had declined out of sight
+behind the towering houses, the garden and the room were grey, bees had
+gone homeward, and the flowers were closing; the party of guests, too,
+had vanished; each alley was void.
+
+On waking, I felt much at ease--not chill, as I ought to have been
+after sitting so still for at least two hours; my cheek and arms were
+not benumbed by pressure against the hard desk. No wonder. Instead of
+the bare wood on which I had laid them, I found a thick shawl,
+carefully folded, substituted for support, and another shawl (both
+taken from the corridor where such things hung) wrapped warmly round me.
+
+Who had done this? Who was my friend? Which of the teachers? Which of
+the pupils? None, except St. Pierre, was inimical to me; but which of
+them had the art, the thought, the habit, of benefiting thus tenderly?
+Which of them had a step so quiet, a hand so gentle, but I should have
+heard or felt her, if she had approached or touched me in a day-sleep?
+
+As to Ginevra Fanshawe, that bright young creature was not gentle at
+all, and would certainly have pulled me out of my chair, if she had
+meddled in the matter. I said at last: "It is Madame Beck's doing; she
+has come in, seen me asleep, and thought I might take cold. She
+considers me a useful machine, answering well the purpose for which it
+was hired; so would not have me needlessly injured. And now,"
+methought, "I'll take a walk; the evening is fresh, and not very chill."
+
+So I opened the glass door and stepped into the berceau.
+
+I went to my own alley: had it been dark, or even dusk, I should have
+hardly ventured there, for I had not yet forgotten the curious illusion
+of vision (if illusion it were) experienced in that place some months
+ago. But a ray of the setting sun burnished still the grey crown of
+Jean Baptiste; nor had all the birds of the garden yet vanished into
+their nests amongst the tufted shrubs and thick wall-ivy. I paced up
+and down, thinking almost the same thoughts I had pondered that night
+when I buried my glass jar--how I should make some advance in life,
+take another step towards an independent position; for this train of
+reflection, though not lately pursued, had never by me been wholly
+abandoned; and whenever a certain eye was averted from me, and a
+certain countenance grew dark with unkindness and injustice, into that
+track of speculation did I at once strike; so that, little by little, I
+had laid half a plan.
+
+"Living costs little," said I to myself, "in this economical town of
+Villette, where people are more sensible than I understand they are in
+dear old England--infinitely less worried about appearance, and less
+emulous of display--where nobody is in the least ashamed to be quite as
+homely and saving as he finds convenient. House-rent, in a prudently
+chosen situation, need not be high. When I shall have saved one
+thousand francs, I will take a tenement with one large room, and two or
+three smaller ones, furnish the first with a few benches and desks, a
+black tableau, an estrade for myself; upon it a chair and table, with a
+sponge and some white chalks; begin with taking day-pupils, and so work
+my way upwards. Madame Beck's commencement was--as I have often heard
+her say--from no higher starting-point, and where is she now? All these
+premises and this garden are hers, bought with her money; she has a
+competency already secured for old age, and a flourishing establishment
+under her direction, which will furnish a career for her children.
+
+"Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady
+exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to
+complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks
+interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved,
+by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is
+there nothing more for me in life--no true home--nothing to be dearer
+to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me
+better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whose
+feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and
+gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for
+others? I suppose, Lucy Snowe, the orb of your life is not to be so
+rounded: for you, the crescent-phase must suffice. Very good. I see a
+huge mass of my fellow-creatures in no better circumstances. I see that
+a great many men, and more women, hold their span of life on conditions
+of denial and privation. I find no reason why I should be of the few
+favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening
+the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the
+beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep."
+
+So this subject is done with. It is right to look our life-accounts
+bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a
+poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items, and
+sets down under the head--happiness that which is misery. Call
+anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong
+characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to
+Doom. Falsify: insert "privilege" where you should have written "pain;"
+and see if your mighty creditor will allow the fraud to pass, or accept
+the coin with which you would cheat him. Offer to the strongest--if the
+darkest angel of God's host--water, when he has asked blood--will he
+take it? Not a whole pale sea for one red drop. I settled another
+account.
+
+Pausing before Methusaleh--the giant and patriarch of the garden--and
+leaning my brow against his knotty trunk, my foot rested on the stone
+sealing the small sepulchre at his root; and I recalled the passage of
+feeling therein buried; I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him;
+my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become of
+that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life;
+only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?
+
+Was this feeling dead? I do not know, but it was buried. Sometimes I
+thought the tomb unquiet, and dreamed strangely of disturbed earth, and
+of hair, still golden, and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.
+
+Had I been too hasty? I used to ask myself; and this question would
+occur with a cruel sharpness after some brief chance interview with Dr.
+John. He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still
+kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked "Lucy" so well as
+when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this
+cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of
+himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow
+mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the
+rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their
+perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is
+the sweetbriar enamoured of the air?
+
+"Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not
+mine. Good-night, and God bless you!"
+
+Thus I closed my musings. "Good-night" left my lips in sound; I heard
+the words spoken, and then I heard an echo--quite close.
+
+"Good-night, Mademoiselle; or, rather, good-evening--the sun is scarce
+set; I hope you slept well?"
+
+I started, but was only discomposed a moment; I knew the voice and
+speaker.
+
+"Slept, Monsieur! When? where?"
+
+"You may well inquire when--where. It seems you turn day into night,
+and choose a desk for a pillow; rather hard lodging--?"
+
+"It was softened for me, Monsieur, while I slept. That unseen,
+gift-bringing thing which haunts my desk, remembered me. No matter how
+I fell asleep; I awoke pillowed and covered."
+
+"Did the shawls keep you warm?"
+
+"Very warm. Do you ask thanks for them?"
+
+"No. You looked pale in your slumbers: are you home-sick?"
+
+"To be home-sick, one must have a home; which I have not."
+
+"Then you have more need of a careful friend. I scarcely know any one,
+Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very
+faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating,
+and keeping down."
+
+This idea of "keeping down" never left M. Paul's head; the most
+habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of
+it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not
+trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been
+gone had I left him nothing to "keep down."
+
+"You need watching, and watching over," he pursued; "and it is well for
+you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties. I watch
+you and others pretty closely, pretty constantly, nearer and oftener
+than you or they think. Do you see that window with a light in it?"
+
+He pointed to a lattice in one of the college boarding-houses.
+
+"That," said he, "is a room I have hired, nominally for a
+study--virtually for a post of observation. There I sit and read for
+hours together: it is my way--my taste. My book is this garden; its
+contents are human nature--female human nature. I know you all by
+heart. Ah! I know you well--St. Pierre, the Parisienne--cette
+maitresse-femme, my cousin Beck herself."
+
+"It is not right, Monsieur."
+
+"Comment? it is not right? By whose creed? Does some dogma of Calvin or
+Luther condemn it? What is that to me? I am no Protestant. My rich
+father (for, though I have known poverty, and once starved for a year
+in a garret in Rome--starved wretchedly, often on a meal a day, and
+sometimes not that--yet I was born to wealth)--my rich father was a
+good Catholic; and he gave me a priest and a Jesuit for a tutor. I
+retain his lessons; and to what discoveries, grand Dieu! have they not
+aided me!"
+
+"Discoveries made by stealth seem to me dishonourable discoveries."
+
+"Puritaine! I doubt it not. Yet see how my Jesuit's system works. You
+know the St. Pierre?"
+
+"Partially."
+
+He laughed. "You say right--_'partially'_; whereas _I_ know her
+_thoroughly_; there is the difference. She played before me the
+amiable; offered me patte de velours; caressed, flattered, fawned on
+me. Now, I am accessible to a woman's flattery--accessible against my
+reason. Though never pretty, she was--when I first knew her--young, or
+knew how to look young. Like all her countrywomen, she had the art of
+dressing--she had a certain cool, easy, social assurance, which spared
+me the pain of embarrassment--"
+
+"Monsieur, that must have been unnecessary. I never saw you embarrassed
+in my life."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you know little of me; I can be embarrassed as a petite
+pensionnaire; there is a fund of modesty and diffidence in my nature--"
+
+"Monsieur, I never saw it."
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is there. You ought to have seen it."
+
+"Monsieur, I have observed you in public--on platforms, in tribunes,
+before titles and crowned heads--and you were as easy as you are in the
+third division."
+
+"Mademoiselle, neither titles nor crowned heads excite my modesty; and
+publicity is very much my element. I like it well, and breathe in it
+quite freely;--but--but, in short, here is the sentiment brought into
+action, at this very moment; however, I disdain to be worsted by it.
+If, Mademoiselle, I were a marrying man (which I am not; and you may
+spare yourself the trouble of any sneer you may be contemplating at the
+thought), and found it necessary to ask a lady whether she could look
+upon me in the light of a future husband, then would it be proved that
+I am as I say--modest."
+
+I quite believed him now; and, in believing, I honoured him with a
+sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.
+
+"As to the St. Pierre," he went on, recovering himself, for his voice
+had altered a little, "she once intended to be Madame Emanuel; and I
+don't know whither I might have been led, but for yonder little lattice
+with the light. Ah, magic lattice! what miracles of discovery hast thou
+wrought! Yes," he pursued, "I have seen her rancours, her vanities, her
+levities--not only here, but elsewhere: I have witnessed what bucklers
+me against all her arts: I am safe from poor Zelie."
+
+"And my pupils," he presently recommenced, "those blondes jeunes
+filles--so mild and meek--I have seen the most reserved--romp like
+boys, the demurest--snatch grapes from the walls, shake pears from the
+trees. When the English teacher came, I saw her, marked her early
+preference for this alley, noticed her taste for seclusion, watched her
+well, long before she and I came to speaking terms; do you recollect my
+once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets
+when we were strangers?"
+
+"I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still."
+
+"It pleased me when you took them peacefully and promptly, without
+prudery--that sentiment which I ever dread to excite, and which, when
+it is revealed in eye or gesture, I vindictively detest. To return. Not
+only did _I_ watch you; but often--especially at eventide--another
+guardian angel was noiselessly hovering near: night after night my
+cousin Beck has stolen down yonder steps, and glidingly pursued your
+movements when you did not see her."
+
+"But, Monsieur, you could not from the distance of that window see what
+passed in this garden at night?"
+
+"By moonlight I possibly might with a glass--I use a glass--but the
+garden itself is open to me. In the shed, at the bottom, there is a
+door leading into a court, which communicates with the college; of that
+door I possess the key, and thus come and go at pleasure. This
+afternoon I came through it, and found you asleep in classe; again this
+evening I have availed myself of the same entrance."
+
+I could not help saying, "If you were a wicked, designing man, how
+terrible would all this be!"
+
+His attention seemed incapable of being arrested by this view of the
+subject: he lit his cigar, and while he puffed it, leaning against a
+tree, and looking at me in a cool, amused way he had when his humour
+was tranquil, I thought proper to go on sermonizing him: he often
+lectured me by the hour together--I did not see why I should not speak
+my mind for once. So I told him my impressions concerning his
+Jesuit-system.
+
+"The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming
+and going by stealth degrades your own dignity."
+
+"My dignity!" he cried, laughing; "when did you ever see me trouble my
+head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are 'digne.' How
+often, in your high insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in
+trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it,
+scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with
+such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a
+third-rate London actor."
+
+"Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a
+wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human
+heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve's apples.
+I wish you were a Protestant."
+
+Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet
+thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly--"I have seen other
+things."
+
+"What other things?"
+
+Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs,
+where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
+
+"Look, at it," said he: "is not that spark like an eye watching you and
+me?"
+
+He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:--"I have
+seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch
+all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it."
+
+The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
+
+"Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just
+winking itself out?"
+
+"I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it
+is time to go in."
+
+"It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this
+question."
+
+Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk
+had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the
+trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too
+much absorbed to be sensible of the change.
+
+"Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?"
+
+"There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst
+Protestants as amongst other sects," I answered. "Why, Monsieur, do you
+ask such a question?"
+
+"Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?"
+
+"I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such
+subjects. I dislike it the more because--"
+
+"You believe?"
+
+"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"
+
+"Since you came here?"
+
+"Yes; not many months ago."
+
+"Here?--in this house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
+conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
+choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
+strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are
+alike--there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when
+you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
+mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
+of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
+perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
+you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
+mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
+knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
+But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too, have
+had my 'impressions.'"
+
+"Monsieur, tell me them."
+
+"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
+house and garden?"
+
+"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
+here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
+bears us."
+
+"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."
+
+"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"
+
+"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house
+by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have
+indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual
+weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other
+living being. A nun!"
+
+"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."
+
+"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
+that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
+as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
+has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"
+
+Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
+the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--the
+high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs
+on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
+inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had
+swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and
+crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze,
+and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood
+still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and
+heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more
+solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the
+boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail?
+What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell
+rang in the house--the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there
+came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a
+sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces--swept swiftly the very
+NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of
+stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; the
+rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE FIRST LETTER.
+
+
+Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my
+intercourse with the sumptuous Hotel Crecy? That intercourse had, for
+an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had
+been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and capital
+of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly after it
+took place.
+
+I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly
+on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing,
+when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just
+encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad,
+smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and
+young lady, on the other--a young and handsome man. Very graceful was
+the lady's mien, choice her appointments, delicate and stately her
+whole aspect. Still, as I looked, I felt they were known to me, and,
+drawing a little nearer, I fully recognised them all: the Count Home de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton.
+
+How animated was Graham's face! How true, how warm, yet how retiring
+the joy it expressed! This was the state of things, this the
+combination of circumstances, at once to attract and enchain, to subdue
+and excite Dr. John. The pearl he admired was in itself of great price
+and truest purity, but he was not the man who, in appreciating the gem,
+could forget its setting. Had he seen Paulina with the same youth,
+beauty, and grace, but on foot, alone, unguarded, and in simple attire,
+a dependent worker, a demi-grisette, he would have thought her a pretty
+little creature, and would have loved with his eye her movements and
+her mien, but it required other than this to conquer him as he was now
+vanquished, to bring him safe under dominion as now, without loss, and
+even with gain to his manly honour, one saw that he was reduced; there
+was about Dr. John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not
+suffice; society must approve--the world must admire what he did, or he
+counted his measures false and futile. In his victrix he required all
+that was here visible--the imprint of high cultivation, the
+consecration of a careful and authoritative protection, the adjuncts
+that Fashion decrees, Wealth purchases, and Taste adjusts; for these
+conditions his spirit stipulated ere it surrendered: they were here to
+the utmost fulfilled; and now, proud, impassioned, yet fearing, he did
+homage to Paulina as his sovereign. As for her, the smile of feeling,
+rather than of conscious power, slept soft in her eyes.
+
+They parted. He passed me at speed, hardly feeling the earth he
+skimmed, and seeing nothing on either hand. He looked very handsome;
+mettle and purpose were roused in him fully.
+
+"Papa, there is Lucy!" cried a musical, friendly voice. "Lucy, dear
+Lucy--_do_ come here!"
+
+I hastened to her. She threw back her veil, and stooped from her saddle
+to kiss me.
+
+"I was coming to see you to-morrow," said she; "but now to-morrow you
+will come and see me."
+
+She named the hour, and I promised compliance.
+
+The morrow's evening found me with her--she and I shut into her own
+room. I had not seen her since that occasion when her claims were
+brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so
+signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the
+interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tete-a-tete,
+a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear soft
+voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My own
+attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she
+herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up
+her narrative briefly. Yet why she terminated with so concise an
+abridgment did not immediately appear; silence followed--a restless
+silence, not without symptoms of abstraction. Then, turning to me, in a
+diffident, half-appealing voice--"Lucy--"
+
+"Well, I am at your side."
+
+"Is my cousin Ginevra still at Madame Beck's?"
+
+"Your cousin is still there; you must be longing to see her."
+
+"No--not much."
+
+"You want to invite her to spend another evening?"
+
+"No... I suppose she still talks about being married?"
+
+"Not to any one you care for."
+
+"But of course she still thinks of Dr. Bretton? She cannot have changed
+her mind on that point, because it was so fixed two months ago."
+
+"Why, you know, it does not matter. You saw the terms on which they
+stood."
+
+"There was a little misunderstanding that evening, certainly; does she
+seem unhappy?"
+
+"Not she. To change the subject. Have you heard or seen nothing of, or
+from, Graham during your absence?"
+
+"Papa had letters from him once or twice about business, I think. He
+undertook the management of some affair which required attention while
+we were away. Dr. Bretton seems to respect papa, and to have pleasure
+in obliging him."
+
+"Yes: you met him yesterday on the boulevard; you would be able to
+judge from his aspect that his friends need not be painfully anxious
+about his health?"
+
+"Papa seems to have thought with you. I could not help smiling. He is
+not particularly observant, you know, because he is often thinking of
+other things than what pass before his eyes; but he said, as Dr.
+Bretton rode away, Really it does a man good to see the spirit and
+energy of that boy.' He called Dr. Bretton a boy; I believe he almost
+thinks him so, just as he thinks me a little girl; he was not speaking
+to me, but dropped that remark to himself. Lucy...."
+
+Again fell the appealing accent, and at the same instant she left her
+chair, and came and sat on the stool at my feet.
+
+I liked her. It is not a declaration I have often made concerning my
+acquaintance, in the course of this book: the reader will bear with it
+for once. Intimate intercourse, close inspection, disclosed in Paulina
+only what was delicate, intelligent, and sincere; therefore my regard
+for her lay deep. An admiration more superficial might have been more
+demonstrative; mine, however, was quiet.
+
+"What have you to ask of Lucy?" said I; "be brave, and speak out."
+
+But there was no courage in her eye; as it met mine, it fell; and there
+was no coolness on her cheek--not a transient surface-blush, but a
+gathering inward excitement raised its tint and its temperature.
+
+"Lucy, I _do_ wish to know your thoughts of Dr. Bretton. Do, _do_ give
+me your real opinion of his character, his disposition."
+
+"His character stands high, and deservedly high."
+
+"And his disposition? Tell me about his disposition," she urged; "you
+know him well."
+
+"I know him pretty well."
+
+"You know his home-side. You have seen him with his mother; speak of
+him as a son."
+
+"He is a fine-hearted son; his mother's comfort and hope, her pride and
+pleasure."
+
+She held my hand between hers, and at each favourable word gave it a
+little caressing stroke.
+
+"In what other way is he good, Lucy?"
+
+"Dr. Bretton is benevolent--humanely disposed towards all his race, Dr.
+Bretton would have benignity for the lowest savage, or the worst
+criminal."
+
+"I heard some gentlemen, some of papa's friends, who were talking about
+him, say the same. They say many of the poor patients at the hospitals,
+who tremble before some pitiless and selfish surgeons, welcome him."
+
+"They are right; I have witnessed as much. He once took me over a
+hospital; I saw how he was received: your father's friends are right."
+
+The softest gratitude animated her eye as she lifted it a moment. She
+had yet more to say, but seemed hesitating about time and place. Dusk
+was beginning to reign; her parlour fire already glowed with twilight
+ruddiness; but I thought she wished the room dimmer, the hour later.
+
+"How quiet and secluded we feel here!" I remarked, to reassure her.
+
+"Do we? Yes; it is a still evening, and I shall not be called down to
+tea; papa is dining out."
+
+Still holding my hand, she played with the fingers unconsciously,
+dressed them, now in her own rings, and now circled them with a twine
+of her beautiful hair; she patted the palm against her hot cheek, and
+at last, having cleared a voice that was naturally liquid as a lark's,
+she said:--
+
+"You must think it rather strange that I should talk so much about Dr.
+Bretton, ask so many questions, take such an interest, but--".
+
+"Not at all strange; perfectly natural; you like him."
+
+"And if I did," said she, with slight quickness, "is that a reason why
+I should talk? I suppose you think me weak, like my cousin Ginevra?"
+
+"If I thought you one whit like Madame Ginevra, I would not sit here
+waiting for your communications. I would get up, walk at my ease about
+the room, and anticipate all you had to say by a round lecture. Go on."
+
+"I mean to go on," retorted she; "what else do you suppose I mean to
+do?"
+
+And she looked and spoke--the little Polly of Bretton--petulant,
+sensitive.
+
+"If," said she, emphatically, "if I liked Dr. John till I was fit to
+die for liking him, that alone could not license me to be otherwise
+than dumb--dumb as the grave--dumb as you, Lucy Snowe--you know it--and
+you know you would despise me if I failed in self-control, and whined
+about some rickety liking that was all on my side."
+
+"It is true I little respect women or girls who are loquacious either
+in boasting the triumphs, or bemoaning the mortifications, of feelings.
+But as to you, Paulina, speak, for I earnestly wish to hear you. Tell
+me all it will give you pleasure or relief to tell: I ask no more."
+
+"Do you care for me, Lucy?"
+
+"Yes, I do, Paulina."
+
+"And I love you. I had an odd content in being with you even when I was
+a little, troublesome, disobedient girl; it was charming to me then to
+lavish on you my naughtiness and whims. Now you are acceptable to me,
+and I like to talk with and trust you. So listen, Lucy."
+
+And she settled herself, resting against my arm--resting gently, not
+with honest Mistress Fanshawe's fatiguing and selfish weight.
+
+"A few minutes since you asked whether we had not heard from Graham
+during our absence, and I said there were two letters for papa on
+business; this was true, but I did not tell you all."
+
+"You evaded?"
+
+"I shuffled and equivocated, you know. However, I am going to speak the
+truth now; it is getting darker; one can talk at one's ease. Papa often
+lets me open the letter-bag and give him out the contents. One morning,
+about three weeks ago, you don't know how surprised I was to find,
+amongst a dozen letters for M. de Bassompierre, a note addressed to
+Miss de Bassompierre. I spied it at once, amidst all the rest; the
+handwriting was not strange; it attracted me directly. I was going to
+say, 'Papa, here is another letter from Dr. Bretton;' but the 'Miss'
+struck me mute. I actually never received a letter from a gentleman
+before. Ought I to have shown it to papa, and let him open it and read
+it first? I could not for my life, Lucy. I know so well papa's ideas
+about me: he forgets my age; he thinks I am a mere school-girl; he is
+not aware that other people see I am grown up as tall as I shall be;
+so, with a curious mixture of feelings, some of them self-reproachful,
+and some so fluttering and strong, I cannot describe them, I gave papa
+his twelve letters--his herd of possessions--and kept back my one, my
+ewe-lamb. It lay in my lap during breakfast, looking up at me with an
+inexplicable meaning, making me feel myself a thing double-existent--a
+child to that dear papa, but no more a child to myself. After breakfast
+I carried my letter up-stairs, and having secured myself by turning the
+key in the door, I began to study the outside of my treasure: it was
+some minutes before I could get over the direction and penetrate the
+seal; one does not take a strong place of this kind by instant
+storm--one sits down awhile before it, as beleaguers say. Graham's hand
+is like himself, Lucy, and so is his seal--all clear, firm, and
+rounded--no slovenly splash of wax--a full, solid, steady drop--a
+distinct impress; no pointed turns harshly pricking the optic nerve,
+but a clean, mellow, pleasant manuscript, that soothes you as you read.
+It is like his face--just like the chiselling of his features: do you
+know his autograph?"
+
+"I have seen it: go on."
+
+"The seal was too beautiful to be broken, so I cut it round with my
+scissors. On the point of reading the letter at last, I once more drew
+back voluntarily; it was too soon yet to drink that draught--the
+sparkle in the cup was so beautiful--I would watch it yet a minute.
+Then I remembered all at once that I had not said my prayers that
+morning. Having heard papa go down to breakfast a little earlier than
+usual, I had been afraid of keeping him waiting, and had hastened to
+join him as soon as dressed, thinking no harm to put off prayers till
+afterwards. Some people would say I ought to have served God first and
+then man; but I don't think heaven could be jealous of anything I might
+do for papa. I believe I am superstitious. A voice seemed now to say
+that another feeling than filial affection was in question--to urge me
+to pray before I dared to read what I so longed to read--to deny myself
+yet a moment, and remember first a great duty. I have had these
+impulses ever since I can remember. I put the letter down and said my
+prayers, adding, at the end, a strong entreaty that whatever happened,
+I might not be tempted or led to cause papa any sorrow, and might
+never, in caring for others, neglect him. The very thought of such a
+possibility, so pierced my heart that it made me cry. But still, Lucy,
+I felt that in time papa would have to be taught the truth, managed,
+and induced to hear reason.
+
+"I read the letter. Lucy, life is said to be all disappointment. _I_
+was not disappointed. Ere I read, and while I read, my heart did more
+than throb--it trembled fast--every quiver seemed like the pant of an
+animal athirst, laid down at a well and drinking; and the well proved
+quite full, gloriously clear; it rose up munificently of its own
+impulse; I saw the sun through its gush, and not a mote, Lucy, no moss,
+no insect, no atom in the thrice-refined golden gurgle.
+
+"Life," she went on, "is said to be full of pain to some. I have read
+biographies where the wayfarer seemed to journey on from suffering to
+suffering; where Hope flew before him fast, never alighting so near, or
+lingering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one realizing grasp.
+I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from
+being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by
+sudden whirlwind; and, alas! some of these met the winter with empty
+garners, and died of utter want in the darkest and coldest of the year."
+
+"Was it their fault, Paulina, that they of whom you speak thus died?"
+
+"Not always their fault. Some of them were good endeavouring people. I
+am not endeavouring, nor actively good, yet God has caused me to grow
+in sun, due moisture, and safe protection, sheltered, fostered, taught,
+by my dear father; and now--now--another comes. Graham loves me."
+
+For some minutes we both paused on this climax.
+
+"Does your father know?" I inquired, in a low voice.
+
+"Graham spoke with deep respect of papa, but implied that he dared not
+approach that quarter as yet; he must first prove his worth: he added
+that he must have some light respecting myself and my own feelings ere
+he ventured to risk a step in the matter elsewhere."
+
+"How did you reply?"
+
+"I replied briefly, but I did not repulse him. Yet I almost trembled
+for fear of making the answer too cordial: Graham's tastes are so
+fastidious. I wrote it three times--chastening and subduing the phrases
+at every rescript; at last, having confected it till it seemed to me to
+resemble a morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest of fruit
+or sugar, I ventured to seal and despatch it."
+
+"Excellent, Paulina! Your instinct is fine; you understand Dr. Bretton."
+
+"But how must I manage about papa? There I am still in pain."
+
+"Do not manage at all. Wait now. Only maintain no further
+correspondence till your father knows all, and gives his sanction."
+
+"Will he ever give it?"
+
+"Time will show. Wait."
+
+"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm, brief
+note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my
+sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my father's
+knowledge, write again."
+
+"You acted as you ought to have done; so Dr. Bretton will feel: it will
+increase his pride in you, his love for you, if either be capable of
+increase. Paulina, that gentle hoar-frost of yours, surrounding so much
+pure, fine flame, is a priceless privilege of nature."
+
+"You see I feel Graham's disposition," said she. "I feel that no
+delicacy can be too exquisite for his treatment."
+
+"It is perfectly proved that you comprehend him, and then--whatever Dr.
+Bretton's disposition, were he one who expected to be more nearly
+met--you would still act truthfully, openly, tenderly, with your
+father."
+
+"Lucy, I trust I shall thus act always. Oh, it will be pain to wake
+papa from his dream, and tell him I am no more a little girl!"
+
+"Be in no hurry to do so, Paulina. Leave the revelation to Time and
+your kind Fate. I also have noticed the gentleness of her cares for
+you: doubt not she will benignantly order the circumstances, and fitly
+appoint the hour. Yes: I have thought over your life just as you have
+yourself thought it over; I have made comparisons like those to which
+you adverted. We know not the future, but the past has been propitious.
+
+"As a child I feared for you; nothing that has life was ever more
+susceptible than your nature in infancy: under harshness or neglect,
+neither your outward nor your inward self would have ripened to what
+they now are. Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled
+the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have
+harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation; you would
+have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness.
+Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake,
+but I believe for Graham's. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop
+fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there
+you are, ready. You must be united. I knew it the first day I saw you
+together at La Terrasse. In all that mutually concerns you and Graham
+there seems to me promise, plan, harmony. I do not think the sunny
+youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is
+deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy--not as
+angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives _are_ thus
+blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering
+evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other
+travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and
+variable--breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early
+closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of
+God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored
+the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures
+contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+M. PAUL KEEPS HIS PROMISE.
+
+
+On the first of May, we had all--i.e. the twenty boarders and the four
+teachers--notice to rise at five o'clock of the morning, to be dressed
+and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M. le
+Professeur Emanuel, who was to head our march forth from Villette, for
+it was on this day he proposed to fulfil his promise of taking us to
+breakfast in the country. I, indeed, as the reader may perhaps
+remember, had not had the honour of an invitation when this excursion
+was first projected--rather the contrary; but on my now making allusion
+to this fact, and wishing to know how it was to be, my ear received a
+pull, of which I did not venture to challenge the repetition by
+raising, further difficulties.
+
+"Je vous conseille de vous faire prier," said M. Emanuel, imperially
+menacing the other ear. One Napoleonic compliment, however, was enough,
+so I made up my mind to be of the party.
+
+The morning broke calm as summer, with singing of birds in the garden,
+and a light dew-mist that promised heat. We all said it would be warm,
+and we all felt pleasure in folding away heavy garments, and in
+assuming the attire suiting a sunny season. The clean fresh print
+dress, and the light straw bonnet, each made and trimmed as the French
+workwoman alone can make and trim, so as to unite the utterly
+unpretending with the perfectly becoming, was the rule of costume.
+Nobody flaunted in faded silk; nobody wore a second-hand best article.
+
+At six the bell rang merrily, and we poured down the staircase, through
+the carre, along the corridor, into the vestibule. There stood our
+Professor, wearing, not his savage-looking paletot and severe
+bonnet-grec, but a young-looking belted blouse and cheerful straw hat.
+He had for us all the kindest good-morrow, and most of us for him had a
+thanksgiving smile. We were marshalled in order and soon started.
+
+The streets were yet quiet, and the boulevards were fresh and peaceful
+as fields. I believe we were very happy as we walked along. This chief
+of ours had the secret of giving a certain impetus to happiness when he
+would; just as, in an opposite mood, he could give a thrill to fear.
+
+He did not lead nor follow us, but walked along the line, giving a word
+to every one, talking much to his favourites, and not wholly neglecting
+even those he disliked. It was rather my wish, for a reason I had, to
+keep slightly aloof from notice, and being paired with Ginevra
+Fanshawe, bearing on my arm the dear pressure of that angel's not
+unsubstantial limb--(she continued in excellent case, and I can assure
+the reader it was no trifling business to bear the burden of her
+loveliness; many a time in the course of that warm day I wished to
+goodness there had been less of the charming commodity)--however,
+having her, as I said, I tried to make her useful by interposing her
+always between myself and M. Paul, shifting my place, according as I
+heard him coming up to the right hand or the left. My private motive
+for this manoeuvre might be traced to the circumstance of the new print
+dress I wore, being pink in colour--a fact which, under our present
+convoy, made me feel something as I have felt, when, clad in a shawl
+with a red border, necessitated to traverse a meadow where pastured a
+bull.
+
+For awhile, the shifting system, together with some modifications in
+the arrangement of a black silk scarf, answered my purpose; but,
+by-and-by, he found out, that whether he came to this side or to that,
+Miss Fanshawe was still his neighbour. The course of acquaintance
+between Ginevra and him had never run so smooth that his temper did not
+undergo a certain crisping process whenever he heard her English
+accent: nothing in their dispositions fitted; they jarred if they came
+in contact; he held her empty and affected; she deemed him bearish,
+meddling, repellent.
+
+At last, when he had changed his place for about the sixth time,
+finding still the same untoward result to the experiment--he thrust his
+head forward, settled his eyes on mine, and demanded with impatience,
+"Qu'est-ce que c'est? Vous me jouez des tours?"
+
+The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, ere, with his
+customary quickness, he seized the root of this proceeding: in vain I
+shook out the long fringe, and spread forth the broad end of my scarf.
+"A-h-h! c'est la robe rose!" broke from his lips, affecting me very
+much like the sudden and irate low of some lord of the meadow.
+
+"It is only cotton," I alleged, hurriedly; "and cheaper, and washes
+better than any other colour."
+
+"Et Mademoiselle Lucy est coquette comme dix Parisiennes," he answered.
+"A-t-on jamais vu une Anglaise pareille. Regardez plutot son chapeau,
+et ses gants, et ses brodequins!" These articles of dress were just
+like what my companions wore; certainly not one whit smarter--perhaps
+rather plainer than most--but Monsieur had now got hold of his text,
+and I began to chafe under the expected sermon. It went off, however,
+as mildly as the menace of a storm sometimes passes on a summer day. I
+got but one flash of sheet lightning in the shape of a single bantering
+smile from his eyes; and then he said, "Courage!--a vrai dire je ne
+suis pas fache, peut-etre meme suis je content qu'on s'est fait si
+belle pour ma petite fete."
+
+"Mais ma robe n'est pas belle, Monsieur--elle n'est que propre."
+
+"J'aime la proprete," said he. In short, he was not to be dissatisfied;
+the sun of good humour was to triumph on this auspicious morning; it
+consumed scudding clouds ere they sullied its disk.
+
+And now we were in the country, amongst what they called "les bois et
+les petits sentiers." These woods and lanes a month later would offer
+but a dusty and doubtful seclusion: now, however, in their May
+greenness and morning repose, they looked very pleasant.
+
+We reached a certain well, planted round, in the taste of Labassecour,
+with an orderly circle of lime-trees: here a halt was called; on the
+green swell of ground surrounding this well, we were ordered to be
+seated, Monsieur taking his place in our midst, and suffering us to
+gather in a knot round him. Those who liked him more than they feared,
+came close, and these were chiefly little ones; those who feared more
+than they liked, kept somewhat aloof; those in whom much affection had
+given, even to what remained of fear, a pleasurable zest, observed the
+greatest distance.
+
+He began to tell us a story. Well could he narrate: in such a diction
+as children love, and learned men emulate; a diction simple in its
+strength, and strong in its simplicity. There were beautiful touches in
+that little tale; sweet glimpses of feeling and hues of description
+that, while I listened, sunk into my mind, and since have never faded.
+He tinted a twilight scene--I hold it in memory still--such a picture I
+have never looked on from artist's pencil.
+
+I have said, that, for myself, I had no impromptu faculty; and perhaps
+that very deficiency made me marvel the more at one who possessed it in
+perfection. M. Emanuel was not a man to write books; but I have heard
+him lavish, with careless, unconscious prodigality, such mental wealth
+as books seldom boast; his mind was indeed my library, and whenever it
+was opened to me, I entered bliss. Intellectually imperfect as I was, I
+could read little; there were few bound and printed volumes that did
+not weary me--whose perusal did not fag and blind--but his tomes of
+thought were collyrium to the spirit's eyes; over their contents,
+inward sight grew clear and strong. I used to think what a delight it
+would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather
+and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to
+heaven's reckless winds.
+
+His story done, he approached the little knoll where I and Ginevra sat
+apart. In his usual mode of demanding an opinion (he had not reticence
+to wait till it was voluntarily offered) he asked, "Were you
+interested?"
+
+According to my wonted undemonstrative fashion, I simply
+answered--"Yes."
+
+"Was it good?"
+
+"Very good."
+
+"Yet I could not write that down," said he.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur?"
+
+"I hate the mechanical labour; I hate to stoop and sit still. I could
+dictate it, though, with pleasure, to an amanuensis who suited me.
+Would Mademoiselle Lucy write for me if I asked her?"
+
+"Monsieur would be too quick; he would urge me, and be angry if my pen
+did not keep pace with his lips."
+
+"Try some day; let us see the monster I can make of myself under the
+circumstances. But just now, there is no question of dictation; I mean
+to make you useful in another office. Do you see yonder farm-house?"
+
+"Surrounded with trees? Yes."
+
+"There we are to breakfast; and while the good fermiere makes the cafe
+au lait in a caldron, you and five others, whom I shall select, will
+spread with butter half a hundred rolls."
+
+Having formed his troop into line once more, he marched us straight on
+the farm, which, on seeing our force, surrendered without capitulation.
+
+Clean knives and plates, and fresh butter being provided, half-a-dozen
+of us, chosen by our Professor, set to work under his directions, to
+prepare for breakfast a huge basket of rolls, with which the baker had
+been ordered to provision the farm, in anticipation of our coming.
+Coffee and chocolate were already made hot; cream and new-laid eggs
+were added to the treat, and M. Emanuel, always generous, would have
+given a large order for "jambon" and "confitures" in addition, but that
+some of us, who presumed perhaps upon our influence, insisted that it
+would be a most reckless waste of victual. He railed at us for our
+pains, terming us "des menageres avares;" but we let him talk, and
+managed the economy of the repast our own way.
+
+With what a pleasant countenance he stood on the farm-kitchen hearth
+looking on! He was a man whom it made happy to see others happy; he
+liked to have movement, animation, abundance and enjoyment round him.
+We asked where he would sit. He told us, we knew well he was our slave,
+and we his tyrants, and that he dared not so much as choose a chair
+without our leave; so we set him the farmer's great chair at the head
+of the long table, and put him into it.
+
+Well might we like him, with all his passions and hurricanes, when he
+could be so benignant and docile at times, as he was just now. Indeed,
+at the worst, it was only his nerves that were irritable, not his
+temper that was radically bad; soothe, comprehend, comfort him, and he
+was a lamb; he would not harm a fly. Only to the very stupid, perverse,
+or unsympathizing, was he in the slightest degree dangerous.
+
+Mindful always of his religion, he made the youngest of the party say a
+little prayer before we began breakfast, crossing himself as devotedly
+as a woman. I had never seen him pray before, or make that pious sign;
+he did it so simply, with such child-like faith, I could not help
+smiling pleasurably as I watched; his eyes met my smile; he just
+stretched out his kind hand, saying, "Donnez-moi la main! I see we
+worship the same God, in the same spirit, though by different rites."
+
+Most of M. Emanuel's brother Professors were emancipated free-thinkers,
+infidels, atheists; and many of them men whose lives would not bear
+scrutiny; he was more like a knight of old, religious in his way, and
+of spotless fame. Innocent childhood, beautiful youth were safe at his
+side. He had vivid passions, keen feelings, but his pure honour and his
+artless piety were the strong charm that kept the lions couchant.
+
+That breakfast was a merry meal, and the merriment was not mere vacant
+clatter: M. Paul originated, led, controlled and heightened it; his
+social, lively temper played unfettered and unclouded; surrounded only
+by women and children there was nothing to cross and thwart him; he had
+his own way, and a pleasant way it was.
+
+The meal over, the party were free to run and play in the meadows; a
+few stayed to help the farmer's wife to put away her earthenware. M.
+Paul called me from among these to come out and sit near him under a
+tree--whence he could view the troop gambolling, over a wide
+pasture--and read to him whilst he took his cigar. He sat on a rustic
+bench, and I at the tree-root. While I read (a pocket-classic--a
+Corneille--I did not like it, but he did, finding therein beauties I
+never could be brought to perceive), he listened with a sweetness of
+calm the more impressive from the impetuosity of his general nature;
+the deepest happiness filled his blue eye and smoothed his broad
+forehead. I, too, was happy--happy with the bright day, happier with
+his presence, happiest with his kindness.
+
+He asked, by-and-by, if I would not rather run to my companions than
+sit there? I said, no; I felt content to be where he was. He asked
+whether, if I were his sister, I should always be content to stay with
+a brother such as he. I said, I believed I should; and I felt it.
+Again, he inquired whether, if he were to leave Villette, and go far
+away, I should be sorry; and I dropped Corneille, and made no reply.
+
+"Petite soeur," said he; "how long could you remember me if we were
+separated?"
+
+"That, Monsieur, I can never tell, because I do not know how long it
+will be before I shall cease to remember everything earthly."
+
+"If I were to go beyond seas for two--three--five years, should you
+welcome me on my return?"
+
+"Monsieur, how could I live in the interval?"
+
+"Pourtant j'ai ete pour vous bien dur, bien exigeant."
+
+I hid my face with the book, for it was covered with tears. I asked him
+why he talked so; and he said he would talk so no more, and cheered me
+again with the kindest encouragement. Still, the gentleness with which
+he treated me during the rest of the day, went somehow to my heart. It
+was too tender. It was mournful. I would rather he had been abrupt,
+whimsical, and irate as was his wont.
+
+When hot noon arrived--for the day turned out as we had anticipated,
+glowing as June--our shepherd collected his sheep from the pasture, and
+proceeded to lead us all softly home. But we had a whole league to
+walk, thus far from Villette was the farm where he had breakfasted; the
+children, especially, were tired with their play; the spirits of most
+flagged at the prospect of this mid-day walk over chaussees flinty,
+glaring, and dusty. This state of things had been foreseen and provided
+for. Just beyond the boundary of the farm we met two spacious vehicles
+coming to fetch us--such conveyances as are hired out purposely for the
+accommodation of school-parties; here, with good management, room was
+found for all, and in another hour M. Paul made safe consignment of his
+charge at the Rue Fossette. It had been a pleasant day: it would have
+been perfect, but for the breathing of melancholy which had dimmed its
+sunshine a moment.
+
+That tarnish was renewed the same evening.
+
+Just about sunset, I saw M. Emanuel come out of the front-door,
+accompanied by Madame Beck. They paced the centre-alley for nearly an
+hour, talking earnestly: he--looking grave, yet restless; she--wearing
+an amazed, expostulatory, dissuasive air.
+
+I wondered what was under discussion; and when Madame Beck re-entered
+the house as it darkened, leaving her kinsman Paul yet lingering in the
+garden, I said to myself--"He called me 'petite soeur' this morning. If
+he were really my brother, how I should like to go to him just now, and
+ask what it is that presses on his mind. See how he leans against that
+tree, with his arms crossed and his brow bent. He wants consolation, I
+know: Madame does not console: she only remonstrates. What now----?"
+
+Starting from quiescence to action, M. Paul came striding erect and
+quick down the garden. The carre doors were yet open: I thought he was
+probably going to water the orange-trees in the tubs, after his
+occasional custom; on reaching the court, however, he took an abrupt
+turn and made for the berceau and the first-classe glass door. There,
+in that first classe I was, thence I had been watching him; but there I
+could not find courage to await his approach. He had turned so
+suddenly, he strode so fast, he looked so strange; the coward within me
+grew pale, shrank and--not waiting to listen to reason, and hearing the
+shrubs crush and the gravel crunch to his advance--she was gone on the
+wings of panic.
+
+Nor did I pause till I had taken sanctuary in the oratory, now empty.
+Listening there with beating pulses, and an unaccountable, undefined
+apprehension, I heard him pass through all the schoolrooms, clashing
+the doors impatiently as he went; I heard him invade the refectory
+which the "lecture pieuse" was now holding under hallowed constraint; I
+heard him pronounce these words--"Ou est Mademoiselle Lucie?"
+
+And just as, summoning my courage, I was preparing to go down and do
+what, after all, I most wished to do in the world--viz., meet him--the
+wiry voice of St. Pierre replied glibly and falsely, "Elle est au lit."
+And he passed, with the stamp of vexation, into the corridor. There
+Madame Beck met, captured, chid, convoyed to the street-door, and
+finally dismissed him.
+
+As that street-door closed, a sudden amazement at my own perverse
+proceeding struck like a blow upon me. I felt from the first it was me
+he wanted--me he was seeking--and had not I wanted him too? What, then,
+had carried me away? What had rapt me beyond his reach? He had
+something to tell: he was going to tell me that something: my ear
+strained its nerve to hear it, and I had made the confidence
+impossible. Yearning to listen and console, while I thought audience
+and solace beyond hope's reach--no sooner did opportunity suddenly and
+fully arrive, than I evaded it as I would have evaded the levelled
+shaft of mortality.
+
+Well, my insane inconsistency had its reward. Instead of the comfort,
+the certain satisfaction, I might have won--could I but have put
+choking panic down, and stood firm two minutes--here was dead blank,
+dark doubt, and drear suspense.
+
+I took my wages to my pillow, and passed the night counting them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MALEVOLA.
+
+
+Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had
+any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some
+little commissions for her at the shops.
+
+Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presently
+furnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,
+etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in a
+manner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I was
+just drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue forth,
+when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-a-manger.
+
+"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptu
+thought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if your
+good-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
+
+Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and
+Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,
+filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing
+amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I
+know not what, exotic plant.
+
+"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neat
+toilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
+favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
+with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,
+Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long, but
+you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you are
+not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved, or
+Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing up
+some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, ma
+bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure to
+insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into
+her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is rather
+a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
+
+And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute,
+that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tedious
+business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for the
+slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
+tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was off
+my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to be
+attended to.
+
+I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
+Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
+city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
+and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
+
+I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and
+use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the
+thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--the
+quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In return, it
+sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a quiet path
+through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as if by
+eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor. Let, then,
+the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first get rid of
+this basket of fruit.
+
+An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
+too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
+when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
+the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
+square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
+houses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearance
+of trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above this
+region, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed this
+quarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whose
+dark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable and
+formerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had long
+since stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving these
+their ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or perhaps to
+stand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course of winters.
+
+As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost as
+large as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in its
+whole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given in
+the figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and propped
+on a staff--the type of eld and decay.
+
+He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when I
+paused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, he
+turned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps he
+thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity
+age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a young
+ruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have thought
+such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I found
+myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique peasant
+costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of native
+lace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like little
+boats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in character.
+
+The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
+costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would
+scarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she
+would have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old
+priest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to the
+message with which I was charged.
+
+His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
+understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit into
+her own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that such
+were my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.
+Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongue
+of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross the
+inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I was
+ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
+
+The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
+windows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of a
+coming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller room;
+there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed; through
+the deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These few I
+amused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I was
+attracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
+
+By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook,
+it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening
+arched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair;
+both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted.
+Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon there
+fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of a substance.
+
+Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
+obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
+
+It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.
+Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might the
+three towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic sages of
+a dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell had
+opened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing picture,
+that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of a fairy
+tale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the chief
+figure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How was she?
+
+She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny hands
+rested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivory
+staff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before her
+breast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were a
+hundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--her
+malign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lids
+all round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull displeasure!
+
+This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the
+gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern;
+over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for
+her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chief
+points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing with a
+lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on her
+skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green, and
+blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like a
+barbarian queen.
+
+"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of male
+than of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her chin.
+
+I delivered my basket and my message.
+
+"Is that all?" she demanded.
+
+"It is all," said I.
+
+"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame Beck,
+and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant a ses
+felicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her back.
+
+Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightning
+blazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed to
+proceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyed
+into the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakened
+tempest.
+
+What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strange
+acquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, and
+inauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.
+There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsy
+incarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and muttering
+venomously as she vanished.
+
+Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a
+while ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as
+if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower,
+I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the gleams of
+lightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near; this storm
+had gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have burst at the
+zenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts pierced athwart
+vertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent blanched as white
+metal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its swollen abundance.
+
+Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her
+cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.
+Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the old
+priest.
+
+"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It would
+displeasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in this
+house."
+
+And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, without
+discourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was better
+furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me.
+Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like an
+oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking as if it
+were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than designed
+for present use and comfort.
+
+The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
+conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
+employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
+A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
+remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
+seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
+bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then, it
+was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
+awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
+thoughts and observations were free.
+
+To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
+that Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
+Beguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in dusk
+and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought also
+I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one lifted
+look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that too had
+its half mystic interest.
+
+Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
+sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich missal
+and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyes
+before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and let in
+phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna; revealed by
+clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a nun's dress. The
+face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with
+the dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful;
+it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability of
+a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked long
+at that picture, and could not choose but look.
+
+The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
+yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
+his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as I
+knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which my
+attention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped, concerning
+it, these four observations:--
+
+"She was much beloved.
+
+"She gave herself to God.
+
+"She died young.
+
+"She is still remembered, still wept."
+
+"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I had
+discovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that same
+aged lady's desperate ill-humour.
+
+The father shook his head with half a smile.
+
+"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children's
+children may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it is
+only the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have trebly
+denied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as Justine
+Marie is still mourned."
+
+I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore I
+inquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, in
+reply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively, with
+the accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say it
+might have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been less
+French, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and rather
+more healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father was
+obviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more persuaded
+of his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of Rome; when he
+did lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more and
+sharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wear
+and tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good old man.
+
+The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now called
+his benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine Marie,
+the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly prospects
+were such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand. The
+pupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left behind
+him only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to think of
+Marie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen, Madame
+Walravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper which
+deformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither the
+treachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her lover;
+she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second with a
+heavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her noviciate.
+
+Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heart
+which worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had been
+shown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
+
+Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house too:
+her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a good
+deal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial transactions
+which entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of grief for the
+loss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked mother and his
+bereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died too of want; but
+their lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-hearted suitor,
+hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with singular
+devotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride the revenge
+of the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending them, so as no
+son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently. The mother--on
+the whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange, godless,
+loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely supported by
+this self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of his life,
+blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic happiness,
+long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the respect a
+good son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to this house,
+"and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes,
+"here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superannuated
+servant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and to other
+charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income, keeping only
+the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most modest
+accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it impossible to
+himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and to his
+angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
+
+The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words,
+and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. I
+caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleam
+shot a meaning which struck me.
+
+These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom you
+know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of
+China--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying
+to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang
+impromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it about
+that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and such
+circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude
+apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. Madame
+Beck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy to
+the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the steps
+and crossing the square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonne
+who would have sent me away, his reappearance on the staircase, my
+introduction to this room, the portrait, the narrative so affably
+volunteered--all these little incidents, taken as they fell out, seemed
+each independent of its successor; a handful of loose beads: but
+threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a Jesuit-eye,
+they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on the
+prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp of
+this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find the
+spot, or detect the means of connection.
+
+Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appeared
+somewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through these
+inundated streets?"
+
+"More than half a league."
+
+"You live----?"
+
+"In the Rue Fossette."
+
+"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaitre mon noble
+eleve, mon Paul?"
+
+"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
+
+"He and none other."
+
+A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to have
+become palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
+
+"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Was
+he your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
+
+"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certain
+emphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal, of
+that saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
+
+"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I accentuated the
+question, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quite
+prepared for the answer which actually came.
+
+"I, daughter, am Pere Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom you
+once honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the core
+of a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, I
+coveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I for
+a day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rooted
+interest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her high
+training, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zeal
+she alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, your
+practical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
+
+This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself in
+that condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,
+inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restrained
+deprecation, and sat quietly enough.
+
+"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a theme
+which I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
+
+"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to make
+his confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls his
+mother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,
+and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of those
+splendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takes
+a puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics of
+her son the jeweller's wealth."
+
+"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,
+seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is in
+great things!"
+
+I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either the
+act of confession, or the saint-worship.
+
+"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at Justine
+Marie.
+
+"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then very
+young, for he is not much beyond forty."
+
+"Does he yet weep her?"
+
+"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's nature
+is--constancy."
+
+This was said with marked emphasis.
+
+And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, but
+there was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured out
+its lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for my
+return, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,
+was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made kindly
+welcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I liked
+less the mystic phrase accompanying it.
+
+"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle that made me
+shrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of us
+know what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happened
+yet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:
+there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy Church"
+which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering many
+things. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this man,
+Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, influenced by
+priestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, for
+sacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome,
+by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them for
+their own sake and for God's, or put them out to usury and made booty
+of the interest.
+
+By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me a
+portion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the little
+cabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made her
+appearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
+
+"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did Madame
+Walravens give you? Elle est drole, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous message
+with which I had been charged.
+
+"Oh la singuliere petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous qu'elle
+me deteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; ce
+petit devot qui n'ose pas bouger, a moins que son confesseur ne lui
+donne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to marry
+ever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he has too
+large a family already on his hands: Mere Walravens, Pere Silas, Dame
+Agnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never was a man
+like him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can bear,
+voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours a
+romantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--personnage assez
+niaise a ce que je pense" (such was Madame's irreverent remark), "who
+has been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and to
+whom he means to go, free from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, a
+ce qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you but know half M. Emanuel's
+crotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder you from taking refreshment,
+ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your supper, drink your wine,
+oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les Professeurs--et bon
+soir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+FRATERNITY.
+
+
+"Oubliez les Professeurs." So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise
+woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a
+mistake. That night she should have left me calm--not excited,
+indifferent, not interested, isolated in my own estimation and that of
+others--not connected, even in idea, with this second person whom I was
+to forget.
+
+Forget him? Ah! they took a sage plan to make me forget him--the
+wiseheads! They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little
+man a stainless little hero. And then they had prated about his manner
+of loving. What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether
+he could love at all or not?
+
+I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain
+tendernesses, fitfulnesses--a softness which came like a warm air, and
+a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his
+irritabilities: _this_ was all I had seen. And they, Pere Silas and
+Modeste Maria Beck (that these two wrought in concert I could not
+doubt) opened up the adytum of his heart--showed me one grand love, the
+child of this southern nature's youth, born so strong and perfect, that
+it had laughed at Death himself, despised his mean rape of matter,
+clung to immortal spirit, and in victory and faith, had watched beside
+a tomb twenty years.
+
+This had been done--not idly: this was not a mere hollow indulgence of
+sentiment; he had proven his fidelity by the consecration of his best
+energies to an unselfish purpose, and attested it by limitless personal
+sacrifices: for those once dear to her he prized--he had laid down
+vengeance, and taken up a cross.
+
+Now, as for Justine Marie, I knew what she was as well as if I had seen
+her. I knew she was well enough; there were girls like her in Madame
+Beck's school--phlegmatics--pale, slow, inert, but kind-natured,
+neutral of evil, undistinguished for good.
+
+If she wore angels' wings, I knew whose poet-fancy conferred them. If
+her forehead shone luminous with the reflex of a halo, I knew in the
+fire of whose irids that circlet of holy flame had generation.
+
+Was I, then, to be frightened by Justine Marie? Was the picture of a
+pale dead nun to rise, an eternal barrier? And what of the charities
+which absorbed his worldly goods? What of his heart sworn to virginity?
+
+Madame Beck--Pere Silas--you should not have suggested these questions.
+They were at once the deepest puzzle, the strongest obstruction, and
+the keenest stimulus, I had ever felt. For a week of nights and days I
+fell asleep--I dreamt, and I woke upon these two questions. In the
+whole world there was no answer to them, except where one dark little
+man stood, sat, walked, lectured, under the head-piece of a bandit
+bonnet-grec, and within the girth of a sorry paletot, much be-inked,
+and no little adust.
+
+After that visit to the Rue des Mages, I _did_ want to see him again. I
+felt as if--knowing what I now knew--his countenance would offer a page
+more lucid, more interesting than ever; I felt a longing to trace in it
+the imprint of that primitive devotedness, the signs of that
+half-knightly, half-saintly chivalry which the priest's narrative
+imputed to his nature. He had become my Christian hero: under that
+character I wanted to view him.
+
+Nor was opportunity slow to favour; my new impressions underwent her
+test the next day. Yes: I was granted an interview with my "Christian
+hero"--an interview not very heroic, or sentimental, or biblical, but
+lively enough in its way.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon, the peace of the first
+classe--safely established, as it seemed, under the serene sway of
+Madame Beck, who, _in propria persona_ was giving one of her orderly
+and useful lessons--this peace, I say, suffered a sudden fracture by
+the wild inburst of a paletot.
+
+Nobody at the moment was quieter than myself. Eased of responsibility
+by Madame Beck's presence, soothed by her uniform tones, pleased and
+edified with her clear exposition of the subject in hand (for she
+taught well), I sat bent over my desk, drawing--that is, copying an
+elaborate line engraving, tediously working up my copy to the finish of
+the original, for that was my practical notion of art; and, strange to
+say, I took extreme pleasure in the labour, and could even produce
+curiously finical Chinese facsimiles of steel or mezzotint
+plates--things about as valuable as so many achievements in
+worsted-work, but I thought pretty well of them in those days.
+
+What was the matter? My drawing, my pencils, my precious copy, gathered
+into one crushed-up handful, perished from before my sight; I myself
+appeared to be shaken or emptied out of my chair, as a solitary and
+withered nutmeg might be emptied out of a spice-box by an excited cook.
+That chair and my desk, seized by the wild paletot, one under each
+sleeve, were borne afar; in a second, I followed the furniture; in two
+minutes they and I were fixed in the centre of the grand salle--a vast
+adjoining room, seldom used save for dancing and choral
+singing-lessons--fixed with an emphasis which seemed to prohibit the
+remotest hope of our ever being permitted to stir thence again.
+
+Having partially collected my scared wits, I found myself in the
+presence of two men, gentlemen, I suppose I should say--one dark, the
+other light--one having a stiff, half-military air, and wearing a
+braided surtout; the other partaking, in garb and bearing, more of the
+careless aspect of the student or artist class: both flourishing in
+full magnificence of moustaches, whiskers, and imperial. M. Emanuel
+stood a little apart from these; his countenance and eyes expressed
+strong choler; he held forth his hand with his tribune gesture.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "your business is to prove to these gentlemen
+that I am no liar. You will answer, to the best of your ability, such
+questions as they shall put. You will also write on such theme as they
+shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an
+unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery,
+sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You
+will disprove this charge."
+
+Grand ciel! Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a
+thunder-clap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering
+personages, were none other than dandy professors of the
+college--Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte--a pair of cold-blooded fops
+and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been
+rashly exhibiting something I had written--something, he had never once
+praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed
+forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only _seemed_
+remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign
+school-girls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce
+noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to
+question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my
+testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their
+examination.
+
+A memorable scene ensued.
+
+They began with classics. A dead blank. They went on to French history.
+I hardly knew Merovee from Pharamond. They tried me in various
+'ologies, and still only got a shake of the head, and an unchanging "Je
+n'en sais rien."
+
+After an expressive pause, they proceeded to matters of general
+information, broaching one or two subjects which I knew pretty well,
+and on which I had often reflected. M. Emanuel, who had hitherto stood
+looking on, dark as the winter-solstice, brightened up somewhat; he
+thought I should now show myself at least no fool.
+
+He learned his error. Though answers to the questions surged up fast,
+my mind filling like a rising well, ideas were there, but not words. I
+either _could_ not, or _would_ not speak--I am not sure which: partly,
+I think, my nerves had got wrong, and partly my humour was crossed.
+
+I heard one of my examiners--he of the braided surtout--whisper to his
+co-professor, "Est-elle donc idiote?"
+
+"Yes," I thought, "an idiot she is, and always will be, for such as
+you."
+
+But I suffered--suffered cruelly; I saw the damps gather on M. Paul's
+brow, and his eye spoke a passionate yet sad reproach. He would not
+believe in my total lack of popular cleverness; he thought I _could_ be
+prompt if I _would_.
+
+At last, to relieve him, the professors, and myself, I stammered out:
+
+"Gentlemen, you had better let me go; you will get no good of me; as
+you say, I am an idiot."
+
+I wish I could have spoken with calm and dignity, or I wish my sense
+had sufficed to make me hold my tongue; that traitor tongue tripped,
+faltered. Beholding the judges cast on M. Emanuel a hard look of
+triumph, and hearing the distressed tremor of my own voice, out I burst
+in a fit of choking tears. The emotion was far more of anger than
+grief; had I been a man and strong, I could have challenged that pair
+on the spot--but it _was_ emotion, and I would rather have been
+scourged than betrayed it.
+
+The incapables! Could they not see at once the crude hand of a novice
+in that composition they called a forgery? The subject was classical.
+When M. Paul dictated the trait on which the essay was to turn, I heard
+it for the first time; the matter was new to me, and I had no material
+for its treatment. But I got books, read up the facts, laboriously
+constructed a skeleton out of the dry bones of the real, and then
+clothed them, and tried to breathe into them life, and in this last aim
+I had pleasure. With me it was a difficult and anxious time till my
+facts were found, selected, and properly jointed; nor could I rest from
+research and effort till I was satisfied of correct anatomy; the
+strength of my inward repugnance to the idea of flaw or falsity
+sometimes enabled me to shun egregious blunders; but the knowledge was
+not there in my head, ready and mellow; it had not been sown in Spring,
+grown in Summer, harvested in Autumn, and garnered through Winter;
+whatever I wanted I must go out and gather fresh; glean of wild herbs
+my lapful, and shred them green into the pot. Messieurs Boissec and
+Rochemorte did not perceive this. They mistook my work for the work of
+a ripe scholar.
+
+They would not yet let me go: I must sit down and write before them. As
+I dipped my pen in the ink with a shaking hand, and surveyed the white
+paper with eyes half-blinded and overflowing, one of my judges began
+mincingly to apologize for the pain he caused.
+
+"Nous agissons dans l'interet de la verite. Nous ne voulons pas vous
+blesser," said he.
+
+Scorn gave me nerve. I only answered,--
+
+"Dictate, Monsieur."
+
+Rochemorte named this theme: "Human Justice."
+
+Human Justice! What was I to make of it? Blank, cold abstraction,
+unsuggestive to me of one inspiring idea; and there stood M. Emanuel,
+sad as Saul, and stern as Joab, and there triumphed his accusers.
+
+At these two I looked. I was gathering my courage to tell them that I
+would neither write nor speak another word for their satisfaction, that
+their theme did not suit, nor their presence inspire me, and that,
+notwithstanding, whoever threw the shadow of a doubt on M. Emanuel's
+honour, outraged that truth of which they had announced themselves
+the--champions: I _meant_ to utter all this, I say, when suddenly, a
+light darted on memory.
+
+Those two faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and
+whisker--those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous
+visages--were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full
+gaslight from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me
+to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt
+morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless
+foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, chased her breathless
+over a whole quarter of the town.
+
+"Pious mentors!" thought I. "Pure guides for youth! If Human Justice'
+were what she ought to be, you two would scarce hold your present post,
+or enjoy your present credit."
+
+An idea once seized, I fell to work. "Human Justice" rushed before me
+in novel guise, a red, random beldame, with arms akimbo. I saw her in
+her house, the den of confusion: servants called to her for orders or
+help which she did not give; beggars stood at her door waiting and
+starving unnoticed; a swarm of children, sick and quarrelsome, crawled
+round her feet, and yelled in her ears appeals for notice, sympathy,
+cure, redress. The honest woman cared for none of these things. She had
+a warm seat of her own by the fire, she had her own solace in a short
+black pipe, and a bottle of Mrs. Sweeny's soothing syrup; she smoked
+and she sipped, and she enjoyed her paradise; and whenever a cry of the
+suffering souls about her pierced her ears too keenly--my jolly dame
+seized the poker or the hearth-brush: if the offender was weak,
+wronged, and sickly, she effectually settled him: if he was strong,
+lively, and violent, she only menaced, then plunged her hand in her
+deep pouch, and flung a liberal shower of sugar-plums.
+
+Such was the sketch of "Human Justice," scratched hurriedly on paper,
+and placed at the service of Messrs. Boissec and Rochemorte. M. Emanuel
+read it over my shoulder. Waiting no comment, I curtsied to the trio,
+and withdrew.
+
+After school that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting
+did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that
+forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed
+dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et
+sans-coeur," and in Monsieur's temporary departure.
+
+Not wishing him to go quite away, only desiring he should feel that
+such a transport as he had that day given way to, could not be indulged
+with perfect impunity, I was not sorry to see him, soon after,
+gardening in the berceau. He approached the glass door; I drew near
+also. We spoke of some flowers growing round it. By-and-by Monsieur
+laid down his spade; by-and-by he recommenced conversation, passed to
+other subjects, and at last touched a point of interest.
+
+Conscious that his proceeding of that day was specially open to a
+charge of extravagance, M. Paul half apologized; he half regretted,
+too, the fitfulness of his moods at all times, yet he hinted that some
+allowance ought to be made for him. "But," said he, "I can hardly
+expect it at your hands, Miss Lucy; you know neither me, nor my
+position, nor my history."
+
+His history. I took up the word at once; I pursued the idea.
+
+"No, Monsieur," I rejoined. "Of course, as you say, I know neither your
+history, nor your position, nor your sacrifices, nor any of your
+sorrows, or trials, or affections, or fidelities. Oh, no! I know
+nothing about you; you are for me altogether a stranger."
+
+"Hein?" he murmured, arching his brows in surprise.
+
+"You know, Monsieur, I only see you in classe--stern, dogmatic, hasty,
+imperious. I only hear of you in town as active and wilful, quick to
+originate, hasty to lead, but slow to persuade, and hard to bend. A man
+like you, without ties, can have no attachments; without dependants, no
+duties. All we, with whom you come in contact, are machines, which you
+thrust here and there, inconsiderate of their feelings. You seek your
+recreations in public, by the light of the evening chandelier: this
+school and yonder college are your workshops, where you fabricate the
+ware called pupils. I don't so much as know where you live; it is
+natural to take it for granted that you have no home, and need none."
+
+"I am judged," said he. "Your opinion of me is just what I thought it
+was. For you I am neither a man nor a Christian. You see me void of
+affection and religion, unattached by friend or family, unpiloted by
+principle or faith. It is well, Mademoiselle; such is our reward in
+this life."
+
+"You are a philosopher, Monsieur; a cynic philosopher" (and I looked at
+his paletot, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his
+hand), "despising the foibles of humanity--above its
+luxuries--independent of its comforts."
+
+"Et vous, Mademoiselle? vous etes proprette et douillette, et
+affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marche."
+
+"But, in short, Monsieur, now I think of it, you _must_ live somewhere?
+Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?"
+
+With a fearful projection of the under-lip, implying an impetus of
+scorn the most decided, he broke out--
+
+"Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, Miss--a cavern, where you would
+not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole
+truth, I talked about my 'study' in that college: know now that this
+'study' is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As
+for my 'establishment of servants'" (mimicking my voice) "they number
+ten; les voila."
+
+And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.
+
+"I black my boots," pursued he savagely. "I brush my paletot."
+
+"No, Monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that," was my parenthesis.
+
+"Je fais mon lit et mon menage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my
+supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless;
+nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and
+nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn
+like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in
+purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to
+whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom
+of heaven."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur; but I know!"
+
+"What do you know? many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy!"
+
+"I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of
+the Basse-Ville--why don't you go and live there?"
+
+"Hein?" muttered he again.
+
+"I liked it much, Monsieur; with the steps ascending to the door, the
+grey flags in front, the nodding trees behind--real trees, not
+shrubs--trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the
+boudoir-oratoire--you should make that room your study; it is so quiet
+and solemn."
+
+He eyed me closely; he half-smiled, half-coloured. "Where did you pick
+up all that? Who told you?" he asked.
+
+"Nobody told me. Did I dream it, Monsieur, do you think?"
+
+"Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman's waking thoughts,
+much less her sleeping fantasies?"
+
+"If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I
+saw a priest, old, bent, and grey, and a domestic--old, too, and
+picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange; her head would scarce
+reach to my elbow--her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a
+gown bright as lapis-lazuli--a shawl worth a thousand francs: she was
+decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a
+beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in
+two and bent double; she seemed also to have outlived the common years
+of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and
+sorrow. She was become morose--almost malevolent; yet _somebody_, it
+appears, cared for her in her infirmities--somebody forgave her
+trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived
+together, these three people--the mistress, the chaplain, the
+servant--all old, all feeble, all sheltered under one kind wing."
+
+He covered with his hand the upper part of his face, but did not
+conceal his mouth, where I saw hovering an expression I liked.
+
+"I see you have entered into my secrets," said he, "but how was it
+done?"
+
+So I told him how--the commission on which I had been sent, the storm
+which had detained me, the abruptness of the lady, the kindness of the
+priest.
+
+"As I sat waiting for the rain to cease, Pere Silas whiled away the
+time with a story," I said.
+
+"A story! What story? Pere Silas is no romancist."
+
+"Shall I tell Monsieur the tale?"
+
+"Yes: begin at the beginning. Let me hear some of Miss Lucy's
+French--her best or her worst--I don't much care which: let us have a
+good poignee of barbarisms, and a bounteous dose of the insular accent."
+
+"Monsieur is not going to be gratified by a tale of ambitious
+proportions, and the spectacle of the narrator sticking fast in the
+midst. But I will tell him the title--the 'Priest's Pupil.'"
+
+"Bah!" said he, the swarthy flush again dyeing his dark cheek. "The
+good old father could not have chosen a worse subject; it is his weak
+point. But what of the 'Priest's Pupil?'"
+
+"Oh! many things."
+
+"You may as well define _what_ things. I mean to know."
+
+"There was the pupil's youth, the pupil's manhood;--his avarice, his
+ingratitude, his implacability, his inconstancy. Such a bad pupil,
+Monsieur!--so thankless, cold-hearted, unchivalrous, unforgiving!
+
+"Et puis?" said he, taking a cigar.
+
+"Et puis," I pursued, "he underwent calamities which one did not
+pity--bore them in a spirit one did not admire--endured wrongs for
+which one felt no sympathy; finally took the unchristian revenge of
+heaping coals of fire on his adversary's head."
+
+"You have not told me all," said he.
+
+"Nearly all, I think: I have indicated the heads of Pere Silas's
+chapters."
+
+"You have forgotten one--that which touched on the pupil's lack of
+affection--on his hard, cold, monkish heart."
+
+"True; I remember now. Pere Silas _did_ say that his vocation was
+almost that of a priest--that his life was considered consecrated."
+
+"By what bonds or duties?"
+
+"By the ties of the past and the charities of the present."
+
+"You have, then, the whole situation?"
+
+"I have now told Monsieur all that was told me."
+
+Some meditative minutes passed.
+
+"Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, look at me, and with that truth which I
+believe you never knowingly violate, answer me one question. Raise your
+eyes; rest them on mine; have no hesitation; fear not to trust me--I am
+a man to be trusted."
+
+I raised my eyes.
+
+"Knowing me thoroughly now--all my antecedents, all my
+responsibilities--having long known my faults, can you and I still be
+friends?"
+
+"If Monsieur wants a friend in me, I shall be glad to have a friend in
+him."
+
+"But a close friend I mean--intimate and real--kindred in all but
+blood. Will Miss Lucy be the sister of a very poor, fettered, burdened,
+encumbered man?"
+
+I could not answer him in words, yet I suppose I _did_ answer him; he
+took my hand, which found comfort, in the shelter of his. _His_
+friendship was not a doubtful, wavering benefit--a cold, distant
+hope--a sentiment so brittle as not to bear the weight of a finger: I
+at once felt (or _thought_ I felt) its support like that of some rock.
+
+"When I talk of friendship, I mean _true_ friendship," he repeated
+emphatically; and I could hardly believe that words so earnest had
+blessed my ear; I hardly could credit the reality of that kind, anxious
+look he gave. If he _really_ wished for my confidence and regard, and
+_really_ would give me his--why, it seemed to me that life could offer
+nothing more or better. In that case, I was become strong and rich: in
+a moment I was made substantially happy. To ascertain the fact, to fix
+and seal it, I asked--
+
+"Is Monsieur quite serious? Does he really think he needs me, and can
+take an interest in me as a sister?"
+
+"Surely, surely," said he; "a lonely man like me, who has no sister,
+must be but too glad to find in some woman's heart a sister's pure
+affection."
+
+"And dare I rely on Monsieur's regard? Dare I speak to him when I am so
+inclined?"
+
+"My little sister must make her own experiments," said he; "I will give
+no promises. She must tease and try her wayward brother till she has
+drilled him into what she wishes. After all, he is no inductile
+material in some hands."
+
+While he spoke, the tone of his voice, the light of his now
+affectionate eye, gave me such a pleasure as, certainly, I had never
+felt. I envied no girl her lover, no bride her bridegroom, no wife her
+husband; I was content with this my voluntary, self-offering friend. If
+he would but prove reliable, and he _looked_ reliable, what, beyond his
+friendship, could I ever covet? But, if all melted like a dream, as
+once before had happened--?
+
+"Qu'est-ce donc? What is it?" said he, as this thought threw its weight
+on my heart, its shadow on my countenance. I told him; and after a
+moment's pause, and a thoughtful smile, he showed me how an equal
+fear--lest I should weary of him, a man of moods so difficult and
+fitful--had haunted his mind for more than one day, or one month.
+
+On hearing this, a quiet courage cheered me. I ventured a word of
+re-assurance. That word was not only tolerated; its repetition was
+courted. I grew quite happy--strangely happy--in making him secure,
+content, tranquil. Yesterday, I could not have believed that earth
+held, or life afforded, moments like the few I was now passing.
+Countless times it had been my lot to watch apprehended sorrow close
+darkly in; but to see unhoped-for happiness take form, find place, and
+grow more real as the seconds sped, was indeed a new experience.
+
+"Lucy," said M. Paul, speaking low, and still holding my hand, "did you
+see a picture in the boudoir of the old house?"
+
+"I did; a picture painted on a panel."
+
+"The portrait of a nun?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You heard her history?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You remember what we saw that night in the berceau?"
+
+"I shall never forget it."
+
+"You did not connect the two ideas; that would be folly?"
+
+"I thought of the apparition when I saw the portrait," said I; which
+was true enough.
+
+"You did not, nor will you fancy," pursued he, "that a saint in heaven
+perturbs herself with rivalries of earth? Protestants are rarely
+superstitious; these morbid fancies will not beset _you?_"
+
+"I know not what to think of this matter; but I believe a perfectly
+natural solution of this seeming mystery will one day be arrived at."
+
+"Doubtless, doubtless. Besides, no good-living woman--much less a pure,
+happy spirit--would trouble amity like ours n'est-il pas vrai?"
+
+Ere I could answer, Fifine Beck burst in, rosy and abrupt, calling out
+that I was wanted. Her mother was going into town to call on some
+English family, who had applied for a prospectus: my services were
+needed as interpreter. The interruption was not unseasonable:
+sufficient for the day is always the evil; for this hour, its good
+sufficed. Yet I should have liked to ask M. Paul whether the "morbid
+fancies," against which he warned me, wrought in his own brain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE APPLE OF DISCORD.
+
+
+Besides Fifine Beck's mother, another power had a word to say to M.
+Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We
+were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously
+her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to
+which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the
+confessional.
+
+"Why were you so glad to be friends with M. Paul?" asks the reader.
+"Had he not long been a friend to you? Had he not given proof on proof
+of a certain partiality in his feelings?"
+
+Yes, he had; but still I liked to hear him say so earnestly--that he
+was my close, true friend; I liked his modest doubts, his tender
+deference--that trust which longed to rest, and was grateful when
+taught how. He had called me "sister." It was well. Yes; he might call
+me what he pleased, so long as he confided in me. I was willing to be
+his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that
+relation to some future wife of his; and tacitly vowed as he was to
+celibacy, of this dilemma there seemed little danger.
+
+Through most of the succeeding night I pondered that evening's
+interview. I wanted much the morning to break, and then listened for
+the bell to ring; and, after rising and dressing, I deemed prayers and
+breakfast slow, and all the hours lingering, till that arrived at last
+which brought me the lesson of literature. My wish was to get a more
+thorough comprehension of this fraternal alliance: to note with how
+much of the brother he would demean himself when we met again; to prove
+how much of the sister was in my own feelings; to discover whether I
+could summon a sister's courage, and he a brother's frankness.
+
+He came. Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will
+not, match the expectation. That whole day he never accosted me. His
+lesson was given rather more quietly than usual, more mildly, and also
+more gravely. He was fatherly to his pupils, but he was not brotherly
+to me. Ere he left the classe, I expected a smile, if not a word; I got
+neither: to my portion fell one nod--hurried, shy.
+
+This distance, I argued, is accidental--it is involuntary; patience,
+and it will vanish. It vanished not; it continued for days; it
+increased. I suppressed my surprise, and swallowed whatever other
+feelings began to surge.
+
+Well might I ask when he offered fraternity--"Dare I rely on you?" Well
+might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True, he had
+bid me make my own experiments--tease and try him. Vain injunction!
+Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use it! Nothing in
+my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave band. Left alone, I
+was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my lips would not utter,
+nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had been an error
+somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to disclose it.
+
+But the day came when, as usual, he was to give me a lesson. One
+evening in seven he had long generously bestowed on me, devoting it to
+the examination of what had been done in various studies during the
+past week, and to the preparation of work for the week in prospect. On
+these occasions my schoolroom was anywhere, wherever the pupils and the
+other teachers happened to be, or in their close vicinage, very often
+in the large second division, where it was easy to choose a quiet nook
+when the crowding day pupils were absent, and the few boarders gathered
+in a knot about the surveillante's estrade.
+
+On the customary evening, hearing the customary hour strike, I
+collected my books and papers, my pen and ink, and sought the large
+division.
+
+In classe there was no one, and it lay all in cool deep shadow; but
+through the open double doors was seen the carre, filled with pupils
+and with light; over hall and figures blushed the westering sun. It
+blushed so ruddily and vividly, that the hues of the walls and the
+variegated tints of the dresses seemed all fused in one warm glow. The
+girls were seated, working or studying; in the midst of their circle
+stood M. Emanuel, speaking good-humouredly to a teacher. His dark
+paletot, his jetty hair, were tinged with many a reflex of crimson; his
+Spanish face, when he turned it momentarily, answered the sun's
+animated kiss with an animated smile. I took my place at a desk.
+
+The orange-trees, and several plants, full and bright with bloom,
+basked also in the sun's laughing bounty; they had partaken it the
+whole day, and now asked water. M. Emanuel had a taste for gardening;
+he liked to tend and foster plants. I used to think that working
+amongst shrubs with a spade or a watering-pot soothed his nerves; it
+was a recreation to which he often had recourse; and now he looked to
+the orange-trees, the geraniums, the gorgeous cactuses, and revived
+them all with the refreshment their drought needed. His lips meantime
+sustained his precious cigar, that (for him) first necessary and prime
+luxury of life; its blue wreaths curled prettily enough amongst the
+flowers, and in the evening light. He spoke no more to the pupils, nor
+to the mistresses, but gave many an endearing word to a small
+spanieless (if one may coin a word), that nominally belonged to the
+house, but virtually owned him as master, being fonder of him than any
+inmate. A delicate, silky, loving, and lovable little doggie she was,
+trotting at his side, looking with expressive, attached eyes into his
+face; and whenever he dropped his bonnet-grec or his handkerchief,
+which he occasionally did in play, crouching beside it with the air of
+a miniature lion guarding a kingdom's flag.
+
+There were many plants, and as the amateur gardener fetched all the
+water from the well in the court, with his own active hands, his work
+spun on to some length. The great school-clock ticked on. Another hour
+struck. The carre and the youthful group lost the illusion of sunset.
+Day was drooping. My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very short;
+but the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Was
+it my turn?
+
+Alas! in the garden were more plants to be looked after,--favourite
+rose-bushes, certain choice flowers; little Sylvie's glad bark and
+whine followed the receding paletot down the alleys. I put up some of
+my books; I should not want them all; I sat and thought; and waited,
+involuntarily deprecating the creeping invasion of twilight.
+
+Sylvie, gaily frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the
+returning paletot; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it
+had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in
+a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere
+long the prayer-bell must ring; but still we should meet; he would
+speak; a chance would be offered of reading in his eyes the riddle of
+his shyness. His ablutions over, he stood, slowly re-arranging his
+cuffs, looking at the horn of a young moon, set pale in the opal sky,
+and glimmering faint on the oriel of Jean Baptiste. Sylvie watched the
+mood contemplative; its stillness irked her; she whined and jumped to
+break it. He looked down.
+
+"Petite exigeante," said he; "you must not be forgotten one moment, it
+seems."
+
+He stopped, lifted her in his arms, sauntered across the court, within
+a yard of the line of windows near one of which I sat: he sauntered
+lingeringly, fondling the spaniel in his bosom, calling her tender
+names in a tender voice. On the front-door steps he turned; once again
+he looked at the moon, at the grey cathedral, over the remoter spires
+and house-roofs fading into a blue sea of night-mist; he tasted the
+sweet breath of dusk, and noted the folded bloom of the garden; he
+suddenly looked round; a keen beam out of his eye rased the white
+facade of the classes, swept the long line of croisees. I think he
+bowed; if he did, I had no time to return the courtesy. In a moment he
+was gone; the moonlit threshold lay pale and shadowless before the
+closed front door.
+
+Gathering in my arms all that was spread on the desk before me, I
+carried back the unused heap to its place in the third classe. The
+prayer-bell rang; I obeyed its summons.
+
+The morrow would not restore him to the Rue Fossette, that day being
+devoted entirely to his college. I got through my teaching; I got over
+the intermediate hours; I saw evening approaching, and armed myself for
+its heavy ennuis. Whether it was worse to stay with my co-inmates, or
+to sit alone, I had not considered; I naturally took up the latter
+alternative; if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart
+or head of no human being in this house could yield it; only under the
+lid of my desk could it harbour, nestling between the leaves of some
+book, gilding a pencil-point, the nib of a pen, or tinging the black
+fluid in that ink-glass. With a heavy heart I opened my desk-lid; with
+a weary hand I turned up its contents.
+
+One by one, well-accustomed books, volumes sewn in familiar covers,
+were taken out and put back hopeless: they had no charm; they could not
+comfort. Is this something new, this pamphlet in lilac? I had not seen
+it before, and I re-arranged my desk this very day--this very
+afternoon; the tract must have been introduced within the last hour,
+while we were at dinner.
+
+I opened it. What was it? What would it say to me?
+
+It was neither tale nor poem, neither essay nor history; it neither
+sung, nor related, not discussed. It was a theological work; it
+preached and it persuaded.
+
+I lent to it my ear very willingly, for, small as it was, it possessed
+its own spell, and bound my attention at once. It preached Romanism; it
+persuaded to conversion. The voice of that sly little book was a
+honeyed voice; its accents were all unction and balm. Here roared no
+utterance of Rome's thunders, no blasting of the breath of her
+displeasure. The Protestant was to turn Papist, not so much in fear of
+the heretic's hell, as on account of the comfort, the indulgence, the
+tenderness Holy Church offered: far be it from her to threaten or to
+coerce; her wish was to guide and win. _She_ persecute? Oh dear no! not
+on any account!
+
+This meek volume was not addressed to the hardened and worldly; it was
+not even strong meat for the strong: it was milk for babes: the mild
+effluence of a mother's love towards her tenderest and her youngest;
+intended wholly and solely for those whose head is to be reached
+through the heart. Its appeal was not to intellect; it sought to win
+the affectionate through their affections, the sympathizing through
+their sympathies: St. Vincent de Paul, gathering his orphans about him,
+never spoke more sweetly.
+
+I remember one capital inducement to apostacy was held out in the fact
+that the Catholic who had lost dear friends by death could enjoy the
+unspeakable solace of praying them out of purgatory. The writer did not
+touch on the firmer peace of those whose belief dispenses with
+purgatory altogether: but I thought of this; and, on the whole,
+preferred the latter doctrine as the most consolatory. The little book
+amused, and did not painfully displease me. It was a canting,
+sentimental, shallow little book, yet something about it cheered my
+gloom and made me smile; I was amused with the gambols of this unlicked
+wolf-cub muffled in the fleece, and mimicking the bleat of a guileless
+lamb. Portions of it reminded me of certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts I
+had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same
+seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no
+bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained cunning--the
+cloven hoof of his system--I should pause before accusing himself of
+insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props; it was
+rickety.
+
+I smiled then over this dose of maternal tenderness, coming from the
+ruddy old lady of the Seven Hills; smiled, too, at my own
+disinclination, not to say disability, to meet these melting favours.
+Glancing at the title-page, I found the name of "Pere Silas." A
+fly-leaf bore in small, but clear and well-known pencil characters:
+"From P. C. D. E. to L--y." And when I saw this I laughed: but not in
+my former spirit. I was revived.
+
+A mortal bewilderment cleared suddenly from my head and vision; the
+solution of the Sphinx-riddle was won; the conjunction of those two
+names, Pere Silas and Paul Emanuel, gave the key to all. The penitent
+had been with his director; permitted to withhold nothing; suffered to
+keep no corner of his heart sacred to God and to himself; the whole
+narrative of our late interview had been drawn from him; he had avowed
+the covenant of fraternity, and spoken of his adopted sister. How could
+such a covenant, such adoption, be sanctioned by the Church? Fraternal
+communion with a heretic! I seemed to hear Pere Silas annulling the
+unholy pact; warning his penitent of its perils; entreating, enjoining
+reserve, nay, by the authority of his office, and in the name, and by
+the memory of all M. Emanuel held most dear and sacred, commanding the
+enforcement of that new system whose frost had pierced to the marrow of
+my bones.
+
+These may not seem pleasant hypotheses; yet, by comparison, they were
+welcome. The vision of a ghostly troubler hovering in the background,
+was as nothing, matched with the fear of spontaneous change arising in
+M. Paul himself.
+
+At this distance of time, I cannot be sure how far the above
+conjectures were self-suggested: or in what measure they owed their
+origin and confirmation to another quarter. Help was not wanting.
+
+This evening there was no bright sunset: west and east were one cloud;
+no summer night-mist, blue, yet rose-tinged, softened the distance; a
+clammy fog from the marshes crept grey round Villette. To-night the
+watering-pot might rest in its niche by the well: a small rain had been
+drizzling all the afternoon, and still it fell fast and quietly. This
+was no weather for rambling in the wet alleys, under the dripping
+trees; and I started to hear Sylvie's sudden bark in the garden--her
+bark of welcome. Surely she was not accompanied and yet this glad,
+quick bark was never uttered, save in homage to one presence.
+
+Through the glass door and the arching berceau, I commanded the deep
+vista of the allee defendue: thither rushed Sylvie, glistening through
+its gloom like a white guelder-rose. She ran to and fro, whining,
+springing, harassing little birds amongst the bushes. I watched five
+minutes; no fulfilment followed the omen. I returned to my books;
+Sylvie's sharp bark suddenly ceased. Again I looked up. She was
+standing not many yards distant, wagging her white feathery tail as
+fast as the muscle would work, and intently watching the operations of
+a spade, plied fast by an indefatigable hand. There was M. Emanuel,
+bent over the soil, digging in the wet mould amongst the rain-laden and
+streaming shrubs, working as hard as if his day's pittance were yet to
+earn by the literal sweat of his brow.
+
+In this sign I read a ruffled mood. He would dig thus in frozen snow on
+the coldest winter day, when urged inwardly by painful emotion, whether
+of nervous excitation, or, sad thoughts of self-reproach. He would dig
+by the hour, with knit brow and set teeth, nor once lift his head, or
+open his lips.
+
+Sylvie watched till she was tired. Again scampering devious, bounding
+here, rushing there, snuffing and sniffing everywhere; she at last
+discovered me in classe. Instantly she flew barking at the panes, as if
+to urge me forth to share her pleasure or her master's toil; she had
+seen me occasionally walking in that alley with M. Paul; and I doubt
+not, considered it my duty to join him now, wet as it was.
+
+She made such a bustle that M. Paul at last looked up, and of course
+perceived why, and at whom she barked. He whistled to call her off; she
+only barked the louder. She seemed quite bent upon having the glass
+door opened. Tired, I suppose, with her importunity, he threw down his
+spade, approached, and pushed the door ajar. Sylvie burst in all
+impetuous, sprang to my lap, and with her paws at my neck, and her
+little nose and tongue somewhat overpoweringly busy about my face,
+mouth, and eyes, flourished her bushy tail over the desk, and scattered
+books and papers far and wide.
+
+M. Emanuel advanced to still the clamour and repair the disarrangement.
+Having gathered up the books, he captured Sylvie, and stowed her away
+under his paletot, where she nestled as quiet as a mouse, her head just
+peeping forth. She was very tiny, and had the prettiest little innocent
+face, the silkiest long ears, the finest dark eyes in the world. I
+never saw her, but I thought of Paulina de Bassompierre: forgive the
+association, reader, it _would_ occur.
+
+M. Paul petted and patted her; the endearments she received were not to
+be wondered at; she invited affection by her beauty and her vivacious
+life.
+
+While caressing the spaniel, his eye roved over the papers and books
+just replaced; it settled on the religious tract. His lips moved; he
+half checked the impulse to speak. What! had he promised never to
+address me more? If so, his better nature pronounced the vow "more
+honoured in the breach than in the observance," for with a second
+effort, he spoke.--"You have not yet read the brochure, I presume? It
+is not sufficiently inviting?"
+
+I replied that I had read it.
+
+He waited, as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked.
+Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any
+concessions were to be made--if any advances were demanded--that was
+the affair of the very docile pupil of Pere Silas, not mine. His eye
+settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue
+ray--there was solicitude--a shade of pathos; there were meanings
+composite and contrasted--reproach melting into remorse. At the moment
+probably, he would have been glad to see something emotional in me. I
+could not show it. In another minute, however, I should have betrayed
+confusion, had I not bethought myself to take some quill-pens from my
+desk, and begin soberly to mend them.
+
+I knew that action would give a turn to his mood. He never liked to see
+me mend pens; my knife was always dull-edged--my hand, too, was
+unskilful; I hacked and chipped. On this occasion I cut my own
+finger--half on purpose. I wanted to restore him to his natural state,
+to set him at his ease, to get him to chide.
+
+"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."
+
+He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
+depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
+point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.
+
+"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.
+
+Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.
+
+"Had it moved me?"
+
+"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."
+
+(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
+him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my faults
+at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilite et de
+sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so touching."
+
+"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
+all--not a whit."
+
+And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief, still
+clean and in its folds.
+
+Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant
+than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural
+silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just
+in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie
+with the contents of a bonbonniere, which M. Emanuel's gifts kept well
+supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see even a small
+matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me and the spaniel
+while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife. Touching my hand
+with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites donc, petite
+soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during the last two
+days?"
+
+But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made
+my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--over the
+desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he said: "I
+hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think
+of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you are to be
+feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper caution."
+
+"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."
+
+"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
+whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
+panoply. You are good--Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
+your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
+expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it gives you certain
+tones and certain gestures that make my flesh creep. You are not
+demonstrative, and yet, just now--when you handled that tract--my God!
+I thought Lucifer smiled."
+
+"Certainly I don't respect that tract--what then?"
+
+"Not respect that tract? But it is the pure essence of faith, love,
+charity! I thought it would touch you: in its gentleness, I trusted
+that it could not fail. I laid it in your desk with a prayer: I must
+indeed be a sinner: Heaven will not hear the petitions that come
+warmest from my heart. You scorn my little offering. Oh, cela me fait
+mal!"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't scorn it--at least, not as your gift. Monsieur, sit
+down; listen to me. I am not a heathen, I am not hard-hearted, I am not
+unchristian, I am not dangerous, as they tell you; I would not trouble
+your faith; you believe in God and Christ and the Bible, and so do I."
+
+"But _do_ you believe in the Bible? Do you receive Revelation? What
+limits are there to the wild, careless daring of your country and sect.
+Pere Silas dropped dark hints."
+
+By dint of persuasion, I made him half-define these hints; they
+amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked
+seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. _I_ could not argue--a
+fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical opposition to
+effect all the director wished to be effected; but I could talk in my
+own way--the way M. Paul was used to--and of which he could follow the
+meanderings and fill the hiatus, and pardon the strange stammerings,
+strange to him no longer. At ease with him, I could defend my creed and
+faith in my own fashion; in some degree I could lull his prejudices. He
+was not satisfied when he went away, hardly was he appeased; but he was
+made thoroughly to feel that Protestants were not necessarily the
+irreverent Pagans his director had insinuated; he was made to
+comprehend something of their mode of honouring the Light, the Life,
+the Word; he was enabled partly to perceive that, while their
+veneration for things venerable was not quite like that cultivated in
+his Church, it had its own, perhaps, deeper power--its own more solemn
+awe.
+
+I found that Pere Silas (himself, I must repeat, not a bad man, though
+the advocate of a bad cause) had darkly stigmatized Protestants in
+general, and myself by inference, with strange names, had ascribed to
+us strange "isms;" Monsieur Emanuel revealed all this in his frank
+fashion, which knew not secretiveness, looking at me as he spoke with a
+kind, earnest fear, almost trembling lest there should be truth in the
+charges. Pere Silas, it seems, had closely watched me, had ascertained
+that I went by turns, and indiscriminately, to the three Protestant
+Chapels of Villette--the French, German, and English--_id est_, the
+Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian. Such liberality argued in the
+father's eyes profound indifference--who tolerates all, he reasoned,
+can be attached to none. Now, it happened that I had often secretly
+wondered at the minute and unimportant character of the differences
+between these three sects--at the unity and identity of their vital
+doctrines: I saw nothing to hinder them from being one day fused into
+one grand Holy Alliance, and I respected them all, though I thought
+that in each there were faults of form, incumbrances, and trivialities.
+Just what I thought, that did I tell M. Emanuel, and explained to him
+that my own last appeal, the guide to which I looked, and the teacher
+which I owned, must always be the Bible itself, rather than any sect,
+of whatever name or nation.
+
+He left me soothed, yet full of solicitude, breathing a wish, as strong
+as a prayer, that if I were wrong, Heaven would lead me right. I heard,
+poured forth on the threshold, some fervid murmurings to "Marie, Reine
+du Ciel," some deep aspiration that _his_ hope might yet be _mine_.
+
+Strange! I had no such feverish wish to turn him from the faith of his
+fathers. I thought Romanism wrong, a great mixed image of gold and
+clay; but it seemed to me that _this_ Romanist held the purer elements
+of his creed with an innocency of heart which God must love.
+
+The preceding conversation passed between eight and nine o'clock of the
+evening, in a schoolroom of the quiet Rue Fossette, opening on a
+sequestered garden. Probably about the same, or a somewhat later hour
+of the succeeding evening, its echoes, collected by holy obedience,
+were breathed verbatim in an attent ear, at the panel of a
+confessional, in the hoary church of the Magi. It ensued that Pere
+Silas paid a visit to Madame Beck, and stirred by I know not what
+mixture of motives, persuaded her to let him undertake for a time the
+Englishwoman's spiritual direction.
+
+Hereupon I was put through a course of reading--that is, I just glanced
+at the books lent me; they were too little in my way to be thoroughly
+read, marked, learned, or inwardly digested. And besides, I had a book
+up-stairs, under my pillow, whereof certain chapters satisfied my needs
+in the article of spiritual lore, furnishing such precept and example
+as, to my heart's core, I was convinced could not be improved on.
+
+Then Pere Silas showed me the fair side of Rome, her good works; and
+bade me judge the tree by its fruits.
+
+In answer, I felt and I avowed that these works were _not_ the fruits
+of Rome; they were but her abundant blossoming, but the fair promise
+she showed the world, that bloom when set, savoured not of charity;
+the apple full formed was ignorance, abasement, and bigotry. Out of
+men's afflictions and affections were forged the rivets of their
+servitude. Poverty was fed and clothed, and sheltered, to bind it by
+obligation to "the Church;" orphanage was reared and educated that it
+might grow up in the fold of "the Church;" sickness was tended that it
+might die after the formula and in the ordinance of "the Church;" and
+men were overwrought, and women most murderously sacrificed, and all
+laid down a world God made pleasant for his creatures' good, and took
+up a cross, monstrous in its galling weight, that they might serve
+Rome, prove her sanctity, confirm her power, and spread the reign of
+her tyrant "Church."
+
+For man's good was little done; for God's glory, less. A thousand ways
+were opened with pain, with blood-sweats, with lavishing of life;
+mountains were cloven through their breasts, and rocks were split to
+their base; and all for what? That a Priesthood might march straight on
+and straight upward to an all-dominating eminence, whence they might at
+last stretch the sceptre of their Moloch "Church."
+
+It will not be. God is not with Rome, and, were human sorrows still for
+the Son of God, would he not mourn over her cruelties and ambitions, as
+once he mourned over the crimes and woes of doomed Jerusalem!
+
+Oh, lovers of power! Oh, mitred aspirants for this world's kingdoms! an
+hour will come, even to you, when it will be well for your
+hearts--pausing faint at each broken beat--that there is a Mercy beyond
+human compassions, a Love, stronger than this strong death which even
+you must face, and before it, fall; a Charity more potent than any sin,
+even yours; a Pity which redeems worlds--nay, absolves Priests.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My third temptation was held out in the pomp of Rome--the glory of her
+kingdom. I was taken to the churches on solemn occasions--days of fete
+and state; I was shown the Papal ritual and ceremonial. I looked at it.
+
+Many people--men and women--no doubt far my superiors in a thousand
+ways, have felt this display impressive, have declared that though
+their Reason protested, their Imagination was subjugated. I cannot say
+the same. Neither full procession, nor high mass, nor swarming tapers,
+nor swinging censers, nor ecclesiastical millinery, nor celestial
+jewellery, touched my imagination a whit. What I saw struck me as
+tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual.
+
+This I did not tell Pere Silas; he was old, he looked venerable:
+through every abortive experiment, under every repeated disappointment,
+he remained personally kind to me, and I felt tender of hurting his
+feelings. But on the evening of a certain day when, from the balcony of
+a great house, I had been made to witness a huge mingled procession of
+the church and the army--priests with relics, and soldiers with
+weapons, an obese and aged archbishop, habited in cambric and lace,
+looking strangely like a grey daw in bird-of-paradise plumage, and a
+band of young girls fantastically robed and garlanded--_then_ I spoke
+my mind to M. Paul.
+
+"I did not like it," I told him; "I did not respect such ceremonies; I
+wished to see no more."
+
+And having relieved my conscience by this declaration, I was able to go
+on, and, speaking more currently and clearly than my wont, to show him
+that I had a mind to keep to my reformed creed; the more I saw of
+Popery the closer I clung to Protestantism; doubtless there were errors
+in every church, but I now perceived by contrast how severely pure was
+my own, compared with her whose painted and meretricious face had been
+unveiled for my admiration. I told him how we kept fewer forms between
+us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of
+mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I
+could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax-lights and embroidery, at
+such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting
+the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His
+being--Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly
+corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe--I could not care
+for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of
+existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me--when the
+mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in view--_then_,
+even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and
+dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry--"God
+be merciful to me, a sinner!"
+
+When I had so spoken, so declared my faith, and so widely severed
+myself, from him I addressed--then, at last, came a tone accordant, an
+echo responsive, one sweet chord of harmony in two conflicting spirits.
+
+"Whatever say priests or controversialists," murmured M. Emanuel, "God
+is good, and loves all the sincere. Believe, then, what you can;
+believe it as you can; one prayer, at least, we have in common; I also
+cry--'O Dieu, sois appaise envers moi qui suis pecheur!'"
+
+He leaned on the back of my chair. After some thought he again spoke:
+
+"How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose
+nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining
+yonder--how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God,
+nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in
+our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of
+one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He
+has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites
+about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that
+mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange
+mental effort only divined.
+
+"God guide us all! God bless you, Lucy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SUNSHINE.
+
+
+It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with
+Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton
+could not live within a league of the Hotel Crecy, and not contrive to
+visit there often. Both lovers meant at first, I believe, to be
+distant; they kept their intention so far as demonstrative courtship
+went, but in feeling they soon drew very near.
+
+All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
+awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
+Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
+intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
+all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
+gratification when it came.
+
+I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
+formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
+reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
+fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
+very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
+chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
+response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
+to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
+talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and answered
+with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a music waxing
+finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a suggestive,
+persuasive, magic accent that opened a scarce-known treasure-house
+within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind, and what was
+better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way in which the
+other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression pleased; each
+keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met each other's
+meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often matched like
+carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by nature; Paulina
+possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--unstimulated, she
+inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she seemed merry as a
+lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced like some soft glad
+light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I can hardly express,
+but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice of hers--that reserve
+on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah! Graham would not long
+bear it; he brought with him a generous influence that soon thawed the
+timid, self-imposed restriction.
+
+Now were the old Bretton days talked over; perhaps brokenly at first,
+with a sort of smiling diffidence, then with opening candour and still
+growing confidence. Graham had made for himself a better opportunity
+than that he had wished me to give; he had earned independence of the
+collateral help that disobliging Lucy had refused; all his
+reminiscences of "little Polly" found their proper expression in his
+own pleasant tones, by his own kind and handsome lips; how much better
+than if suggested by me.
+
+More than once when we were alone, Paulina would tell me how wonderful
+and curious it was to discover the richness and accuracy of his memory
+in this matter. How, while he was looking at her, recollections would
+seem to be suddenly quickened in his mind. He reminded her that she had
+once gathered his head in her arms, caressed his leonine graces, and
+cried out, "Graham, I _do_ like you!" He told her how she would set a
+footstool beside him, and climb by its aid to his knee. At this day he
+said he could recall the sensation of her little hands smoothing his
+cheek, or burying themselves in his thick mane. He remembered the touch
+of her small forefinger, placed half tremblingly, half curiously, in
+the cleft in his chin, the lisp, the look with which she would name it
+"a pretty dimple," then seek his eyes and question why they pierced so,
+telling him he had a "nice, strange face; far nicer, far stranger, than
+either his mamma or Lucy Snowe."
+
+"Child as I was," remarked Paulina, "I wonder how I dared be so
+venturous. To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible,
+and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin,
+at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is
+not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful, but what is
+he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do _you_ admire him?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I do, Paulina," was once my answer to her many
+questions. "_I never see him_. I looked at him twice or thrice about a
+year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he
+were to cross their balls twelve times between each day's sunset and
+sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what shape had gone
+by."
+
+"Lucy, what do you mean?" said she, under her breath.
+
+"I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind."
+
+It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the
+tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and
+sometimes dropped in my ear--molten lead. To me, she commented no more
+on her lover's beauty.
+
+Yet speak of him she would; sometimes shyly, in quiet, brief phrases;
+sometimes with a tenderness of cadence, and music of voice exquisite in
+itself; but which chafed me at times miserably; and then, I know, I
+gave her stern looks and words; but cloudless happiness had dazzled her
+native clear sight, and she only thought Lucy--fitful.
+
+"Spartan girl! Proud Lucy!" she would say, smiling at me. "Graham says
+you are the most peculiar, capricious little woman he knows; but yet
+you are excellent; we both think so."
+
+"You both think you know not what," said I. "Have the goodness to make
+me as little the subject of your mutual talk and thoughts as possible.
+I have my sort of life apart from yours."
+
+"But ours, Lucy, is a beautiful life, or it will be; and you shall
+share it."
+
+"I shall share no man's or woman's life in this world, as you
+understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not
+sure; and till I _am_ sure, I live solitary."
+
+"But solitude is sadness."
+
+"Yes; it is sadness. Life, however; has worse than that. Deeper than
+melancholy, lies heart-break."
+
+"Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether."
+
+There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a
+witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had
+forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against
+correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me
+these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and of
+the heiress's imperiousness, she _made_ me read them. As I read
+Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride:
+they were fine letters--manly and fond--modest and gallant. Hers must
+have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to show her
+talents; still less, I think, to express her love. On the contrary, it
+appeared that she had proposed to herself the task of hiding that
+feeling, and bridling her lover's ardour. But how could such letters
+serve such a purpose? Graham was become dear as her life; he drew her
+like a powerful magnet. For her there was influence unspeakable in all
+he uttered, wrote, thought, or looked. With this unconfessed
+confession, her letters glowed; it kindled them, from greeting to adieu.
+
+"I wish papa knew; I _do_ wish papa knew!" began now to be her anxious
+murmur. "I wish, and yet I fear. I can hardly keep Graham back from
+telling him. There is nothing I long for more than to have this affair
+settled--to speak out candidly; and yet I dread the crisis. I know, I
+am certain, papa will be angry at the first; I fear he will dislike me
+almost; it will seem to him an untoward business; it will be a
+surprise, a shock: I can hardly foresee its whole effect on him."
+
+The fact was--her father, long calm, was beginning to be a little
+stirred: long blind on one point, an importunate light was beginning to
+trespass on his eye.
+
+To _her_, he said nothing; but when she was not looking at, or perhaps
+thinking of him, I saw him gaze and meditate on her.
+
+One evening--Paulina was in her dressing-room, writing, I believe, to
+Graham; she had left me in the library, reading--M. de Bassompierre
+came in; he sat down: I was about to withdraw; he requested me to
+remain--gently, yet in a manner which showed he wished compliance. He
+had taken his seat near the window, at a distance from me; he opened a
+desk; he took from it what looked like a memorandum-book; of this book
+he studied a certain entry for several minutes.
+
+"Miss Snowe," said he, laying it down, "do you know my little girl's
+age?"
+
+"About eighteen, is it not, sir?"
+
+"It seems so. This old pocket-book tells me she was born on the 5th of
+May, in the year 18--, eighteen years ago. It is strange; I had lost
+the just reckoning of her age. I thought of her as twelve--fourteen--an
+indefinite date; but she seemed a child."
+
+"She is about eighteen," I repeated. "She is grown up; she will be no
+taller."
+
+"My little jewel!" said M. de Bassompierre, in a tone which penetrated
+like some of his daughter's accents.
+
+He sat very thoughtful.
+
+"Sir, don't grieve," I said; for I knew his feelings, utterly unspoken
+as they were.
+
+"She is the only pearl I have," he said; "and now others will find out
+that she is pure and of price: they will covet her."
+
+I made no answer. Graham Bretton had dined with us that day; he had
+shone both in converse and looks: I know not what pride of bloom
+embellished his aspect and mellowed his intercourse. Under the stimulus
+of a high hope, something had unfolded in his whole manner which
+compelled attention. I think he had purposed on that day to indicate
+the origin of his endeavours, and the aim of his ambition. M. de
+Bassompierre had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the
+direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he
+was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided
+him through a long labyrinth.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked.
+
+"She is up-stairs."
+
+"What is she doing?"
+
+"She is writing."
+
+"She writes, does she? Does she receive letters?"
+
+"None but such as she can show me. And--sir--she--_they_ have long
+wanted to consult you."
+
+"Pshaw! They don't think of me--an old father! I am in the way."
+
+"Ah, M. de Bassompierre--not so--that can't be! But Paulina must speak
+for herself: and Dr. Bretton, too, must be his own advocate."
+
+"It is a little late. Matters are advanced, it seems."
+
+"Sir, till you approve, nothing is done--only they love each other."
+
+"Only!" he echoed.
+
+Invested by fate with the part of confidante and mediator, I was
+obliged to go on: "Hundreds of times has Dr. Bretton been on the point
+of appealing to you, sir; but, with all his high courage, he fears you
+mortally."
+
+"He may well--he may well fear me. He has touched the best thing I
+have. Had he but let her alone, she would have remained a child for
+years yet. So. Are they engaged?"
+
+"They could not become engaged without your permission."
+
+"It is well for you, Miss Snowe, to talk and think with that propriety
+which always characterizes you; but this matter is a grief to me; my
+little girl was all I had: I have no more daughters and no son; Bretton
+might as well have looked elsewhere; there are scores of rich and
+pretty women who would not, I daresay, dislike him: he has looks, and
+conduct, and connection. Would nothing serve him but my Polly?"
+
+"If he had never seen your 'Polly,' others might and would have pleased
+him--your niece, Miss Fanshawe, for instance."
+
+"Ah! I would have given him Ginevra with all my heart; but Polly!--I
+can't let him have her. No--I can't. He is not her equal," he affirmed,
+rather gruffly. "In what particular is he her match? They talk of
+fortune! I am not an avaricious or interested man, but the world thinks
+of these things--and Polly will be rich."
+
+"Yes, that is known," said I: "all Villette knows her as an heiress."
+
+"Do they talk of my little girl in that light?"
+
+"They do, sir."
+
+He fell into deep thought. I ventured to say, "Would you, sir, think
+any one Paulina's match? Would you prefer any other to Dr. Bretton? Do
+you think higher rank or more wealth would make much difference in your
+feelings towards a future son-in-law?"
+
+"You touch me there," said he.
+
+"Look at the aristocracy of Villette--you would not like them, sir?"
+
+"I should not--never a duc, baron, or vicomte of the lot."
+
+"I am told many of these persons think about her, sir," I went on,
+gaining courage on finding that I met attention rather than repulse.
+"Other suitors will come, therefore, if Dr. Bretton is refused.
+Wherever you go, I suppose, aspirants will not be wanting. Independent
+of heiress-ship, it appears to me that Paulina charms most of those who
+see her."
+
+"Does she? How? My little girl is not thought a beauty."
+
+"Sir, Miss de Bassompierre is very beautiful."
+
+"Nonsense!--begging your pardon, Miss Snowe, but I think you are too
+partial. I like Polly: I like all her ways and all her looks--but then
+I am her father; and even I never thought about beauty. She is amusing,
+fairy-like, interesting to me;--you must be mistaken in supposing her
+handsome?"
+
+"She attracts, sir: she would attract without the advantages of your
+wealth and position."
+
+"My wealth and position! Are these any bait to Graham? If I thought
+so----"
+
+"Dr. Bretton knows these points perfectly, as you may be sure, M. de
+Bassompierre, and values them as any gentleman would--as _you_ would
+yourself, under the same circumstances--but they are not his baits. He
+loves your daughter very much; he feels her finest qualities, and they
+influence him worthily."
+
+"What! has my little pet 'fine qualities?'"
+
+"Ah, sir! did you observe her that evening when so many men of eminence
+and learning dined here?"
+
+"I certainly was rather struck and surprised with her manner that day;
+its womanliness made me smile."
+
+"And did you see those accomplished Frenchmen gather round her in the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"I did; but I thought it was by way of relaxation--as one might amuse
+one's self with a pretty infant."
+
+"Sir, she demeaned herself with distinction; and I heard the French
+gentlemen say she was 'petrie d'esprit et de graces.' Dr. Bretton
+thought the same."
+
+"She is a good, dear child, that is certain; and I _do_ believe she has
+some character. When I think of it, I was once ill; Polly nursed me;
+they thought I should die; she, I recollect, grew at once stronger and
+tenderer as I grew worse in health. And as I recovered, what a sunbeam
+she was in my sick-room! Yes; she played about my chair as noiselessly
+and as cheerful as light. And now she is sought in marriage! I don't
+want to part with her," said he, and he groaned.
+
+"You have known Dr. and Mrs. Bretton so long," I suggested, "it would
+be less like separation to give her to him than to another."
+
+He reflected rather gloomily.
+
+"True. I have long known Louisa Bretton," he murmured. "She and I are
+indeed old, old friends; a sweet, kind girl she was when she was young.
+You talk of beauty, Miss Snowe! _she_ was handsome, if you will--tall,
+straight, and blooming--not the mere child or elf my Polly seems to me:
+at eighteen, Louisa had a carriage and stature fit for a princess. She
+is a comely and a good woman now. The lad is like her; I have always
+thought so, and favoured and wished him well. Now he repays me by this
+robbery! My little treasure used to love her old father dearly and
+truly. It is all over now, doubtless--I am an incumbrance."
+
+The door opened--his "little treasure" came in. She was dressed, so to
+speak, in evening beauty; that animation which sometimes comes with the
+close of day, warmed her eye and cheek; a tinge of summer crimson
+heightened her complexion; her curls fell full and long on her lily
+neck; her white dress suited the heat of June. Thinking me alone, she
+had brought in her hand the letter just written--brought it folded but
+unsealed. I was to read it. When she saw her father, her tripping step
+faltered a little, paused a moment--the colour in her cheek flowed rosy
+over her whole face.
+
+"Polly," said M. de Bassompierre, in a low voice, with a grave smile,
+"do you blush at seeing papa? That is something new."
+
+"I don't blush--I never _do_ blush," affirmed she, while another eddy
+from the heart sent up its scarlet. "But I thought you were in the
+dining-room, and I wanted Lucy."
+
+"You thought I was with John Graham Bretton, I suppose? But he has just
+been called out: he will be back soon, Polly. He can post your letter
+for you; it will save Matthieu a 'course,' as he calls it."
+
+"I don't post letters," said she, rather pettishly.
+
+"What do you do with them, then?--come here and tell me."
+
+Both her mind and gesture seemed to hesitate a second--to say "Shall I
+come?"--but she approached.
+
+"How long is it since you became a letter-writer, Polly? It only seems
+yesterday when you were at your pot-hooks, labouring away absolutely
+with both hands at the pen."
+
+"Papa, they are not letters to send to the post in your letter-bag;
+they are only notes, which I give now and then into the person's hands,
+just to satisfy."
+
+"The person! That means Miss Snowe, I suppose?"
+
+"No, papa--not Lucy."
+
+"Who then? Perhaps Mrs. Bretton?"
+
+"No, papa--not Mrs. Bretton."
+
+"Who, then, my little daughter? Tell papa the truth."
+
+"Oh, papa!" she cried with earnestness, "I will--I _will_ tell you the
+truth--all the truth; I am glad to tell you--glad, though I tremble."
+
+She _did_ tremble: growing excitement, kindling feeling, and also
+gathering courage, shook her.
+
+"I hate to hide my actions from you, papa. I fear you and love you
+above everything but God. Read the letter; look at the address."
+
+She laid it on his knee. He took it up and read it through; his hand
+shaking, his eyes glistening meantime.
+
+He re-folded it, and viewed the writer with a strange, tender, mournful
+amaze.
+
+"Can _she_ write so--the little thing that stood at my knee but
+yesterday? Can she feel so?"
+
+"Papa, is it wrong? Does it pain you?"
+
+"There is nothing wrong in it, my innocent little Mary; but it pains
+me."
+
+"But, papa, listen! You shall not be pained by me. I would give up
+everything--almost" (correcting herself); "I would die rather than make
+you unhappy; that would be too wicked!"
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Does the letter not please you? Must it not go? Must it be torn? It
+shall, for your sake, if you order it."
+
+"I order nothing."
+
+"Order something, papa; express your wish; only don't hurt, don't
+grieve Graham. I cannot, _cannot_ bear that. I love you, papa; but I
+love Graham too--because--because--it is impossible to help it."
+
+"This splendid Graham is a young scamp, Polly--that is my present
+notion of him: it will surprise you to hear that, for my part, I do not
+love him one whit. Ah! years ago I saw something in that lad's eye I
+never quite fathomed--something his mother has not--a depth which
+warned a man not to wade into that stream too far; now, suddenly, I
+find myself taken over the crown of the head."
+
+"Papa, you don't--you have not fallen in; you are safe on the bank; you
+can do as you please; your power is despotic; you can shut me up in a
+convent, and break Graham's heart to-morrow, if you choose to be so
+cruel. Now, autocrat, now czar, will you do this?"
+
+"Off with him to Siberia, red whiskers and all; I say, I don't like
+him, Polly, and I wonder that you should."
+
+"Papa," said she, "do you know you are very naughty? I never saw you
+look so disagreeable, so unjust, so almost vindictive before. There is
+an expression in your face which does not belong to you."
+
+"Off with him!" pursued Mr. Home, who certainly did look sorely crossed
+and annoyed--even a little bitter; "but, I suppose, if he went, Polly
+would pack a bundle and run after him; her heart is fairly won--won,
+and weaned from her old father."
+
+"Papa, I say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way.
+I am _not_ weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence
+_can_ wean me."
+
+"Be married, Polly! Espouse the red whiskers. Cease to be a daughter;
+go and be a wife!"
+
+"Red whiskers! I wonder what you mean, papa. You should take care of
+prejudice. You sometimes say to me that all the Scotch, your
+countrymen, are the victims of prejudice. It is proved now, I think,
+when no distinction is to be made between red and deep nut-brown."
+
+"Leave the prejudiced old Scotchman; go away."
+
+She stood looking at him a minute. She wanted to show firmness,
+superiority to taunts; knowing her father's character, guessing his few
+foibles, she had expected the sort of scene which was now transpiring;
+it did not take her by surprise, and she desired to let it pass with
+dignity, reliant upon reaction. Her dignity stood her in no stead.
+Suddenly her soul melted in her eyes; she fell on his neck:--"I won't
+leave you, papa; I'll never leave you. I won't pain you! I'll never
+pain you!" was her cry.
+
+"My lamb! my treasure!" murmured the loving though rugged sire. He said
+no more for the moment; indeed, those two words were hoarse.
+
+The room was now darkening. I heard a movement, a step without.
+Thinking it might be a servant coming with candles, I gently opened, to
+prevent intrusion. In the ante-room stood no servant: a tall gentleman
+was placing his hat on the table, drawing off his gloves
+slowly--lingering, waiting, it seemed to me. He called me neither by
+sign nor word; yet his eye said:--"Lucy, come here." And I went.
+
+Over his face a smile flowed, while he looked down on me: no temper,
+save his own, would have expressed by a smile the sort of agitation
+which now fevered him.
+
+"M. de Bassompierre is there--is he not?" he inquired, pointing to the
+library.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He noticed me at dinner? He understood me?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"I am brought up for judgment, then, and so is _she_?"
+
+"Mr. Home" (we now and always continued to term him Mr. Home at times)
+"is talking to his daughter."
+
+"Ha! These are sharp moments, Lucy!"
+
+He was quite stirred up; his young hand trembled; a vital (I was going
+to write _mortal_, but such words ill apply to one all living like
+him)--a vital suspense now held, now hurried, his breath: in all this
+trouble his smile never faded.
+
+"Is he _very_ angry, Lucy?"
+
+"_She_ is very faithful, Graham."
+
+"What will be done unto me?"
+
+"Graham, your star must be fortunate."
+
+"Must it? Kind prophet! So cheered, I should be a faint heart indeed to
+quail. I think I find all women faithful, Lucy. I ought to love them,
+and I do. My mother is good; _she_ is divine; and _you_ are true as
+steel. Are you not?"
+
+"Yes, Graham."
+
+"Then give me thy hand, my little god-sister: it is a friendly little
+hand to me, and always has been. And now for the great venture. God be
+with the right. Lucy, say Amen!"
+
+He turned, and waited till I said "Amen!"--which I did to please him:
+the old charm, in doing as he bid me, came back. I wished him success;
+and successful I knew he would be. He was born victor, as some are born
+vanquished.
+
+"Follow me!" he said; and I followed him into Mr. Home's presence.
+
+"Sir," he asked, "what is my sentence?"
+
+The father looked at him: the daughter kept her face hid.
+
+"Well, Bretton," said Mr. Home, "you have given me the usual reward of
+hospitality. I entertained you; you have taken my best. I was always
+glad to see you; you were glad to see the one precious thing I had. You
+spoke me fair; and, meantime, I will not say you _robbed_ me, but I am
+bereaved, and what I have lost, _you_, it seems, have won."
+
+"Sir, I cannot repent."
+
+"Repent! Not you! You triumph, no doubt: John Graham, you descended
+partly from a Highlander and a chief, and there is a trace of the Celt
+in all you look, speak, and think. You have his cunning and his charm.
+The red--(Well then, Polly, the _fair_) hair, the tongue of guile, and
+brain of wile, are all come down by inheritance."
+
+"Sir, I _feel_ honest enough," said Graham; and a genuine English blush
+covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. "And yet," he
+added, "I won't deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In
+your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I
+did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the
+world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it
+now."
+
+"John, you ask much."
+
+"Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from
+your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it."
+
+"Ay! Listen to the Highland tongue!" said Mr. Home. "Look up, Polly!
+Answer this 'braw wooer;' send him away!"
+
+She looked up. She shyly glanced at her eager, handsome suitor. She
+gazed tenderly on her furrowed sire.
+
+"Papa, I love you both," said she; "I can take care of you both. I need
+not send Graham away--he can live here; he will be no inconvenience,"
+she alleged with that simplicity of phraseology which at times was wont
+to make both her father and Graham smile. They smiled now.
+
+"He will be a prodigious inconvenience to me," still persisted Mr.
+Home. "I don't want him, Polly, he is too tall; he is in my way. Tell
+him to march."
+
+"You will get used to him, papa. He seemed exceedingly tall to me at
+first--like a tower when I looked up at him; but, on the whole, I would
+rather not have him otherwise."
+
+"I object to him altogether, Polly; I can do without a son-in-law. I
+should never have requested the best man in the land to stand to me in
+that relation. Dismiss this gentleman."
+
+"But he has known you so long, papa, and suits you so well."
+
+"Suits _me_, forsooth! Yes; he has pretended to make my opinions and
+tastes his own. He has humoured me for good reasons. I think, Polly,
+you and I will bid him good-by."
+
+"Till to-morrow only. Shake hands with Graham, papa."
+
+"No: I think not: I am not friends with him. Don't think to coax me
+between you."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, you _are_ friends. Graham, stretch out your right
+hand. Papa, put out yours. Now, let them touch. Papa, don't be stiff;
+close your fingers; be pliant--there! But that is not a clasp--it is a
+grasp? Papa, you grasp like a vice. You crush Graham's hand to the
+bone; you hurt him!"
+
+He must have hurt him; for he wore a massive ring, set round with
+brilliants, of which the sharp facets cut into Graham's flesh and drew
+blood: but pain only made Dr. John laugh, as anxiety had made him smile.
+
+"Come with me into my study," at last said Mr. Home to the doctor. They
+went. Their intercourse was not long, but I suppose it was conclusive.
+The suitor had to undergo an interrogatory and a scrutiny on many
+things. Whether Dr. Bretton was at times guileful in look and language
+or not, there was a sound foundation below. His answers, I understood
+afterwards, evinced both wisdom and integrity. He had managed his
+affairs well. He had struggled through entanglements; his fortunes were
+in the way of retrieval; he proved himself in a position to marry.
+
+Once more the father and lover appeared in the library. M. de
+Bassompierre shut the door; he pointed to his daughter.
+
+"Take her," he said. "Take her, John Bretton: and may God deal with you
+as you deal with her!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long after, perhaps a fortnight, I saw three persons, Count de
+Bassompierre, his daughter, and Dr. Graham Bretton, sitting on one
+seat, under a low-spreading and umbrageous tree, in the grounds of the
+palace at Bois l'Etang. They had come thither to enjoy a summer
+evening: outside the magnificent gates their carriage waited to take
+them home; the green sweeps of turf spread round them quiet and dim;
+the palace rose at a distance, white as a crag on Pentelicus; the
+evening star shone above it; a forest of flowering shrubs embalmed the
+climate of this spot; the hour was still and sweet; the scene, but for
+this group, was solitary.
+
+Paulina sat between the two gentlemen: while they conversed, her little
+hands were busy at some work; I thought at first she was binding a
+nosegay. No; with the tiny pair of scissors, glittering in her lap, she
+had severed spoils from each manly head beside her, and was now
+occupied in plaiting together the grey lock and the golden wave. The
+plait woven--no silk-thread being at hand to bind it--a tress of her
+own hair was made to serve that purpose; she tied it like a knot,
+prisoned it in a locket, and laid it on her heart.
+
+"Now," said she, "there is an amulet made, which has virtue to keep you
+two always friends. You can never quarrel so long as I wear this."
+
+An amulet was indeed made, a spell framed which rendered enmity
+impossible. She was become a bond to both, an influence over each, a
+mutual concord. From them she drew her happiness, and what she
+borrowed, she, with interest, gave back.
+
+"Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?" I asked, as I watched the
+father, the daughter, the future husband, now united--all blessed and
+blessing.
+
+Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of
+fancy, it is so. Some real lives do--for some certain days or
+years--actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if
+such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it
+never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials
+follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory
+precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging
+the deep cloud.
+
+I will go farther. I _do_ believe there are some human beings so born,
+so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that
+no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous
+blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered,
+selfish beings, but Nature's elect, harmonious and benign; men and
+women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind attributes.
+
+Let me not delay the happy truth. Graham Bretton and Paulina de
+Bassompierre were married, and such an agent did Dr. Bretton prove. He
+did not with time degenerate; his faults decayed, his virtues ripened;
+he rose in intellectual refinement, he won in moral profit: all dregs
+filtered away, the clear wine settled bright and tranquil. Bright, too,
+was the destiny of his sweet wife. She kept her husband's love, she
+aided in his progress--of his happiness she was the corner stone.
+
+This pair was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great
+prosperity, great goodness: they imparted with open hand, yet wisely.
+Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointments, difficulties; but these
+were well borne. More than once, too, they had to look on Him whose
+face flesh scarce can see and live: they had to pay their tribute to
+the King of Terrors. In the fulness of years, M. de Bassompierre was
+taken: in ripe old age departed Louisa Bretton. Once even there rose a
+cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children; but others
+sprang healthy and blooming to replace the lost: Dr. Bretton saw
+himself live again in a son who inherited his looks and his
+disposition; he had stately daughters, too, like himself: these
+children he reared with a suave, yet a firm hand; they grew up
+according to inheritance and nurture.
+
+In short, I do but speak the truth when I say that these two lives of
+Graham and Paulina were blessed, like that of Jacob's favoured son,
+with "blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies
+under." It was so, for God saw that it was good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CLOUD.
+
+
+But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it
+surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The
+impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and
+unseen, has its fulfilment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be
+given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that proof be written. In
+fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire and
+in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not through
+terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins;
+look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join in
+friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches
+the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross our
+banner. For staff we have His promise, whose "word is tried, whose way
+perfect:" for present hope His providence, "who gives the shield of
+salvation, whose gentleness makes great;" for final home His bosom, who
+"dwells in the height of Heaven;" for crowning prize a glory, exceeding
+and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain: let us endure hardness
+as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep the faith, reliant
+in the issue to come off more than conquerors: "Art thou not from
+everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE!"
+
+On a Thursday morning we were all assembled in classe, waiting for the
+lesson of literature. The hour was come; we expected the master.
+
+The pupils of the first classe sat very still; the cleanly-written
+compositions prepared since the last lesson lay ready before them,
+neatly tied with ribbon, waiting to be gathered by the hand of the
+Professor as he made his rapid round of the desks. The month was July,
+the morning fine, the glass-door stood ajar, through it played a fresh
+breeze, and plants, growing at the lintel, waved, bent, looked in,
+seeming to whisper tidings.
+
+M. Emanuel was not always quite punctual; we scarcely wondered at his
+being a little late, but we wondered when the door at last opened and,
+instead of him with his swiftness and his fire, there came quietly upon
+us the cautious Madame Beck.
+
+She approached M. Paul's desk; she stood before it; she drew round her
+the light shawl covering her shoulders; beginning to speak in low, yet
+firm tones, and with a fixed gaze, she said, "This morning there will
+be no lesson of literature."
+
+The second paragraph of her address followed, after about two minutes'
+pause.
+
+"It is probable the lessons will be suspended for a week. I shall
+require at least that space of time to find an efficient substitute for
+M. Emanuel. Meanwhile, it shall be our study to fill the blanks
+usefully.
+
+"Your Professor, ladies," she went on, "intends, if possible, duly to
+take leave of you. At the present moment he has not leisure for that
+ceremony. He is preparing for a long voyage. A very sudden and urgent
+summons of duty calls him to a great distance. He has decided to leave
+Europe for an indefinite time. Perhaps he may tell you more himself.
+Ladies, instead of the usual lesson with M. Emanuel, you will, this
+morning, read English with Mademoiselle Lucy."
+
+She bent her head courteously, drew closer the folds of her shawl, and
+passed from the classe.
+
+A great silence fell: then a murmur went round the room: I believe some
+pupils wept.
+
+Some time elapsed. The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing
+increased. I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of
+growing disorder, as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn, and
+that surveillance had virtually left the classe. Habit and the sense of
+duty enabled me to rally quickly, to rise in my usual way, to speak in
+my usual tone, to enjoin, and finally to establish quiet. I made the
+English reading long and close. I kept them at it the whole morning. I
+remember feeling a sentiment of impatience towards the pupils who
+sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value: it was only an
+hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half ridiculed them.
+I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their tears, or that
+gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-minded, low-spirited
+pupil kept it up when the others had done; relentless necessity obliged
+and assisted me so to accost her, that she dared not carry on the
+demonstration, that she was forced to conquer the convulsion.
+
+That girl would have had a right to hate me, except that, when school
+was over and her companions departing, I ordered her to stay, and when
+they were gone, I did what I had never done to one among them
+before--pressed her to my heart and kissed her cheek. But, this impulse
+yielded to, I speedily put her out of the classe, for, upon that
+poignant strain, she wept more bitterly than ever.
+
+I filled with occupation every minute of that day, and should have
+liked to sit up all night if I might have kept a candle burning; the
+night, however, proved a bad time, and left bad effects, preparing me
+ill for the next day's ordeal of insufferable gossip. Of course this
+news fell under general discussion. Some little reserve had accompanied
+the first surprise: that soon wore off; every mouth opened; every
+tongue wagged; teachers, pupils, the very servants, mouthed the name of
+"Emanuel." He, whose connection with the school was contemporary with
+its commencement, thus suddenly to withdraw! All felt it strange.
+
+They talked so much, so long, so often, that, out of the very multitude
+of their words and rumours, grew at last some intelligence. About the
+third day I heard it said that he was to sail in a week; then--that he
+was bound for the West Indies. I looked at Madame Beck's face, and into
+her eyes, for disproof or confirmation of this report; I perused her
+all over for information, but no part of her disclosed more than what
+was unperturbed and commonplace.
+
+"This secession was an immense loss to her," she alleged. "She did not
+know how she should fill up the vacancy. She was so used to her
+kinsman, he had become her right hand; what should she do without him?
+She had opposed the step, but M. Paul had convinced her it was his
+duty."
+
+She said all this in public, in classe, at the dinner-table, speaking
+audibly to Zelie St. Pierre.
+
+"Why was it his duty?" I could have asked her that. I had impulses to
+take hold of her suddenly, as she calmly passed me in classe, to
+stretch out my hand and grasp her fast, and say, "Stop. Let us hear the
+conclusion of the whole matter. _Why_ is it his duty to go into
+banishment?" But Madame always addressed some other teacher, and never
+looked at me, never seemed conscious I could have a care in the
+question.
+
+The week wore on. Nothing more was said about M. Emanuel coming to bid
+us good-by; and none seemed anxious for his coming; none questioned
+whether or not he would come; none betrayed torment lest he should
+depart silent and unseen; incessantly did they talk, and never, in all
+their talk, touched on this vital point. As to Madame, she of course
+could see him, and say to him as much as she pleased. What should _she_
+care whether or not he appeared in the schoolroom?
+
+The week consumed. We were told that he was going on such a day, that
+his destination was "Basseterre in Guadaloupe:" the business which
+called him abroad related to a friend's interests, not his own: I
+thought as much.
+
+"Basseterre in Guadaloupe." I had little sleep about this time, but
+whenever I _did_ slumber, it followed infallibly that I was quickly
+roused with a start, while the words "Basseterre," "Guadaloupe," seemed
+pronounced over my pillow, or ran athwart the darkness round and before
+me, in zigzag characters of red or violet light.
+
+For what I felt there was no help, and how could I help feeling? M.
+Emanuel had been very kind to me of late days; he had been growing
+hourly better and kinder. It was now a month since we had settled the
+theological difference, and in all that time there had been no quarrel.
+Nor had our peace been the cold daughter of divorce; we had not lived
+aloof; he had come oftener, he had talked with me more than before; he
+had spent hours with me, with temper soothed, with eye content, with
+manner home-like and mild. Kind subjects of conversation had grown
+between us; he had inquired into my plans of life, and I had
+communicated them; the school project pleased him; he made me repeat it
+more than once, though he called it an Alnaschar dream. The jar was
+over; the mutual understanding was settling and fixing; feelings of
+union and hope made themselves profoundly felt in the heart; affection
+and deep esteem and dawning trust had each fastened its bond.
+
+What quiet lessons I had about this time! No more taunts on my
+"intellect," no more menaces of grating public shows! How sweetly, for
+the jealous gibe, and the more jealous, half-passionate eulogy, were
+substituted a mute, indulgent help, a fond guidance, and a tender
+forbearance which forgave but never praised. There were times when he
+would sit for many minutes and not speak at all; and when dusk or duty
+brought separation, he would leave with words like these, "Il est doux,
+le repos! Il est precieux le calme bonheur!"
+
+One evening, not ten short days since, he joined me whilst walking in
+my alley. He took my hand. I looked up in his face. I thought he meant
+to arrest my attention.
+
+"Bonne petite amie!" said he, softly; "douce consolatrice!" But through
+his touch, and with his words, a new feeling and a strange thought
+found a course. Could it be that he was becoming more than friend or
+brother? Did his look speak a kindness beyond fraternity or amity?
+
+His eloquent look had more to say, his hand drew me forward, his
+interpreting lips stirred. No. Not now. Here into the twilight alley
+broke an interruption: it came dual and ominous: we faced two bodeful
+forms--a woman's and a priest's--Madame Beck and Pere Silas.
+
+The aspect of the latter I shall never forget. On the first impulse it
+expressed a Jean-Jacques sensibility, stirred by the signs of affection
+just surprised; then, immediately, darkened over it the jaundice of
+ecclesiastical jealousy. He spoke to _me_ with unction. He looked on
+his pupil with sternness. As to Madame Beck, she, of course, saw
+nothing--nothing; though her kinsman retained in her presence the hand
+of the heretic foreigner, not suffering withdrawal, but clasping it
+close and fast.
+
+Following these incidents, that sudden announcement of departure had
+struck me at first as incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent
+repetition, and the credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me,
+which forced on me its full acceptance. As to that week of suspense,
+with its blank, yet burning days, which brought from him no word of
+explanation--I remember, but I cannot describe its passage.
+
+The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now he would come and speak
+his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore.
+
+This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living
+creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted as
+usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of their late
+Professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary
+duties.
+
+So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its proceedings, so
+inexpectant its aspect--I scarce knew how to breathe in an atmosphere
+thus stagnant, thus smothering. Would no one lend me a voice? Had no
+one a wish, no one a word, no one a prayer to which I could say--Amen?
+
+I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a treat, a
+holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they _would_ not now
+band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a last interview with a
+Master who had certainly been loved, at least by some--loved as _they_
+could love--but, oh! what _is_ the love of the multitude?
+
+I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
+communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone's-throw: had it been
+in the next room--unsummoned, I could make no use of my knowledge. To
+follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall--for these things I had no
+faculty.
+
+M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
+silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
+to go by.
+
+Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart
+trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was
+quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post--or do my work. Yet
+the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund,
+free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days
+since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared
+quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
+
+A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent
+for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter
+she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to
+this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her
+chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot
+day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
+indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce
+distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? what
+sound?
+
+I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening
+and winter-wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting prey, and hearing far off
+the traveller's tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the
+middle of the letter I heard--what checked my pen--a tread in the
+vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by
+orders--had anticipated such reveillee. Madame saw me halt. She
+coughed, made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the
+classes.
+
+"Proceed," said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my
+thoughts were carried off captive.
+
+The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the
+dwelling-house: despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden stir
+of numbers, a whole division rising at once.
+
+"They are putting away work," said Madame.
+
+It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush--that
+instant quell of the tumult?
+
+"Wait, Madame--I will see what it is."
+
+And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No: she would not be
+left: powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my
+shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
+
+"Are you coming, too?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said she; meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a look,
+clouded, yet resolute.
+
+We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.
+
+He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There, once more
+appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep him
+away, but he was come.
+
+The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his
+farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This
+last ceremony, foreign custom permitted at such a parting--so solemn,
+to last so long.
+
+I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus; following and
+watching me close; my neck and shoulder shrunk in fever under her
+breath; I became terribly goaded.
+
+He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came
+to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was before me; she had stepped
+out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her
+drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and
+deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis--the
+total default of self-assertion--with which, in a crisis, I could be
+struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she
+mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door--the glass-door
+opening on the garden. I think he looked round; could I but have caught
+his eye, courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and
+there would have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the
+room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups, my figure
+was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had her will; yes, she
+got him away, and he had not seen me; he thought me absent. Five
+o'clock struck, the loud dismissal-bell rang, the school separated, the
+room emptied.
+
+There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in some
+certain minutes I then passed alone--a grief inexpressible over a loss
+unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do; when all my
+life's hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?
+
+What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child--the least
+child in the school--broke with its simplicity and its unconsciousness
+into the raging yet silent centre of that inward conflict.
+
+"Mademoiselle," lisped the treble voice, "I am to give you that. M.
+Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to the
+cellar, and when I found you, to give you that."
+
+And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee, its
+olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only these
+words:--
+
+"It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
+the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
+interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
+leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
+numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
+business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate--even
+to you.--PAUL."
+
+"Be ready?" Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
+morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
+vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could that
+longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
+schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
+appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm--Apollyon straddled across
+it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
+reach me?
+
+Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
+seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
+whole throb of mine.
+
+I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
+think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
+its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
+which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades--stood,
+shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
+doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked
+for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of
+his promise: spoke thus--then towering, became a star, and vanished
+into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense--a worse boon than despair.
+
+All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive-leaf, yet in
+the midst of my trust, terribly fearing. My fear pressed heavy. Cold
+and peculiar, I knew it for the partner of a rarely-belied
+presentiment. The first hours seemed long and slow; in spirit I clung
+to the flying skirts of the last. They passed like drift cloud--like
+the wrack scudding before a storm.
+
+They passed. All the long, hot summer day burned away like a Yule-log;
+the crimson of its close perished; I was left bent among the cool blue
+shades, over the pale and ashen gleams of its night.
+
+Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all retired. I
+still remained in the gloomy first classe, forgetting, or at least
+disregarding, rules I had never forgotten or disregarded before.
+
+How long I paced that classe I cannot tell; I must have been afoot many
+hours; mechanically had I moved aside benches and desks, and had made
+for myself a path down its length. There I walked, and there, when
+certain that the whole household were abed, and quite out of
+hearing--there, I at last wept. Reliant on Night, confiding in
+Solitude, I kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer; they
+heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what grief could
+be sacred?
+
+Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue Fossette--the
+door unclosed, quietly but not stealthily; a lamp's flame invaded the
+moonlight; Madame Beck entered, with the same composed air, as if
+coming on an ordinary occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at
+once addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and seemed to
+seek something: she loitered over this feigned search long, too long.
+She was calm, too calm; my mood scarce endured the pretence; driven
+beyond common range, two hours since I had left behind me wonted
+respects and fears. Led by a touch, and ruled by a word, under usual
+circumstances, no yoke could now be borne--no curb obeyed.
+
+"It is more than time for retirement," said Madame; "the rule of the
+house has already been transgressed too long."
+
+Madame met no answer: I did not check my walk; when she came in my way,
+I put her out of it.
+
+"Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your chamber,"
+said she, trying to speak softly.
+
+"No!" I said; "neither you nor another shall persuade or lead me."
+
+"Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She shall make
+you comfortable: she shall give you a sedative."
+
+"Madame," I broke out, "you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
+your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your
+own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and
+sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
+disappointment--and, perhaps, you have--nay, I _know_ you have--seek
+your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me, however.
+_Leave me_, I say!"
+
+"I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton."
+
+"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
+troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and poison.
+You envenom and you paralyze."
+
+"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."
+
+"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
+had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at
+him for a "devot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
+might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I
+had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
+came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
+had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
+rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the
+smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
+
+Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my
+power, because in some moods, such as the present--in some stimulated
+states of perception, like that of this instant--her habitual disguise,
+her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with
+holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and
+ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: meek and self-possessed, though
+very uneasy, she said, "If I would not be persuaded to take rest, she
+must reluctantly leave me." Which she did incontinent, perhaps even
+more glad to get away, than I was to see her vanish.
+
+This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which
+ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was
+never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not
+know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse
+for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret
+philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her
+to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there occurred
+no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.
+
+That night passed: all nights--even the starless night before
+dissolution--must wear away. About six o'clock, the hour which called
+up the household, I went out to the court, and washed my face in its
+cold, fresh well-water. Entering by the carre, a piece of mirror-glass,
+set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my
+cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids
+swollen and purple.
+
+On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me--my heart
+seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously
+certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why
+and for whom I despaired.
+
+"Isabelle," the child whom I had once nursed in sickness, approached
+me. Would she, too, mock me!
+
+"Que vous etes pale! Vous etes donc bien malade, Mademoiselle!" said
+she, putting her finger in her mouth, and staring with a wistful
+stupidity which at the moment seemed to me more beautiful than the
+keenest intelligence.
+
+Isabelle did not long stand alone in the recommendation of ignorance:
+before the day was over, I gathered cause of gratitude towards the
+whole blind household. The multitude have something else to do than to
+read hearts and interpret dark sayings. Who wills, may keep his own
+counsel--be his own secret's sovereign. In the course of that day,
+proof met me on proof, not only that the cause of my present sorrow was
+unguessed, but that my whole inner life for the last six months, was
+still mine only. It was not known--it had not been noted--that I held
+in peculiar value one life among all lives. Gossip had passed me by;
+curiosity had looked me over; both subtle influences, hovering always
+round, had never become centred upon me. A given organization may live
+in a full fever-hospital, and escape typhus. M. Emanuel had come and
+gone: I had been taught and sought; in season and out of season he had
+called me, and I had obeyed him: "M. Paul wants Miss Lucy"--"Miss Lucy
+is with M. Paul"--such had been the perpetual bulletin; and nobody
+commented, far less condemned. Nobody hinted, nobody jested. Madame
+Beck read the riddle: none else resolved it. What I now suffered was
+called illness--a headache: I accepted the baptism.
+
+But what bodily illness was ever like this pain? This certainty that he
+was gone without a farewell--this cruel conviction that fate and
+pursuing furies--a woman's envy and a priest's bigotry--would suffer me
+to see him no more? What wonder that the second evening found me like
+the first--untamed, tortured, again pacing a solitary room in an
+unalterable passion of silent desolation?
+
+Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night--she did not
+come near me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe--a more efficient agent for the
+purpose she could not have employed. Ginevra's first words--"Is your
+headache very bad to-night?" (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought I had
+a headache--an intolerable headache which made me frightfully white in
+the face, and insanely restless in the foot)--her first words, I say,
+inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were only out of
+reach. And soon, what followed--plaints about her own
+headaches--completed the business.
+
+I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed--my miserable bed--haunted
+with quick scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when
+another emissary arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink. I
+was consumed with thirst--I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet, but
+I tasted a drug.
+
+"Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou," said Goton, as she
+received back the emptied cup.
+
+Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a
+strong opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night.
+
+The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory
+hushed. Sleep soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy
+supremacy: contented sovereign over heads and hearts which did not
+ache--he passed by the unquiet.
+
+The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or
+under-charged the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead
+of stupor, came excitement. I became alive to new thought--to reverie
+peculiar in colouring. A gathering call ran among the faculties, their
+bugles sang, their trumpets rang an untimely summons. Imagination was
+roused from her rest, and she came forth impetuous and venturous. With
+scorn she looked on Matter, her mate--"Rise!" she said. "Sluggard! this
+night I will have _my_ will; nor shalt thou prevail."
+
+"Look forth and view the night!" was her cry; and when I lifted the
+heavy blind from the casement close at hand--with her own royal
+gesture, she showed me a moon supreme, in an element deep and splendid.
+
+To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits,
+the oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to
+leave this den and follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory.
+
+She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight.
+Especially she showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys
+all silent, lone and safe; among these lay a huge stone basin--that
+basin I knew, and beside which I had often stood--deep-set in the
+tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, with a green, leafy,
+rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, locked,
+sentinelled: the place could not be entered.
+
+Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I
+mechanically dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying
+still--excited from head to foot--what could I do better than dress?
+
+The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no
+admission to the park?
+
+The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to
+the circumstance, a gap in the paling--one stake broken down: I now saw
+this gap again in recollection--saw it very plainly--the narrow,
+irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens, planted
+orderly as a colonnade. A man could not have made his way through that
+aperture, nor could a stout woman, perhaps not Madame Beck; but I
+thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, and once within, at
+this hour the whole park would be mine--the moonlight, midnight park!
+
+How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet
+breathing! How very still the whole large house! What was the time? I
+felt restless to know. There stood a clock in the classe below: what
+hindered me from venturing down to consult it? By such a moon, its
+large white face and jet black figures must be vividly distinct.
+
+As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking
+hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could
+not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the
+dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a
+board is loose, and will avoid it. The oak staircase creaks somewhat as
+I descend, but not much:--I am in the carre.
+
+The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other
+hand, the entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my
+thought, great dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and
+for me, filled with spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable
+amongst their straw and their manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful
+vista, leading to the high vestibule which opens direct upon the street.
+
+Hush!--the clock strikes. Ghostly deep as is the stillness of this
+convent, it is only eleven. While my ear follows to silence the hum of
+the last stroke, I catch faintly from the built-out capital, a sound
+like bells or like a band--a sound where sweetness, where victory,
+where mourning blend. Oh, to approach this music nearer, to listen to
+it alone by the rushy basin! Let me go--oh, let me go! What hinders,
+what does not aid freedom?
+
+There, in the corridor, hangs my garden-costume, my large hat, my
+shawl. There is no lock on the huge, heavy, porte-cochere; there is no
+key to seek: it fastens with a sort of spring-bolt, not to be opened
+from the outside, but which, from within, may be noiselessly withdrawn.
+Can I manage it? It yields to my hand, yields with propitious facility.
+I wonder as that portal seems almost spontaneously to unclose--I wonder
+as I cross the threshold and step on the paved street, wonder at the
+strange ease with which this prison has been forced. It seems as if I
+had been pioneered invisibly, as if some dissolving force had gone
+before me: for myself, I have scarce made an effort.
+
+Quiet Rue Fossette! I find on this pavement that wanderer-wooing summer
+night of which I mused; I see its moon over me; I feel its dew in the
+air. But here I cannot stay; I am still too near old haunts: so close
+under the dungeon, I can hear the prisoners moan. This solemn peace is
+not what I seek, it is not what I can bear: to me the face of that sky
+bears the aspect of a world's death. The park also will be calm--I
+know, a mortal serenity prevails everywhere--yet let me seek the park.
+
+I took a route well known, and went up towards the palatial and royal
+Haute-Ville; thence the music I had heard certainly floated; it was
+hushed now, but it might re-waken. I went on: neither band nor bell
+music came to meet me; another sound replaced it, a sound like a strong
+tide, a great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke, movement
+gathered, chimes pealed--to what was I coming? Entering on the level of
+a Grande Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of magic, plunged
+amidst a gay, living, joyous crowd.
+
+Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems
+abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own
+flambeaux, beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipages,
+fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even
+scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams. But where
+is the park?--I ought to be near it. In the midst of this glare the
+park must be shadowy and calm--_there_, at least, are neither torches,
+lamps, nor crowd?
+
+I was asking this question when an open carriage passed me filled with
+known faces. Through the deep throng it could pass but slowly; the
+spirited horses fretted in their curbed ardour. I saw the occupants of
+that carriage well: me they could not see, or, at least, not know,
+folded close in my large shawl, screened with my straw hat (in that
+motley crowd no dress was noticeably strange). I saw the Count de
+Bassompierre; I saw my godmother, handsomely apparelled, comely and
+cheerful; I saw, too, Paulina Mary, compassed with the triple halo of
+her beauty, her youth, and her happiness. In looking on her countenance
+of joy, and eyes of festal light, one scarce remembered to note the
+gala elegance of what she wore; I know only that the drapery floating
+about her was all white and light and bridal; seated opposite to her I
+saw Graham Bretton; it was in looking up at him her aspect had caught
+its lustre--the light repeated in _her_ eyes beamed first out of his.
+
+It gave me strange pleasure to follow these friends viewlessly, and I
+_did_ follow them, as I thought, to the park. I watched them alight
+(carriages were inadmissible) amidst new and unanticipated splendours.
+Lo! the iron gateway, between the stone columns, was spanned by a
+flaming arch built of massed stars; and, following them cautiously
+beneath that arch, where were they, and where was I?
+
+In a land of enchantment, a garden most gorgeous, a plain sprinkled
+with coloured meteors, a forest with sparks of purple and ruby and
+golden fire gemming the foliage; a region, not of trees and shadow, but
+of strangest architectural wealth--of altar and of temple, of pyramid,
+obelisk, and sphinx: incredible to say, the wonders and the symbols of
+Egypt teemed throughout the park of Villette.
+
+No matter that in five minutes the secret was mine--the key of the
+mystery picked up, and its illusion unveiled--no matter that I quickly
+recognised the material of these solemn fragments--the timber, the
+paint, and the pasteboard--these inevitable discoveries failed to quite
+destroy the charm, or undermine the marvel of that night. No matter
+that I now seized the explanation of the whole great fete--a fete of
+which the conventual Rue Fossette had not tasted, though it had opened
+at dawn that morning, and was still in full vigour near midnight.
+
+In past days there had been, said history, an awful crisis in the fate
+of Labassecour, involving I know not what peril to the rights and
+liberties of her gallant citizens. Rumours of wars there had been, if
+not wars themselves; a kind of struggling in the streets--a bustle--a
+running to and fro, some rearing of barricades, some burgher-rioting,
+some calling out of troops, much interchange of brickbats, and even a
+little of shot. Tradition held that patriots had fallen: in the old
+Basse-Ville was shown an enclosure, solemnly built in and set apart,
+holding, it was said, the sacred bones of martyrs. Be this as it may, a
+certain day in the year was still kept as a festival in honour of the
+said patriots and martyrs of somewhat apocryphal memory--the morning
+being given to a solemn Te Deum in St. Jean Baptiste, the evening
+devoted to spectacles, decorations, and illuminations, such as these I
+now saw.
+
+While looking up at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column--while
+fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the close of
+which was couched a sphinx--I lost sight of the party which, from the
+middle of the great square, I had followed--or, rather, they vanished
+like a group of apparitions. On this whole scene was impressed a
+dream-like character: every shape was wavering, every movement
+floating, every voice echo-like--half-mocking, half-uncertain. Paulina
+and her friends being gone, I scarce could avouch that I had really
+seen them; nor did I miss them as guides through the chaos, far less
+regret them as protectors amidst the night.
+
+That festal night would have been safe for a very child. Half the
+peasantry had come in from the outlying environs of Villette, and the
+decent burghers were all abroad and around, dressed in their best. My
+straw-hat passed amidst cap and jacket, short petticoat, and long
+calico mantle, without, perhaps, attracting a glance; I only took the
+precaution to bind down the broad leaf gipsy-wise, with a supplementary
+ribbon--and then I felt safe as if masked.
+
+Safe I passed down the avenues--safe I mixed with the crowd where it
+was deepest. To be still was not in my power, nor quietly to observe. I
+took a revel of the scene; I drank the elastic night-air--the swell of
+sound, the dubious light, now flashing, now fading. As to Happiness or
+Hope, they and I had shaken hands, but just now--I scorned Despair.
+
+My vague aim, as I went, was to find the stone-basin, with its clear
+depth and green lining: of that coolness and verdure I thought, with
+the passionate thirst of unconscious fever. Amidst the glare, and
+hurry, and throng, and noise, I still secretly and chiefly longed to
+come on that circular mirror of crystal, and surprise the moon glassing
+therein her pearly front.
+
+I knew my route, yet it seemed as if I was hindered from pursuing it
+direct: now a sight, and now a sound, called me aside, luring me down
+this alley and down that. Already I saw the thick-planted trees which
+framed this tremulous and rippled glass, when, choiring out of a glade
+to the right, broke such a sound as I thought might be heard if Heaven
+were to open--such a sound, perhaps, as _was_ heard above the plain of
+Bethlehem, on the night of glad tidings.
+
+The song, the sweet music, rose afar, but rushing swiftly on
+fast-strengthening pinions--there swept through these shades so full a
+storm of harmonies that, had no tree been near against which to lean, I
+think I must have dropped. Voices were there, it seemed to me,
+unnumbered; instruments varied and countless--bugle, horn, and trumpet
+I knew. The effect was as a sea breaking into song with all its waves.
+
+The swaying tide swept this way, and then it fell back, and I followed
+its retreat. It led me towards a Byzantine building--a sort of kiosk
+near the park's centre. Round about stood crowded thousands, gathered
+to a grand concert in the open air. What I had heard was, I think, a
+wild Jaeger chorus; the night, the space, the scene, and my own mood,
+had but enhanced the sounds and their impression.
+
+Here were assembled ladies, looking by this light most beautiful: some
+of their dresses were gauzy, and some had the sheen of satin, the
+flowers and the blond trembled, and the veils waved about their
+decorated bonnets, as that host-like chorus, with its greatly-gathering
+sound, sundered the air above them. Most of these ladies occupied the
+little light park-chairs, and behind and beside them stood guardian
+gentlemen. The outer ranks of the crowd were made up of citizens,
+plebeians and police.
+
+In this outer rank I took my place. I rather liked to find myself the
+silent, unknown, consequently unaccosted neighbour of the short
+petticoat and the sabot; and only the distant gazer at the silk robe,
+the velvet mantle, and the plumed chapeau. Amidst so much life and joy,
+too, it suited me to be alone--quite alone. Having neither wish nor
+power to force my way through a mass so close-packed, my station was on
+the farthest confines, where, indeed, I might hear, but could see
+little.
+
+"Mademoiselle is not well placed," said a voice at my elbow. Who dared
+accost _me_, a being in a mood so little social? I turned, rather to
+repel than to reply. I saw a man--a burgher--an entire stranger, as I
+deemed him for one moment, but the next, recognised in him a certain
+tradesman--a bookseller, whose shop furnished the Rue Fossette with its
+books and stationery; a man notorious in our pensionnat for the
+excessive brittleness of his temper, and frequent snappishness of his
+manner, even to us, his principal customers: but whom, for my solitary
+self, I had ever been disposed to like, and had always found civil,
+sometimes kind; once, in aiding me about some troublesome little
+exchange of foreign money, he had done me a service. He was an
+intelligent man; under his asperity, he was a good-hearted man; the
+thought had sometimes crossed me, that a part of his nature bore
+affinity to a part of M. Emanuel's (whom he knew well, and whom I had
+often seen sitting on Miret's counter, turning over the current month's
+publications); and it was in this affinity I read the explanation of
+that conciliatory feeling with which I instinctively regarded him.
+
+Strange to say, this man knew me under my straw-hat and closely-folded
+shawl; and, though I deprecated the effort, he insisted on making a way
+for me through the crowd, and finding me a better situation. He carried
+his disinterested civility further; and, from some quarter, procured me
+a chair. Once and again, I have found that the most cross-grained are
+by no means the worst of mankind; nor the humblest in station, the
+least polished in feeling. This man, in his courtesy, seemed to find
+nothing strange in my being here alone; only a reason for extending to
+me, as far as he could, a retiring, yet efficient attention. Having
+secured me a place and a seat, he withdrew without asking a question,
+without obtruding a remark, without adding a superfluous word. No
+wonder that Professor Emanuel liked to take his cigar and his lounge,
+and to read his feuilleton in M. Miret's shop--the two must have suited.
+
+I had not been seated five minutes, ere I became aware that chance and
+my worthy burgher friend had brought me once more within view of a
+familiar and domestic group. Right before me sat the Brettons and de
+Bassompierres. Within reach of my hand--had I chosen to extend it--sat
+a figure like a fairy-queen, whose array, lilies and their leaves
+seemed to have suggested; whatever was not spotless white, being
+forest-green. My godmother, too, sat so near, that, had I leaned
+forward, my breath might have stirred the ribbon of her bonnet. They
+were too near; having been just recognised by a comparative stranger, I
+felt uneasy at this close vicinage of intimate acquaintance.
+
+It made me quite start when Mrs. Bretton, turning to Mr. Home, and
+speaking out of a kind impulse of memory, said,--"I wonder what my
+steady little Lucy would say to all this if she were here? I wish we
+had brought her, she would have enjoyed it much."
+
+"So she would, so she would, in her grave sensible fashion; it is a
+pity but we had asked her," rejoined the kind gentleman; and added, "I
+like to see her so quietly pleased; so little moved, yet so content."
+
+Dear were they both to me, dear are they to this day in their
+remembered benevolence. Little knew they the rack of pain which had
+driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and
+reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy. I had half a mind
+to bend over the elders' shoulders, and answer their goodness with the
+thanks of my eyes. M. de Bassompierre did not well know _me_, but I
+knew _him_, and honoured and admired his nature, with all its plain
+sincerity, its warm affection, and unconscious enthusiasm. Possibly I
+might have spoken, but just then Graham turned; he turned with one of
+his stately firm movements, so different from those, of a
+sharp-tempered under-sized man: there was behind him a throng, a
+hundred ranks deep; there were thousands to meet his eye and divide its
+scrutiny--why then did he concentrate all on me--oppressing me with the
+whole force of that full, blue, steadfast orb? Why, if he _would_ look,
+did not one glance satisfy him? why did he turn on his chair, rest his
+elbow on its back, and study me leisurely? He could not see my face, I
+held it down; surely, he _could_ not recognise me: I stooped, I turned,
+I _would_ not be known. He rose, by some means he contrived to
+approach, in two minutes he would have had my secret: my identity would
+have been grasped between his, never tyrannous, but always powerful
+hands. There was but one way to evade or to check him. I implied, by a
+sort of supplicatory gesture, that it was my prayer to be let alone;
+after that, had he persisted, he would perhaps have seen the spectacle
+of Lucy incensed: not all that was grand, or good, or kind in him (and
+Lucy felt the full amount) should have kept her quite tame, or
+absolutely inoffensive and shadowlike. He looked, but he desisted. He
+shook his handsome head, but he was mute. He resumed his seat, nor did
+he again turn or disturb me by a glance, except indeed for one single
+instant, when a look, rather solicitous than curious, stole my
+way--speaking what somehow stilled my heart like "the south-wind
+quieting the earth." Graham's thoughts of me were not entirely those of
+a frozen indifference, after all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his
+heart, he kept one little place under the sky-lights where Lucy might
+have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the
+chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall
+where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he
+treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where
+his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and
+equal kindness, he proved to me that he kept one little closet, over
+the door of which was written "Lucy's Room." I kept a place for him,
+too--a place of which I never took the measure, either by rule or
+compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I
+carried it folded in the hollow of my hand yet, released from that hold
+and constriction, I know not but its innate capacity for expanse might
+have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host.
+
+Forbearing as he was to-night, I could not stay in this proximity; this
+dangerous place and seat must be given up: I watched my opportunity,
+rose, and stole away. He might think, he might even believe that Lucy
+was contained within that shawl, and sheltered under that hat; he never
+could be certain, for he did not see my face.
+
+Surely the spirit of restlessness was by this time appeased? Had I not
+had enough of adventure? Did I not begin to flag, quail, and wish for
+safety under a roof? Not so. I still loathed my bed in the school
+dormitory more than words can express: I clung to whatever could
+distract thought. Somehow I felt, too, that the night's drama was but
+begun, that the prologue was scarce spoken: throughout this woody and
+turfy theatre reigned a shadow of mystery; actors and incidents
+unlooked-for, waited behind the scenes: I thought so foreboding told me
+as much.
+
+Straying at random, obeying the push of every chance elbow, I was
+brought to a quarter where trees planted in clusters, or towering
+singly, broke up somewhat the dense packing of the crowd, and gave it a
+more scattered character. These confines were far from the music, and
+somewhat aloof even from the lamps, but there was sound enough to
+soothe, and with that full, high moon, lamps were scarce needed. Here
+had chiefly settled family-groups, burgher-parents; some of them, late
+as was the hour, actually surrounded by their children, with whom it
+had not been thought advisable to venture into the closer throng.
+
+Three fine tall trees growing close, almost twined stem within stem,
+lifted a thick canopy of shade above a green knoll, crowned with a
+seat--a seat which might have held several, yet it seemed abandoned to
+one, the remaining members of the fortunate party in possession of this
+site standing dutifully round; yet, amongst this reverend circle was a
+lady, holding by the hand a little girl.
+
+When I caught sight of this little girl, she was twisting herself round
+on her heel, swinging from her conductress's hand, flinging herself
+from side to side with wanton and fantastic gyrations. These perverse
+movements arrested my attention, they struck me as of a character
+fearfully familiar. On close inspection, no less so appeared the
+child's equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, the small swansdown boa, the
+white bonnet--the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the gala garb
+of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Desiree Beck--and
+Desiree Beck it was--she, or an imp in her likeness.
+
+I might have taken this discovery as a thunder-clap, but such hyperbole
+would have been premature; discovery was destined to rise more than one
+degree, ere it reached its climax.
+
+On whose hand could the amiable Desiree swing thus selfishly, whose
+glove could she tear thus recklessly, whose arm thus strain with
+impunity, or on the borders of whose dress thus turn and trample
+insolently, if not the hand, glove, arm, and robe of her lady-mother?
+And there, in an Indian shawl and a pale-green crape bonnet--there,
+fresh, portly, blithe, and pleasant--there stood Madame Beck.
+
+Curious! I had certainly deemed Madame in her bed, and Desiree in her
+crib, at this blessed minute, sleeping, both of them, the sleep of the
+just, within the sacred walls, amidst the profound seclusion of the Rue
+Fossette. Most certainly also they did not picture "Meess Lucie"
+otherwise engaged; and here we all three were taking our "ebats" in the
+fete-blazing park at midnight!
+
+The fact was, Madame was only acting according to her quite justifiable
+wont. I remembered now I had heard it said among the teachers--though
+without at the time particularly noticing the gossip--that often, when
+we thought Madame in her chamber, sleeping, she was gone, full-dressed,
+to take her pleasure at operas, or plays, or balls. Madame had no sort
+of taste for a monastic life, and took care--largely, though
+discreetly--to season her existence with a relish of the world.
+
+Half a dozen gentlemen of her friends stood about her. Amongst these, I
+was not slow to recognise two or three. There was her brother, M.
+Victor Kint; there was another person, moustached and with long hair--a
+calm, taciturn man, but whose traits bore a stamp and a semblance I
+could not mark unmoved. Amidst reserve and phlegm, amidst contrasts of
+character and of countenance, something there still was which recalled
+a face--mobile, fervent, feeling--a face changeable, now clouded, and
+now alight--a face from my world taken away, for my eyes lost, but
+where my best spring-hours of life had alternated in shadow and in
+glow; that face, where I had often seen movements so near the signs of
+genius--that why there did not shine fully out the undoubted fire, the
+thing, the spirit, and the secret itself--I could never tell. Yes--this
+Josef Emanuel--this man of peace--reminded me of his ardent brother.
+
+Besides Messieurs Victor and Josef, I knew another of this party. This
+third person stood behind and in the shade, his attitude too was
+stooping, yet his dress and bald white head made him the most
+conspicuous figure of the group. He was an ecclesiastic: he was Pere
+Silas. Do not fancy, reader, that there was any inconsistency in the
+priest's presence at this fete. This was not considered a show of
+Vanity Fair, but a commemoration of patriotic sacrifice. The Church
+patronised it, even with ostentation. There were troops of priests in
+the park that night.
+
+Pere Silas stooped over the seat with its single occupant, the rustic
+bench and that which sat upon it: a strange mass it was--bearing no
+shape, yet magnificent. You saw, indeed, the outline of a face, and
+features, but these were so cadaverous and so strangely placed, you
+could almost have fancied a head severed from its trunk, and flung at
+random on a pile of rich merchandise. The distant lamp-rays glanced on
+clear pendants, on broad rings; neither the chasteness of moonlight,
+nor the distance of the torches, could quite subdue the gorgeous dyes
+of the drapery. Hail, Madame Walravens! I think you looked more
+witch-like than ever. And presently the good lady proved that she was
+indeed no corpse or ghost, but a harsh and hardy old woman; for, upon
+some aggravation in the clamorous petition of Desiree Beck to her
+mother, to go to the kiosk and take sweetmeats, the hunchback suddenly
+fetched her a resounding rap with her gold-knobbed cane.
+
+There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Pere Silas--the whole
+conjuration, the secret junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me
+good. I cannot say that I felt weak before them, or abashed, or
+dismayed. They outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet;
+but, as yet, I was not dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this
+clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of
+entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of
+protection, and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show me an
+obscure, safe seat, and then vanished. Let me now briefly tell the
+reader all that, during the past dark fortnight, I have been silently
+gathering from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of M.
+Emanuel's departure. The tale is short, and not new: its alpha is
+Mammon, and its omega Interest.
+
+If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol, she seemed also to
+possess, in the estimation of these her votaries, an idol's
+consequence. The fact was, she had been rich--very rich; and though,
+for the present, without the command of money, she was likely one day
+to be rich again. At Basseterre, in Guadaloupe, she possessed a large
+estate, received in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequestered
+since her husband's failure; but now, it was supposed, cleared of
+claim, and, if duly looked after by a competent agent of integrity,
+considered capable of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
+
+Pere Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement for the
+sake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore Walravens was a
+devout daughter. Madame Beck, distantly related to the hunchback and
+knowing her to be without family of her own, had long brooded over
+contingencies with a mother's calculating forethought, and, harshly
+treated as she was by Madame Walravens, never ceased to court her for
+interest's sake. Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for money
+reasons, equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of the West
+Indian estate.
+
+But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous. The competent
+and upright agent wanted, must be a devoted man. Just such a man had
+Madame Walravens retained for twenty years in her service, blighting
+his life, and then living on him, like an old fungus; such a man had
+Pere Silas trained, taught, and bound to him by the ties of gratitude,
+habit, and belief. Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in some
+measure influence. "My pupil," said Pere Silas, "if he remains in
+Europe, runs risk of apostacy, for he has become entangled with a
+heretic." Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred in
+her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation. The thing
+she could not obtain, she desired not another to win: rather would she
+destroy it. As to Madame Walravens, she wanted her money and her land,
+and knew Paul, if he liked, could make the best and faithfullest
+steward: so the three self-seekers banded and beset the one unselfish.
+They reasoned, they appealed, they implored; on his mercy they cast
+themselves, into his hands they confidingly thrust their interests.
+They asked but two or three years of devotion--after that, he should
+live for himself: one of the number, perhaps, wished that in the
+meantime he might die.
+
+No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet, or
+confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust or
+repulsed the repository. What might be his private pain or inward
+reluctance to leave Europe--what his calculations for his own
+future--none asked, or knew, or reported. All this was a blank to me.
+His conferences with his confessor I might guess; the part duty and
+religion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might conjecture.
+He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst
+grouped tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed
+amongst my neighbours, I might hear, if I would; I was near enough; but
+for some time, there was scarce motive to attend. They gossiped about
+the dresses, the music, the illuminations, the fine night. I listened
+to hear them say, "It is calm weather for _his_ voyage; the _Antigua_"
+(his ship) "will sail prosperously." No such remark fell; neither the
+_Antigua_, nor her course, nor her passenger were named.
+
+Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more
+than it did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this
+side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if
+expectant of an arrival and impatient of delay. "Ou sont-ils? Pourquoi
+ne viennent-ils?" I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as if
+determined to have an answer to her question--which hitherto none
+seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase--a phrase brief enough,
+simple enough, but it sent a shock through me--"Messieurs et mesdames,"
+said she, "ou donc est Justine Marie?"
+
+"Justine Marie!" What was this? Justine Marie--the dead nun--where was
+she? Why, in her grave, Madame Walravens--what can you want with her?
+You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
+
+Thus _I_ should have answered, had the response lain with me, but
+nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or
+at a loss. The quietest commonplace answer met the strange, the
+dead-disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
+
+"Justine Marie," said one, "is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be
+here presently."
+
+Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat--chat it
+still remained, easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion,
+comment, went round the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on
+references to persons not named, or circumstances not defined, that
+listen as intently as I would--and I _did_ listen _now_ with a fated
+interest--I could make out no more than that some scheme was on foot,
+in which this ghostly Justine Marie--dead or alive--was concerned. This
+family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some reason; there
+seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune--for whom I could not quite
+make out--perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel--both were
+bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a young
+fair-haired foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Muehler.
+Amidst all the badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded from time to
+time, hoarse, cross-grained speeches; her impatience being diverted
+only by an implacable surveillance of Desiree, who could not stir but
+the old woman menaced her with her staff.
+
+"La voila!" suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, "voila Justine Marie
+qui arrive!"
+
+This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nun
+on the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in
+thought the vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the
+strange birth of the berceau; I underwent a presentiment of discovery,
+a strong conviction of coming disclosure. Ah! when imagination once
+runs riot where do we stop? What winter tree so bare and
+branchless--what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble, that Fancy,
+a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in
+spirituality, and make of it a phantom?
+
+With solemn force pressed on my heart, the expectation of mystery
+breaking up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass
+darkly; now was I to behold it face to face. I leaned forward; I looked.
+
+"She comes!" cried Josef Emanuel.
+
+The circle opened as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At
+this instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the
+pale moon in doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection the
+denouement pressing on. Surely those near me must have felt some little
+of the anxiety I felt, in degree so unmeted. Of that group the coolest
+must have "held his breath for a time!" As for me, my life stood still.
+
+It is over. The moment and the nun are come. The crisis and the
+revelation are passed by.
+
+The flambeau glares still within a yard, held up in a park-keeper's
+hand; its long eager tongue of flame almost licks the figure of the
+Expected--there--where she stands full in my sight. What is she like?
+What does she wear? How does she look? Who is she?
+
+There are many masks in the park to-night, and as the hour wears late,
+so strange a feeling of revelry and mystery begins to spread abroad,
+that scarce would you discredit me, reader, were I to say that she is
+like the nun of the attic, that she wears black skirts and white
+head-clothes, that she looks the resurrection of the flesh, and that
+she is a risen ghost.
+
+All falsities--all figments! We will not deal in this gear. Let us be
+honest, and cut, as heretofore, from the homely web of truth.
+
+_Homely_, though, is an ill-chosen word. What I see is not precisely
+homely. A girl of Villette stands there--a girl fresh from her
+pensionnat. She is very comely, with the beauty indigenous to this
+country. She looks well-nourished, fair, and fat of flesh. Her cheeks
+are round, her eyes good; her hair is abundant. She is handsomely
+dressed. She is not alone; her escort consists of three persons--two
+being elderly; these she addresses as "Mon Oncle" and "Ma Tante." She
+laughs, she chats; good-humoured, buxom, and blooming, she looks, at
+all points, the bourgeoise belle.
+
+"So much for Justine Marie;" so much for ghosts and mystery: not that
+this last was solved--this girl certainly is not my nun: what I saw in
+the garret and garden must have been taller by a span.
+
+We have looked at the city belle; we have cursorily glanced at the
+respectable old uncle and aunt. Have we a stray glance to give to the
+third member of this company? Can we spare him a moment's notice? We
+ought to distinguish him so far, reader; he has claims on us; we do not
+now meet him for the first time. I clasped my hands very hard, and I
+drew my breath very deep: I held in the cry, I devoured the
+ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and I stirred no more than a
+stone; but I knew what I looked on; through the dimness left in my eyes
+by many nights' weeping, I knew him. They said he was to sail by the
+_Antigua_. Madame Beck said so. She lied, or she had uttered what was
+once truth, and failed to contradict it when it became false. The
+_Antigua_ was gone, and there stood Paul Emanuel.
+
+Was I glad? A huge load left me. Was it a fact to warrant joy? I know
+not. Ask first what were the circumstances attendant on this respite?
+How far did this delay concern _me?_ Were there not those whom it might
+touch more nearly?
+
+After all, who may this young girl, this Justine Marie, be? Not a
+stranger, reader; she is known to me by sight; she visits at the Rue
+Fossette: she is often of Madame Beck's Sunday parties. She is a
+relation of both the Becks and Walravens; she derives her baptismal
+name from the sainted nun who would have been her aunt had she lived;
+her patronymic is Sauveur; she is an heiress and an orphan, and M.
+Emanuel is her guardian; some say her godfather.
+
+The family junta wish this heiress to be married to one of their
+band--which is it? Vital question--which is it?
+
+I felt very glad now, that the drug administered in the sweet draught
+had filled me with a possession which made bed and chamber intolerable.
+I always, through my whole life, liked to penetrate to the real truth;
+I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and
+daring the dread glance. O Titaness among deities! the covered outline
+of thine aspect sickens often through its uncertainty, but define to us
+one trait, show us one lineament, clear in awful sincerity; we may gasp
+in untold terror, but with that gasp we drink in a breath of thy
+divinity; our heart shakes, and its currents sway like rivers lifted by
+earthquake, but we have swallowed strength. To see and know the worst
+is to take from Fear her main advantage.
+
+The Walravens' party, augmented in numbers, now became very gay. The
+gentlemen fetched refreshments from the kiosk, all sat down on the turf
+under the trees; they drank healths and sentiments; they laughed, they
+jested. M. Emanuel underwent some raillery, half good-humoured, half, I
+thought, malicious, especially on Madame Beck's part. I soon gathered
+that his voyage had been temporarily deferred of his own will, without
+the concurrence, even against the advice, of his friends; he had let
+the _Antigua_ go, and had taken his berth in the _Paul et Virginie_,
+appointed to sail a fortnight later. It was his reason for this resolve
+which they teased him to assign, and which he would only vaguely
+indicate as "the settlement of a little piece of business which he had
+set his heart upon." What _was_ this business? Nobody knew. Yes, there
+was one who seemed partly, at least, in his confidence; a meaning look
+passed between him and Justine Marie. "La petite va m'aider--n'est-ce
+pas?" said he. The answer was prompt enough, God knows?
+
+"Mais oui, je vous aiderai de tout mon coeur. Vous ferez de moi tout ce
+que vous voudrez, mon parrain."
+
+And this dear "parrain" took her hand and lifted it to his grateful
+lips. Upon which demonstration, I saw the light-complexioned young
+Teuton, Heinrich Muehler, grow restless, as if he did not like it. He
+even grumbled a few words, whereat M. Emanuel actually laughed in his
+face, and with the ruthless triumph of the assured conqueror, he drew
+his ward nearer to him.
+
+M. Emanuel was indeed very joyous that night. He seemed not one whit
+subdued by the change of scene and action impending. He was the true
+life of the party; a little despotic, perhaps, determined to be chief
+in mirth, as well as in labour, yet from moment to moment proving
+indisputably his right of leadership. His was the wittiest word, the
+pleasantest anecdote, the frankest laugh. Restlessly active, after his
+manner, he multiplied himself to wait on all; but oh! I saw which was
+his favourite. I saw at whose feet he lay on the turf, I saw whom he
+folded carefully from the night air, whom he tended, watched, and
+cherished as the apple of his eye.
+
+Still, hint and raillery flew thick, and still I gathered that while M.
+Paul should be absent, working for others, these others, not quite
+ungrateful, would guard for him the treasure he left in Europe. Let him
+bring them an Indian fortune: they would give him in return a young
+bride and a rich inheritance. As for the saintly consecration, the vow
+of constancy, that was forgotten: the blooming and charming Present
+prevailed over the Past; and, at length, his nun was indeed buried.
+
+Thus it must be. The revelation was indeed come. Presentiment had not
+been mistaken in her impulse: there is a kind of presentiment which
+never _is_ mistaken; it was I who had for a moment miscalculated; not
+seeing the true bearing of the oracle, I had thought she muttered of
+vision when, in truth, her prediction touched reality.
+
+I might have paused longer upon what I saw; I might have deliberated
+ere I drew inferences. Some, perhaps, would have held the premises
+doubtful, the proofs insufficient; some slow sceptics would have
+incredulously examined ere they conclusively accepted the project of a
+marriage between a poor and unselfish man of forty, and his wealthy
+ward of eighteen; but far from me such shifts and palliatives, far from
+me such temporary evasion of the actual, such coward fleeing from the
+dread, the swift-footed, the all-overtaking Fact, such feeble suspense
+of submission to her the sole sovereign, such paltering and faltering
+resistance to the Power whose errand is to march conquering and to
+conquer, such traitor defection from the TRUTH.
+
+No. I hastened to accept the whole plan. I extended my grasp and took
+it all in. I gathered it to me with a sort of rage of haste, and folded
+it round me, as the soldier struck on the field folds his colours about
+his breast. I invoked Conviction to nail upon me the certainty,
+abhorred while embraced, to fix it with the strongest spikes her
+strongest strokes could drive; and when the iron had entered well my
+soul, I stood up, as I thought, renovated.
+
+In my infatuation, I said, "Truth, you are a good mistress to your
+faithful servants! While a Lie pressed me, how I suffered! Even when
+the Falsehood was still sweet, still flattering to the fancy, and warm
+to the feelings, it wasted me with hourly torment. The persuasion that
+affection was won could not be divorced from the dread that, by another
+turn of the wheel, it might be lost. Truth stripped away Falsehood, and
+Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand--free!"
+
+Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it
+with me to my bed and see what I could make of it. The play was not
+yet, indeed, quite played out. I might have waited and watched longer
+that love-scene under the trees, that sylvan courtship. Had there been
+nothing of love in the demonstration, my Fancy in this hour was so
+generous, so creative, she could have modelled for it the most salient
+lineaments, and given it the deepest life and highest colour of
+passion. But I _would_ not look; I had fixed my resolve, but I would
+not violate my nature. And then--something tore me so cruelly under my
+shawl, something so dug into my side, a vulture so strong in beak and
+talon, I must be alone to grapple with it. I think I never felt
+jealousy till now. This was not like enduring the endearments of Dr.
+John and Paulina, against which while I sealed my eyes and my ears,
+while I withdrew thence my thoughts, my sense of harmony still
+acknowledged in it a charm. This was an outrage. The love born of
+beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare
+to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life
+after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy,
+consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by
+intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own
+process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at
+Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in
+_this_ Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either to its
+culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly.
+
+I turned from the group of trees and the "merrie companie" in its
+shade. Midnight was long past; the concert was over, the crowds were
+thinning. I followed the ebb. Leaving the radiant park and well-lit
+Haute-Ville (still well lit, this it seems was to be a "nuit blanche"
+in Villette), I sought the dim lower quarter.
+
+Dim I should not say, for the beauty of moonlight--forgotten in the
+park--here once more flowed in upon perception. High she rode, and calm
+and stainlessly she shone. The music and the mirth of the fete, the
+fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her for
+an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed. The rival
+lamps were dying: she held her course like a white fate. Drum, trumpet,
+bugle, had uttered their clangour, and were forgotten; with pencil-ray
+she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting. She
+and those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truth
+all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its slow-wheeling
+progress, advanced her victory--that onward movement which has been,
+and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.
+
+These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their
+lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but
+these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.
+So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly
+would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my
+strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed
+in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.
+
+Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,
+for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of
+this quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds its
+rattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully to
+the causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or fancy I
+see, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from that
+window--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant for
+me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. de
+Bassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither the
+Hotel Crecy nor the chateau of La Terrasse lies in that direction.
+Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.
+
+Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was still;
+no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Desiree. I had left the great
+door ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some other
+accident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start the
+spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure must
+issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it yield?
+
+Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had
+waited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated
+breath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I
+sought the dormitory, and reached my couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next
+moment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!
+
+Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this
+hour the stillness of death. All slept, and in such hush, it seemed
+that none dreamed. Stretched on the nineteen beds lay nineteen forms,
+at full-length and motionless. On mine--the twentieth couch--nothing
+_ought_ to have lain: I had left it void, and void should have found
+it. What, then; do I see between the half-drawn curtains? What dark,
+usurping shape, supine, long, and strange? Is it a robber who has made
+his way through the open street-door, and lies there in wait? It looks
+very black, I think it looks--not human. Can it be a wandering dog that
+has come in from the street and crept and nestled hither? Will it
+spring, will it leap out if I approach? Approach I must. Courage! One
+step!--
+
+My head reeled, for by the faint night-lamp, I saw stretched on my bed
+the old phantom--the NUN.
+
+A cry at this moment might have ruined me. Be the spectacle what it
+might, I could afford neither consternation, scream, nor swoon.
+Besides, I was not overcome. Tempered by late incidents, my nerves
+disdained hysteria. Warm from illuminations, and music, and thronging
+thousands, thoroughly lashed up by a new scourge, I defied spectra. In
+a moment, without exclamation, I had rushed on the haunted couch;
+nothing leaped out, or sprung, or stirred; all the movement was mine,
+so was all the life, the reality, the substance, the force; as my
+instinct felt. I tore her up--the incubus! I held her on high--the
+goblin! I shook her loose--the mystery! And down she fell--down all
+around me--down in shreds and fragments--and I trode upon her.
+
+Here again--behold the branchless tree, the unstabled Rosinante; the
+film of cloud, the flicker of moonshine. The long nun proved a long
+bolster dressed in a long black stole, and artfully invested with a
+white veil. The garments in very truth, strange as it may seem, were
+genuine nun's garments, and by some hand they had been disposed with a
+view to illusion. Whence came these vestments? Who contrived this
+artifice? These questions still remained. To the head-bandage was
+pinned a slip of paper: it bore in pencil these mocking words--
+
+"The nun of the attic bequeaths to Lucy Snowe her wardrobe. She will be
+seen in the Rue Fossette no more."
+
+And what and who was she that had haunted me? She, I had actually seen
+three times. Not a woman of my acquaintance had the stature of that
+ghost. She was not of a female height. Not to any man I knew could the
+machination, for a moment, be attributed.
+
+Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,
+relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also to
+wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, I
+just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath my
+pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of Madame's
+home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many nights'
+vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic, I deeply
+slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE HAPPY PAIR.
+
+
+The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
+day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
+on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
+storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
+a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
+lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
+blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
+their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
+azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
+unclouded course.
+
+In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
+doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
+cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
+all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
+meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
+entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
+mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
+left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
+or impression.
+
+Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
+the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
+house discussed.
+
+What subject?
+
+Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
+the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained a
+coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
+one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
+Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
+morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
+pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.
+
+High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
+the house ransacked; vainly; not a trace, not an indication, not so
+much as a scrap of a billet rewarded the search; the nymph was
+vanished, engulfed in the past night, like a shooting star swallowed up
+by darkness.
+
+Deep was the dismay of surveillante teachers, deeper the horror of the
+defaulting directress. Never had I seen Madame Beck so pale or so
+appalled. Here was a blow struck at her tender part, her weak side;
+here was damage done to her interest. How, too, had the untoward event
+happened? By what outlet had the fugitive taken wing? Not a casement
+was found unfastened, not a pane of glass broken; all the doors were
+bolted secure. Never to this day has Madame Beck obtained satisfaction
+on this point, nor indeed has anybody else concerned, save and
+excepting one, Lucy Snowe, who could not forget how, to facilitate a
+certain enterprise, a certain great door had been drawn softly to its
+lintel, closed, indeed, but neither bolted nor secure. The thundering
+carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as
+that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief.
+
+From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but
+myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement.
+Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound
+embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction. Having alluded to
+M. de Hamal's suit, I found, as I expected, that Madame Beck was
+perfectly au fait to that affair. She had long since discussed it with
+Mrs. Cholmondeley, and laid her own responsibility in the business on
+that lady's shoulders. To Mrs. Cholmondeley and M. de Bassompierre she
+now had recourse.
+
+We found that the Hotel Crecy was already alive to what had happened.
+Ginevra had written to her cousin Paulina, vaguely signifying hymeneal
+intentions; communications had been received from the family of de
+Hamal; M. de Bassompierre was on the track of the fugitives. He
+overtook them too late.
+
+In the course of the week, the post brought me a note. I may as well
+transcribe it; it contains explanation on more than one point:--
+
+'DEAR OLD TIM "(short for Timon),--" I am off you see--gone like a
+shot. Alfred and I intended to be married in this way almost from the
+first; we never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other people;
+Alfred has too much spirit for that, and so have I--Dieu merci! Do you
+know, Alfred, who used to call you 'the dragon,' has seen so much of
+you during the last few months, that he begins to feel quite friendly
+towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he has gone; he begs
+to apologize for any little trouble he may have given you. He is afraid
+he rather inconvenienced you once when he came upon you in the grenier,
+just as you were reading a letter seemingly of the most special
+interest; but he could not resist the temptation to give you a start,
+you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En
+revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or
+a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a
+light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar, while waiting
+for me.
+
+"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
+the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
+will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entree of the
+Athenee, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
+sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
+Athenee is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
+allee defendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
+amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting, first
+the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the grand
+berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
+buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and the
+grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore down
+some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all, in
+running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
+people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
+From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
+of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know, is,
+day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
+Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
+suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think you
+must allow he has very cleverly carried out.
+
+"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been caught
+again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He thinks
+you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at is,
+rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure the
+visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying out,
+telling everybody, and rousing the whole house and neighbourhood?
+
+"Oh, and how did you like the nun as a bed-fellow? _I_ dressed her up:
+didn't I do it well? Did you shriek when you saw her: I should have
+gone mad; but then you have such nerves!--real iron and bend-leather! I
+believe you feel nothing. You haven't the same sensitiveness that a
+person of my constitution has. You seem to me insensible both to pain
+and fear and grief. You are a real old Diogenes.
+
+"Well, dear grandmother! and are you not mightily angry at my moonlight
+flitting and run away match? I assure you it is excellent fun, and I
+did it partly to spite that minx, Paulina, and that bear, Dr. John: to
+show them that, with all their airs, I could get married as well as
+they. M. de Bassompierre was at first in a strange fume with Alfred; he
+threatened a prosecution for 'detournement de mineur,' and I know not
+what; he was so abominably in earnest, that I found myself forced to do
+a little bit of the melodramatic--go down on my knees, sob, cry, drench
+three pocket-handkerchiefs. Of course, 'mon oncle' soon gave in;
+indeed, where was the use of making a fuss? I am married, and that's
+all about it. He still says our marriage is not legal, because I am not
+of age, forsooth! As if that made any difference! I am just as much
+married as if I were a hundred. However, we are to be married again,
+and I am to have a trousseau, and Mrs. Cholmondeley is going to
+superintend it; and there are some hopes that M. de Bassompierre will
+give me a decent portion, which will be very convenient, as dear Alfred
+has nothing but his nobility, native and hereditary, and his pay. I
+only wish uncle would do things unconditionally, in a generous,
+gentleman-like fashion; he is so disagreeable as to make the dowry
+depend on Alfred's giving his written promise that he will never touch
+cards or dice from the day it is paid down. They accuse my angel of a
+tendency to play: I don't know anything about that, but I _do_ know he
+is a dear, adorable creature.
+
+"I cannot sufficiently extol the genius with which de Hamal managed our
+flight. How clever in him to select the night of the fete, when Madame
+(for he knows her habits), as he said, would infallibly be absent at
+the concert in the park. I suppose _you_ must have gone with her. I
+watched you rise and leave the dormitory about eleven o'clock. How you
+returned alone, and on foot, I cannot conjecture. That surely was _you_
+we met in the narrow old Rue St. Jean? Did you see me wave my
+handkerchief from the carriage window?
+
+"Adieu! Rejoice in my good luck: congratulate me on my supreme
+happiness, and believe me, dear cynic and misanthrope, yours, in the
+best of health and spirits,
+
+GINEVRA LAURA DE HAMAL, nee FANSHAWE.
+
+"P.S.--Remember, I am a countess now. Papa, mamma, and the girls at
+home, will be delighted to hear that. 'My daughter the Countess!' 'My
+sister the Countess!' Bravo! Sounds rather better than Mrs. John
+Bretton, hein?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In winding up Mistress Fanshawe's memoirs, the reader will no doubt
+expect to hear that she came finally to bitter expiation of her
+youthful levities. Of course, a large share of suffering lies in
+reserve for her future.
+
+A few words will embody my farther knowledge respecting her.
+
+I saw her towards the close of her honeymoon. She called on Madame
+Beck, and sent for me into the salon. She rushed into my arms laughing.
+She looked very blooming and beautiful: her curls were longer, her
+cheeks rosier than ever: her white bonnet and her Flanders veil, her
+orange-flowers and her bride's dress, became her mightily.
+
+"I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the
+substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her
+composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de
+Bassompierre is quite reconciled. I don't mind his calling Alfred a
+'nincompoop'--that's only his coarse Scotch breeding; and I believe
+Paulina envies me, and Dr. John is wild with jealousy--fit to blow his
+brains out--and I'm so happy! I really think I've hardly anything left
+to wish for--unless it be a carriage and an hotel, and, oh! I--must
+introduce you to 'mon mari.' Alfred, come here!"
+
+And Alfred appeared from the inner salon, where he was talking to
+Madame Beck, receiving the blended felicitations and reprimands of that
+lady. I was presented under my various names: the Dragon, Diogenes, and
+Timon. The young Colonel was very polite. He made me a prettily-turned,
+neatly-worded apology, about the ghost-visits, &c., concluding with
+saying that "the best excuse for all his iniquities stood there!"
+pointing to his bride.
+
+And then the bride sent him back to Madame Beck, and she took me to
+herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained
+spirits, her girlish, giddy, wild nonsense. She showed her ring
+exultingly; she called herself Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked
+how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only
+the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing
+better--she knew me too well to look for compliments--my dry gibes
+pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien,
+the more merrily she laughed.
+
+Soon after his marriage, M. de Hamal was persuaded to leave the army as
+the surest way of weaning him from certain unprofitable associates and
+habits; a post of attache was procured for him, and he and his young
+wife went abroad. I thought she would forget me now, but she did not.
+For many years, she kept up a capricious, fitful sort of
+correspondence. During the first year or two, it was only of herself
+and Alfred she wrote; then, Alfred faded in the background; herself and
+a certain, new comer prevailed; one Alfred Fanshawe de Bassompierre de
+Hamal began to reign in his father's stead. There were great boastings
+about this personage, extravagant amplifications upon miracles of
+precocity, mixed with vehement objurgations against the phlegmatic
+incredulity with which I received them. I didn't know "what it was to
+be a mother;" "unfeeling thing that I was, the sensibilities of the
+maternal heart were Greek and Hebrew to me," and so on. In due course
+of nature this young gentleman took his degrees in teething, measles,
+hooping-cough: that was a terrible time for me--the mamma's letters
+became a perfect shout of affliction; never woman was so put upon by
+calamity: never human being stood in such need of sympathy. I was
+frightened at first, and wrote back pathetically; but I soon found out
+there was more cry than wool in the business, and relapsed into my
+natural cruel insensibility. As to the youthful sufferer, he weathered
+each storm like a hero. Five times was that youth "in articulo mortis,"
+and five times did he miraculously revive.
+
+In the course of years there arose ominous murmurings against Alfred
+the First; M. de Bassompierre had to be appealed to, debts had to be
+paid, some of them of that dismal and dingy order called "debts of
+honour;" ignoble plaints and difficulties became frequent. Under every
+cloud, no matter what its nature, Ginevra, as of old, called out
+lustily for sympathy and aid. She had no notion of meeting any distress
+single-handed. In some shape, from some quarter or other, she was
+pretty sure to obtain her will, and so she got on--fighting the battle
+of life by proxy, and, on the whole, suffering as little as any human
+being I have ever known.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.
+
+
+Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and Renovation
+which I won on the fete-night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart
+companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of
+intimate acquaintance?
+
+I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly
+when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding
+deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a
+relieved life--Freedom excused himself, as for the present impoverished
+and disabled to assist; and Renovation never spoke; he had died in the
+night suddenly.
+
+I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture
+might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive
+hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of jealousy.
+After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back captive to
+the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew.
+
+Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he
+purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour bring him? or must I
+again assay that corroding pain of long attent--that rude agony of
+rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once
+uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the
+violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her
+barrier!
+
+It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders
+and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long
+walk into the country to take their gouter, or afternoon meal, at some
+farm-house. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere
+the _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last chance,
+as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or cable.
+
+There was some joiners' work to do in the first classe, some bench or
+desk to repair; holidays were often turned to account for the
+performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the
+rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn
+to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my
+own intent, I heard the workmen coming.
+
+Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it
+would take two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying
+on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by its ribbons from my idle hand,
+I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one
+"ouvrier." I noted, too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary
+leisure to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and not
+sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, coming to
+inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He
+advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little
+thrill--a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I
+turned, I stood in the supposed master-artisan's presence: looking
+towards the door-way, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes
+printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.
+
+Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the
+suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls
+prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, perfect from Fruition's
+mint.
+
+M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel--a
+surtout, guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant
+departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run
+before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and
+benign: he came in with eagerness; he was close to me in one second; he
+was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus brightened
+him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If
+this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced,
+unnatural distance. I loved him well--too well not to smite out of my
+path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind
+farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes,
+would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it
+would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it--I
+would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.
+
+The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what
+he had said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my
+hand two minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first,
+last, only time--and then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting,
+then the wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
+him--across which, haply, he would not glance, to remember me.
+
+He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet; he
+looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips expressed
+something almost like the wordless language of a mother who finds a
+child greatly and unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn
+out by want. A check supervened.
+
+"Paul, Paul!" said a woman's hurried voice behind, "Paul, come into the
+salon; I have yet a great many things to say to you--conversation for
+the whole day--and so has Victor; and Josef is here. Come Paul, come to
+your friends."
+
+Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable
+instinct, pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M.
+Emanuel.
+
+"Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like
+a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I
+thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to
+feel what defied suppression, I cried--
+
+"My heart will break!"
+
+What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another
+fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the
+whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep
+sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet
+with relief--I wept.
+
+"Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it
+will pass," said the calm Madame Beck.
+
+To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being
+left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply,
+harshly, and briefly--"Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music
+strange, strong, but life-giving.
+
+"Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial
+muscles all quivering as he spoke.
+
+"But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly
+rejoined her kinsman--
+
+"Sortez d'ici!"
+
+"I will send for Pere Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she
+threatened pertinaciously.
+
+"Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his
+highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez a l'instant!"
+
+He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what
+I had yet felt.
+
+"What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of
+men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive,
+injudicious, inconsistent--a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in
+the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character."
+
+"You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but
+you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less
+fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face,
+and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends;
+in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of
+sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what
+I see; it _must_ have and give solace. _Leave me!_"
+
+This time, in the "_leave me_" there was an intonation so bitter and so
+imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one
+moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him
+dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was
+opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick
+rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement;
+it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his
+hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the
+room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second.
+
+The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to
+wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to
+time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more
+myself--re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless,
+not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death.
+
+"It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he.
+
+"It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said. "All these weary days
+I have not heard from you one word, and I was crushed with the
+possibility, growing to certainty, that you would depart without saying
+farewell!"
+
+"Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not know me?
+Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_ have proof that I
+can be a firm friend? Without clear proof this hand will not lie still
+in mine, it will not trust my shoulder as a safe stay? Good. The proof
+is ready. I come to justify myself."
+
+"Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, Monsieur; I can listen
+now."
+
+"Then, in the first place, you must go out with me a good distance into
+the town. I came on purpose to fetch you."
+
+Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the
+semblance of an objection, I re-tied my bonnet: I was ready.
+
+The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit
+down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I
+was tired, but looked, and drew his own conclusions.
+
+"All these weary days," said he, repeating my words, with a gentle,
+kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips,
+and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled,
+as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might _write_ his
+language, I _spoke_ and always should speak it imperfectly and
+hesitatingly. "'All these weary days' I have not for one hour forgotten
+you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves the sole
+faithful of God's creatures. On a very fervent and living truth to
+myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any quarter;
+but----look at me."
+
+I lifted my happy eyes: they _were_ happy now, or they would have been
+no interpreters of my heart.
+
+"Well," said he, after some seconds' scrutiny, "there is no denying
+that signature: Constancy wrote it: her pen is of iron. Was the record
+painful?"
+
+"Severely painful," I said, with truth. "Withdraw her hand, Monsieur; I
+can bear its inscribing force no more."
+
+"Elle est toute pale," said he, speaking to himself; "cette figure-la
+me fait mal."
+
+"Ah! I am not pleasant to look at----?"
+
+I could not help saying this; the words came unbidden: I never remember
+the time when I had not a haunting dread of what might be the degree of
+my outward deficiency; this dread pressed me at the moment with special
+force.
+
+A great softness passed upon his countenance; his violet eyes grew
+suffused and glistening under their deep Spanish lashes: he started up;
+"Let us walk on."
+
+"Do I displease your eyes _much_?" I took courage to urge: the point
+had its vital import for me.
+
+He stopped, and gave me a short, strong answer; an answer which
+silenced, subdued, yet profoundly satisfied. Ever after that I knew
+what I was for _him_; and what I might be for the rest of the world, I
+ceased painfully to care. Was it weak to lay so much stress on an
+opinion about appearance? I fear it might be; I fear it was; but in
+that case I must avow no light share of weakness. I must own great fear
+of displeasing--a strong wish moderately to please M. Paul.
+
+Whither we rambled, I scarce knew. Our walk was long, yet seemed short;
+the path was pleasant, the day lovely. M. Emanuel talked of his
+voyage--he thought of staying away three years. On his return from
+Guadaloupe, he looked forward to release from liabilities and a clear
+course; and what did I purpose doing in the interval of his absence? he
+asked. I had talked once, he reminded me, of trying to be independent
+and keeping a little school of my own: had I dropped the idea?
+
+"Indeed, I had not: I was doing my best to save what would enable me to
+put it in practice."
+
+"He did not like leaving me in the Rue Fossette; he feared I should
+miss him there too much--I should feel desolate--I should grow sad--?"
+
+This was certain; but I promised to do my best to endure.
+
+"Still," said he, speaking low, "there is another objection to your
+present residence. I should wish to write to you sometimes: it would
+not be well to have any uncertainty about the safe transmission of
+letters; and in the Rue Fossette--in short, our Catholic discipline in
+certain matters--though justifiable and expedient--might possibly,
+under peculiar circumstances, become liable to misapplication--perhaps
+abuse."
+
+"But if you write," said I, "I _must_ have your letters; and I _will_
+have them: ten directors, twenty directresses, shall not keep them from
+me. I am a Protestant: I will not bear that kind of discipline:
+Monsieur, I _will not_."
+
+"Doucement--doucement," rejoined he; "we will contrive a plan; we have
+our resources: soyez tranquille."
+
+So speaking, he paused.
+
+We were now returning from the long walk. We had reached the middle of
+a clean Faubourg, where the houses were small, but looked pleasant. It
+was before the white door-step of a very neat abode that M. Paul had
+halted.
+
+"I call here," said he.
+
+He did not knock, but taking from his pocket a key, he opened and
+entered at once. Ushering me in, he shut the door behind us. No servant
+appeared. The vestibule was small, like the house, but freshly and
+tastefully painted; its vista closed in a French window with vines
+trained about the panes, tendrils, and green leaves kissing the glass.
+Silence reigned in this dwelling.
+
+Opening an inner door, M. Paul disclosed a parlour, or salon--very
+tiny, but I thought, very pretty. Its delicate walls were tinged like a
+blush; its floor was waxed; a square of brilliant carpet covered its
+centre; its small round table shone like the mirror over its hearth;
+there was a little couch, a little chiffonniere, the half-open,
+crimson-silk door of which, showed porcelain on the shelves; there was
+a French clock, a lamp; there were ornaments in biscuit china; the
+recess of the single ample window was filled with a green stand,
+bearing three green flower-pots, each filled with a fine plant glowing
+in bloom; in one corner appeared a gueridon with a marble top, and upon
+it a work-box, and a glass filled with violets in water. The lattice of
+this room was open; the outer air breathing through, gave freshness,
+the sweet violets lent fragrance.
+
+"Pretty, pretty place!" said I. M. Paul smiled to see me so pleased.
+
+"Must we sit down here and wait?" I asked in a whisper, half awed by
+the deep pervading hush.
+
+"We will first peep into one or two other nooks of this nutshell," he
+replied.
+
+"Dare you take the freedom of going all over the house?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes, I dare," said he, quietly.
+
+He led the way. I was shown a little kitchen with a little stove and
+oven, with few but bright brasses, two chairs and a table. A small
+cupboard held a diminutive but commodious set of earthenware.
+
+"There is a coffee service of china in the salon," said M. Paul, as I
+looked at the six green and white dinner-plates; the four dishes, the
+cups and jugs to match.
+
+Conducted up the narrow but clean staircase, I was permitted a glimpse
+of two pretty cabinets of sleeping-rooms; finally, I was once more led
+below, and we halted with a certain ceremony before a larger door than
+had yet been opened.
+
+Producing a second key, M. Emanuel adjusted it to the lock of this
+door. He opened, put me in before him.
+
+"Voici!" he cried.
+
+I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though
+bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards
+were carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks, with
+an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade, a teacher's chair
+and table; behind them a tableau. On the walls hung two maps; in the
+windows flowered a few hardy plants; in short, here was a miniature
+classe--complete, neat, pleasant.
+
+"It is a school then?" said I. "Who keeps it? I never heard of an
+establishment in this faubourg."
+
+"Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for
+distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?" asked he, taking from his
+surtout-pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into my
+hand. I looked, I read--printed in fair characters:--
+
+"Externat de demoiselles. Numero 7, Faubourg Clotilde, Directrice,
+Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel?
+
+Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to
+memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and
+amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and
+whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun.
+
+I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes
+succeeding this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my
+earliest year of life: and yet the first thing distinct to me is the
+consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over
+again:--
+
+"Did you do this, M. Paul? Is this your house? Did you furnish it? Did
+you get these papers printed? Do you mean me? Am I the directress? Is
+there another Lucy Snowe? Tell me: say something."
+
+But he would not speak. His pleased silence, his laughing down-look,
+his attitude, are visible to me now.
+
+"How is it? I must know all--_all_," I cried.
+
+The packet of papers fell on the floor. He had extended his hand, and I
+had fastened thereon, oblivious of all else.
+
+"Ah! you said I had forgotten you all these weary days," said he. "Poor
+old Emanuel! These are the thanks he gets for trudging about three
+mortal weeks from house-painter to upholsterer, from cabinet-maker to
+charwoman. Lucy and Lucy's cot, the sole thoughts in his head!"
+
+I hardly knew what to do. I first caressed the soft velvet on his cuff,
+and then. I stroked the hand it surrounded. It was his foresight, his
+goodness, his silent, strong, effective goodness, that overpowered me
+by their proved reality. It was the assurance of his sleepless interest
+which broke on me like a light from heaven; it was his--I will dare to
+say it--his fond, tender look, which now shook me indescribably. In the
+midst of all I forced myself to look at the practical.
+
+"The trouble!" I cried, "and the cost! Had you money, M. Paul?"
+
+"Plenty of money!" said he heartily. "The disposal of my large teaching
+connection put me in possession of a handsome sum with part of it I
+determined to give myself the richest treat that I _have_ known or
+_shall_ know. I like this. I have reckoned on this hour day and night
+lately. I would not come near you, because I would not forestall it.
+Reserve is neither my virtue nor my vice. If I had put myself into your
+power, and you had begun with your questions of look and lip--Where
+have you been, M. Paul? What have you been doing? What is your
+mystery?--my solitary first and last secret would presently have
+unravelled itself in your lap. Now," he pursued, "you shall live here
+and have a school; you shall employ yourself while I am away; you shall
+think of me sometimes; you shall mind your health and happiness for my
+sake, and when I come back--"
+
+There he left a blank.
+
+I promised to do all he told me. I promised to work hard and willingly.
+"I will be your faithful steward," I said; "I trust at your coming the
+account will be ready. Monsieur, monsieur, you are _too_ good!"
+
+In such inadequate language my feelings struggled for expression: they
+could not get it; speech, brittle and unmalleable, and cold as ice,
+dissolved or shivered in the effort. He watched me, still; he gently
+raised his hand to stroke my hair; it touched my lips in passing; I
+pressed it close, I paid it tribute. He was my king; royal for me had
+been that hand's bounty; to offer homage was both a joy and a duty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon hours were over, and the stiller time of evening shaded
+the quiet faubourg. M. Paul claimed my hospitality; occupied and afoot
+since morning, he needed refreshment; he said I should offer him
+chocolate in my pretty gold and white china service. He went out and
+ordered what was needful from the restaurant; he placed the small
+gueridon and two chairs in the balcony outside the French window under
+the screening vines. With what shy joy I accepted my part as hostess,
+arranged the salver, served the benefactor-guest.
+
+This balcony was in the rear of the house, the gardens of the faubourg
+were round us, fields extended beyond. The air was still, mild, and
+fresh. Above the poplars, the laurels, the cypresses, and the roses,
+looked up a moon so lovely and so halcyon, the heart trembled under her
+smile; a star shone subject beside her, with the unemulous ray of pure
+love. In a large garden near us, a jet rose from a well, and a pale
+statue leaned over the play of waters.
+
+M. Paul talked to me. His voice was so modulated that it mixed
+harmonious with the silver whisper, the gush, the musical sigh, in
+which light breeze, fountain and foliage intoned their lulling vesper:
+
+Happy hour--stay one moment! droop those plumes, rest those wings;
+incline to mine that brow of Heaven! White Angel! let thy light linger;
+leave its reflection on succeeding clouds; bequeath its cheer to that
+time which needs a ray in retrospect!
+
+Our meal was simple: the chocolate, the rolls, the plate of fresh
+summer fruit, cherries and strawberries bedded in green leaves formed
+the whole: but it was what we both liked better than a feast, and I
+took a delight inexpressible in tending M. Paul. I asked him whether
+his friends, Pere Silas and Madame Beck, knew what he had done--whether
+they had seen my house?
+
+"Mon amie," said he, "none knows what I have done save you and myself:
+the pleasure is consecrated to us two, unshared and unprofaned. To
+speak truth, there has been to me in this matter a refinement of
+enjoyment I would not make vulgar by communication. Besides" (smiling)
+"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often
+has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!
+How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the
+secret of Polichinelle!"
+
+This was true enough: I had not spared him on this point, nor perhaps
+on any other that was assailable. Magnificent-minded, grand-hearted,
+dear, faulty little man! You deserved candour, and from me always had
+it.
+
+Continuing my queries, I asked to whom the house belonged, who was my
+landlord, the amount of my rent. He instantly gave me these particulars
+in writing; he had foreseen and prepared all things.
+
+The house was not M. Paul's--that I guessed: he was hardly the man to
+become a proprietor; I more than suspected in him a lamentable absence
+of the saving faculty; he could get, but not keep; he needed a
+treasurer. The tenement, then, belonged to a citizen in the
+Basse-Ville--a man of substance, M. Paul said; he startled me by
+adding: "a friend of yours, Miss Lucy, a person who has a most
+respectful regard for you." And, to my pleasant surprise, I found the
+landlord was none other than M. Miret, the short-tempered and
+kind-hearted bookseller, who had so kindly found me a seat that
+eventful night in the park. It seems M. Miret was, in his station,
+rich, as well as much respected, and possessed several houses in this
+faubourg; the rent was moderate, scarce half of what it would have been
+for a house of equal size nearer the centre of Villette.
+
+"And then," observed M. Paul, "should fortune not favour you, though I
+think she will, I have the satisfaction to think you are in good hands;
+M. Miret will not be extortionate: the first year's rent you have
+already in your savings; afterwards Miss Lucy must trust God, and
+herself. But now, what will you do for pupils?"
+
+"I must distribute my prospectuses."
+
+"Right! By way of losing no time, I gave one to M. Miret yesterday.
+Should you object to beginning with three petite bourgeoises, the
+Demoiselles Miret? They are at your service."
+
+"Monsieur, you forget nothing; you are wonderful. Object? It would
+become me indeed to object! I suppose I hardly expect at the outset to
+number aristocrats in my little day-school; I care not if they never
+come. I shall be proud to receive M. Miret's daughters."
+
+"Besides these," pursued he, "another pupil offers, who will come daily
+to take lessons in English; and as she is rich, she will pay
+handsomely. I mean my god-daughter and ward, Justine Marie Sauveur."
+
+What is in a name?--what in three words? Till this moment I had
+listened with living joy--I had answered with gleeful quickness; a name
+froze me; three words struck me mute. The effect could not be hidden,
+and indeed I scarce tried to hide it.
+
+"What now?" said M. Paul.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Your countenance changes: your colour and your very eyes
+fade. Nothing! You must be ill; you have some suffering; tell me what."
+
+I had nothing to tell.
+
+He drew his chair nearer. He did not grow vexed, though I continued
+silent and icy. He tried to win a word; he entreated with perseverance,
+he waited with patience.
+
+"Justine Marie is a good girl," said he, "docile and amiable; not
+quick--but you will like her."
+
+"I think not. I think she must not come here."
+
+Such was my speech.
+
+"Do you wish to puzzle me? Do you know her? But, in truth, there _is_
+something. Again you are pale as that statue. Rely on Paul Carlos; tell
+him the grief."
+
+His chair touched mine; his hand, quietly advanced, turned me towards
+him.
+
+"Do you know Marie Justine?" said he again.
+
+The name re-pronounced by his lips overcame me unaccountably. It did
+not prostrate--no, it stirred me up, running with haste and heat
+through my veins--recalling an hour of quick pain, many days and nights
+of heart-sickness. Near me as he now sat, strongly and closely as he
+had long twined his life in mine--far as had progressed, and near as
+was achieved our minds' and affections' assimilation--the very
+suggestion of interference, of heart-separation, could be heard only
+with a fermenting excitement, an impetuous throe, a disdainful resolve,
+an ire, a resistance of which no human eye or cheek could hide the
+flame, nor any truth-accustomed human tongue curb the cry.
+
+"I want to tell you something," I said: "I want to tell you all."
+
+"Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is
+your friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!"
+
+I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I
+narrated; fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back
+to the night in the park; I mentioned the medicated draught--why it was
+given--its goading effect--how it had torn rest from under my head,
+shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a vivid yet
+solemn fancy--a summer-night solitude on turf, under trees, near a
+deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene realized; the crowd, the masques,
+the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar, the bells
+sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I had
+recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched himself: how
+I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history, in
+brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful, literal,
+ardent, bitter.
+
+Still as I narrated, instead of checking, he incited me to proceed he
+spurred me by the gesture, the smile, the half-word. Before I had half
+done, he held both my hands, he consulted my eyes with a most piercing
+glance: there was something in his face which tended neither to calm
+nor to put me down; he forgot his own doctrine, he forsook his own
+system of repression when I most challenged its exercise. I think I
+deserved strong reproof; but when have we our deserts? I merited
+severity; he looked indulgence. To my very self I seemed imperious and
+unreasonable, for I forbade Justine Marie my door and roof; he smiled,
+betraying delight. Warm, jealous, and haughty, I knew not till now that
+my nature had such a mood: he gathered me near his heart. I was full of
+faults; he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost mutiny,
+he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed my ear:--
+
+"Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on
+earth."
+
+We walked back to the Rue Fossette by moonlight--such moonlight as fell
+on Eden--shining through the shades of the Great Garden, and haply
+gilding a path glorious for a step divine--a Presence nameless. Once in
+their lives some men and women go back to these first fresh days of our
+great Sire and Mother--taste that grand morning's dew--bathe in its
+sunrise.
+
+In the course of the walk I was told how Justine Marie Sauveur had
+always been regarded with the affection proper to a daughter--how, with
+M. Paul's consent, she had been affianced for months to one Heinrich
+Muehler, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be married in the
+course of a year. Some of M. Emanuel's relations and connections would,
+indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with a view to securing
+her fortune in the family; but to himself the scheme was repugnant, and
+the idea totally inadmissible.
+
+We reached Madame Beck's door. Jean Baptiste's clock tolled nine. At
+this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my
+side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my
+destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed.
+How different the look--how far otherwise the fate!
+
+He deemed me born under his star: he seemed to have spread over me its
+beam like a banner. Once--unknown, and unloved, I held him harsh and
+strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the
+manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living
+by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by
+heart--I preferred him before all humanity.
+
+We parted: he gave me his pledge, and then his farewell. We parted: the
+next day--he sailed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain
+thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their
+anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I knew
+the nature of their course: I never had doubt how it would harrow as it
+went. The juggernaut on his car towered there a grim load. Seeing him
+draw nigh, burying his broad wheels in the oppressed soil--I, the
+prostrate votary--felt beforehand the annihilating craunch.
+
+Strange to say--strange, yet true, and owning many parallels in life's
+experience--that anticipatory craunch proved all--yes--nearly _all_ the
+torture. The great Juggernaut, in his great chariot, drew on lofty,
+loud, and sullen. He passed quietly, like a shadow sweeping the sky, at
+noon. Nothing but a chilling dimness was seen or felt. I looked up.
+Chariot and demon charioteer were gone by; the votary still lived.
+
+M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest
+years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen. I commenced my
+school; I worked--I worked hard. I deemed myself the steward of his
+property, and determined, God willing, to render a good account. Pupils
+came--burghers at first--a higher class ere long. About the middle of
+the second year an unexpected chance threw into my hands an additional
+hundred pounds: one day I received from England a letter containing
+that sum. It came from Mr. Marchmont, the cousin and heir of my dear
+and dead mistress. He was just recovering from a dangerous illness; the
+money was a peace-offering to his conscience, reproaching him in the
+matter of, I know not what, papers or memoranda found after his
+kinswoman's death--naming or recommending Lucy Snowe. Mrs. Barrett had
+given him my address. How far his conscience had been sinned against, I
+never inquired. I asked no questions, but took the cash and made it
+useful.
+
+With this hundred pounds I ventured to take the house adjoining mine. I
+would not leave that which M. Paul had chosen, in which he had left,
+and where he expected again to find me. My externat became a
+pensionnat; that also prospered.
+
+The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any
+endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a
+wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart. The spring which moved my
+energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle. At parting, I had
+been left a legacy; such a thought for the present, such a hope for the
+future, such a motive for a persevering, a laborious, an enterprising,
+a patient and a brave course--I _could_ not flag. Few things shook me
+now; few things had importance to vex, intimidate, or depress me: most
+things pleased--mere trifles had a charm.
+
+Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly
+on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied
+bounteous fuel. I was spared all chill, all stint; I was not suffered
+to fear penury; I was not tried with suspense. By every vessel he
+wrote; he wrote as he gave and as he loved, in full-handed,
+full-hearted plenitude. He wrote because he liked to write; he did not
+abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and
+paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was
+faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true. There was no
+sham and no cheat, and no hollow unreal in him. Apology never dropped
+her slippery oil on his lips--never proffered, by his pen, her coward
+feints and paltry nullities: he would give neither a stone, nor an
+excuse--neither a scorpion; nor a disappointment; his letters were real
+food that nourished, living water that refreshed.
+
+And was I grateful? God knows! I believe that scarce a living being so
+remembered, so sustained, dealt with in kind so constant, honourable
+and noble, could be otherwise than grateful to the death.
+
+Adherent to his own religion (in him was not the stuff of which is made
+the facile apostate), he freely left me my pure faith. He did not tease
+nor tempt. He said:--
+
+"Remain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism
+in you. I own its severe charm. There is something in its ritual I
+cannot receive myself, but it is the sole creed for 'Lucy.'"
+
+All Rome could not put into him bigotry, nor the Propaganda itself make
+him a real Jesuit. He was born honest, and not false--artless, and not
+cunning--a freeman, and not a slave. His tenderness had rendered him
+ductile in a priest's hands, his affection, his devotedness, his
+sincere pious enthusiasm blinded his kind eyes sometimes, made him
+abandon justice to himself to do the work of craft, and serve the ends
+of selfishness; but these are faults so rare to find, so costly to
+their owner to indulge, we scarce know whether they will not one day be
+reckoned amongst the jewels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now the three years are past: M. Emanuel's return is fixed. It is
+Autumn; he is to be with me ere the mists of November come. My school
+flourishes, my house is ready: I have made him a little library, filled
+its shelves with the books he left in my care: I have cultivated out of
+love for him (I was naturally no florist) the plants he preferred, and
+some of them are yet in bloom. I thought I loved him when he went away;
+I love him now in another degree: he is more my own.
+
+The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
+but--he is coming.
+
+Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind
+takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming.
+
+The skies hang full and dark--a wrack sails from the west; the clouds
+cast themselves into strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there
+rise resplendent mornings--glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his
+state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle
+at its thickest--so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know
+some signs of the sky; I have noted them ever since childhood. God
+watch that sail! Oh! guard it!
+
+The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--"keening" at every
+window! It will rise--it will swell--it shrieks out long: wander as I
+may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The
+advancing hours make it strong: by midnight, all sleepless watchers
+hear and fear a wild south-west storm. That storm roared frenzied, for
+seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks:
+it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full of sustenance. Not
+till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work,
+would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder--the tremor of whose
+plumes was storm.
+
+Peace, be still! Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting
+shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered
+till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun
+returned, his light was night to some!
+
+Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind
+heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the
+delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of
+rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of
+return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.
+
+Madame Beck prospered all the days of her life; so did Pere Silas;
+Madame Walravens fulfilled her ninetieth year before she died. Farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLETTE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9182.txt or 9182.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/8/9182/
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/9182.zip b/old/9182.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ece8e13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9182.zip