Villette

by Charlotte Bronte

  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 kepther own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and bafflingimagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, andcome in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, anddeeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. Whileshe so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven'sthreshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more,all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, ofwhose companionship she was grown more than weary.

  I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with amoan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, werehard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but aracking sort of struggle. The returning sense of sight came upon me,red, as if it swam in blood; suspended hearing rushed back loud, likethunder; consciousness revived in fear: I sat up appalled, wonderinginto what region, amongst what strange beings I was waking. At first Iknew nothing I looked on: a wall was not a wall--a lamp not a lamp. Ishould have understood what we call a ghost, as well as I did thecommonest object: which is another way of intimating that all my eyerested on struck it as spectral. But the faculties soon settled each inhis place; the life-machine presently resumed its wonted and regularworking.

  Still, I knew not where I was; only in time I saw I had been removedfrom the spot where I fell: I lay on no portico-step; night and tempestwere excluded by walls, windows, and ceiling. Into some house I hadbeen carried--but what house?

  I could only think of the pensionnat in the Rue Fossette. Stillhalf-dreaming, I tried hard to discover in what room they had put me;whether the great dormitory, or one of the little dormitories. I waspuzzled, because I could not make the glimpses of furniture I sawaccord with my knowledge of any of these apartments. The empty whitebeds were wanting, and the long line of large windows. "Surely,"thought I, "it is not to Madame Beck's own chamber they have carriedme!" 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 Itook in the complete fact of a pleasant parlour, with a wood fire on aclear-shining hearth, a carpet where arabesques of bright blue relieveda ground of shaded fawn; pale walls over which a slight but endlessgarland of azure forget-me-nots ran mazed and bewildered amongst myriadgold leaves and tendrils. A gilded mirror filled up the space betweentwo windows, curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I sawmyself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked spectral; my eyeslarger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural, by contrastwith my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not only from thefurniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, thatthis was an unknown room in an unknown house.

  Hardly less plain was it that my brain was not yet settled; for, as Igazed at the blue arm-chair, it appeared to grow familiar; so did acertain scroll-couch, and not less so the round centre-table, with ablue-covering, bordered with autumn-tinted foliage; and, above all, twolittle footstools with worked covers, and a small ebony-framed chair,of which the seat and back were also worked with groups of brilliantflowers on a dark ground.

  Struck with these things, I explored further. Strange to say, oldacquaintance were all about me, and "auld lang syne" smiled out ofevery nook. There were two oval miniatures over the mantel-piece, ofwhich I knew by heart the pearls about the high and powdered "heads;"the velvets circling the white throats; the swell of the full muslinkerchiefs: the pattern of the lace sleeve-ruffles. Upon themantel-shelf there were two china vases, some relics of a diminutivetea-service, as smooth as enamel and as thin as egg-shell, and a whitecentre ornament, a classic group in alabaster, preserved under glass.Of all these things I could have told the peculiarities, numbered theflaws or cracks, like any _clairvoyante_. Above all, there was a pairof handscreens, with elaborate pencil-drawings finished like lineengravings; these, my very eyes ached at beholding again, recallinghours when they had followed, stroke by stroke and touch by touch, atedious, feeble, finical, school-girl pencil held in these fingers, nowso skeleton-like.

  Where was I? Not only in what spot of the world, but in what year ofour Lord? For all these objects were of past days, and of a distantcountry. Ten years ago I bade them good-by; since my fourteenth yearthey and I had never met. I gasped audibly, "Where am I?"

  A shape hitherto unnoticed, stirred, rose, came forward: a shapeinharmonious with the environment, serving only to complicate theriddle further. This was no more than a sort of native bonne, in acommon-place bonne's cap and print-dress. She spoke neither French norEnglish, and I could get no intelligence from her, not understandingher phrases of dialect. But she bathed my temples and forehead withsome cool and perfumed water, and then she heightened the cushion onwhich I reclined, made signs that I was not to speak, and resumed herpost at the foot of the sofa.

  She was busy knitting; her eyes thus drawn from me, I could gaze on herwithout interruption. I did mightily wonder how she came there, or whatshe 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 dowith me.

  Too weak to scrutinize thoroughly the mystery, I tried to settle it bysaying it was a mistake, a dream, a fever-fit; and yet I knew therecould be no mistake, and that I was not sleeping, and I believed I wassane. I wished the room had not been so well lighted, that I might notso clearly have seen the little pictures, the ornaments, the screens,the worked chair. All these objects, as well as the blue-damaskfurniture, were, in fact, precisely the same, in every minutest detail,with those I so well remembered, and with which I had been sothoroughly intimate, in the drawing-room of my godmother's house atBretton. Methought the apartment only was changed, being of differentproportions and dimensions.

  I thought of Bedreddin Hassan, transported in his sleep from Cairo tothe gates of Damascus. Had a Genius stooped his dark wing down thestorm to whose stress I had succumbed, and gathering me from thechurch-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 ahearth of Old England? But no; I knew the fire of that hearth burnedbefore its Lares no more--it went out long ago, and the household godshad 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 downher knitting. I saw her busied for a moment at a little stand; shepoured out water, and measured drops from a phial: glass in hand, sheapproached me. What dark-tinged draught might she now be offering? whatGenii-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 andsofter rose the flow, with tepid undulations smoother than balm. Thepain 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 bonneplaced a screen between me and the lamp; I saw her rise to do this, butdo not remember seeing her resume her place: in the interval betweenthe two acts, I "fell on sleep."

  * * * * *

  At waking, lo! all was again changed. The light of high day surroundedme; not, indeed, a warm, summer light, but the leaden gloom of raw andblustering autumn. I felt sure now that I was in the pensionnat--sureby the beating rain on the casement; sure by the "wuther" of windamongst trees, denoting a garden outside; sure by the chill, thewhiteness, the solitude, amidst which I lay. I say _whiteness_--for thedimity curtains, dropped before a French bed, bounded my view.

  I lifted them; I looked out. My eye, prepared to take in the range of along, large, and whitewashed chamber, blinked baffled, on encounteringthe limited area of a small cabinet--a cabinet with seagreen walls;also, instead of five wide and naked windows, there was one highlattice, shaded with muslin festoons: instead of two dozen littlestands of painted
wood, each holding a basin and an ewer, there was atoilette-table dressed, like a lady for a ball, in a white robe over apink skirt; a polished and large glass crowned, and a prettypin-cushion frilled with lace, adorned it. This toilette, together witha small, low, green and white chintz arm-chair, a washstand topped witha 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 thissimple and somewhat pretty sleeping-closet to startle the most timid?Merely this--These articles of furniture could not be real, solidarm-chairs, looking-glasses, and washstands--they must be the ghosts ofsuch articles; or, if this were denied as too wild an hypothesis--and,confounded as I was, I _did_ deny it--there remained but to concludethat I had myself passed into an abnormal state of mind; in short, thatI was very ill and delirious: and even then, mine was the strangestfigment 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 frameof that glass; the smooth, milky-green of the china vessels on thestand; the very stand too, with its top of grey marble, splintered atone corner;--all these I was compelled to recognise and to hail, aslast night I had, perforce, recognised and hailed the rosewood, thedrapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.

  Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. Andwhy did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they cameat all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my distemperedvision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone?As to that pincushion made of crimson satin, ornamented with gold beadsand frilled with thread-lace, I had the same right to know it as toknow the screens--I had made it myself. Rising with a start from thebed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined it. There was thecipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beds, and surrounded with an ovalwreath embroidered in white silk. These were the initials of mygodmother's name--Lonisa Lucy Bretton.

  "Am I in England? Am I at Bretton?" I muttered; and hastily pulling upthe blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try anddiscover _where_ I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsomebuildings and clean grey pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to see atthe end the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant ofa town view somewhere, a rue in Villette, if not a street in a pleasantand ancient English city.

  I looked, on the contrary, through a frame of leafage, clustering roundthe high lattice, and forth thence to a grassy mead-like level, alawn-terrace with trees rising from the lower ground beyond--highforest-trees, such as I had not seen for many a day. They were nowgroaning under the gale of October, and between their trunks I tracedthe line of an avenue, where yellow leaves lay in heaps and drifts, orwere whirled singly before the sweeping west wind. Whatever landscapemight lie further must have been flat, and these tall beeches shut itout. The place seemed secluded, and was to me quite strange: I did notknow it at all.

  Once more I lay down. My bed stood in a little alcove; on turning myface to the wall, the room with its bewildering accompaniments becameexcluded. 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 wasdrawn--well drawn, though but a sketch--in water-colours; a head, aboy's head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youthof sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hairlong, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an archmouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at,especially for, those claiming a right to that youth'saffections--parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic littleschool-girl might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes lookedas if when somewhat older they would flash a lightning-response tolove: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shineof faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lipsmenaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.

  Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whisperedto myself--

  "Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over themantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how Iused to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding itin my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glanceunder their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well Iliked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of themouth." I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of thatmouth, or of the chin; even _my_ ignorance knew that both werebeautiful, and pondered perplexed over this doubt: "How it was thatwhat charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?" Once, byway 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 shesaid, "Put me down." So I put her down, saying to myself: "The childfeels it too."

  All these things do I now think over, adding, "He had his faults, yetscarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible." Myreflections 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. Ifit was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall,still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-rememberedliving form opposite--a woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall,well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best became hermatron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good face; toomarked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or character. Shewas little changed; something sterner, something more robust--but shewas 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 mindquite 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 mysenses 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 longdiscourse in French."

  "You do not come from England?"

  "I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? Youseem 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 pronouncedhis 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 foreignschool 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 youare too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast,and then sleep."

  Notwithstanding all I had undergone--the bodily fatigue, theperturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather--it seemed that I wasbetter: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, wasabating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solidfood, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfastbeing offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inwardfaintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered,and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It wasonly a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two orthree hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of brothand a biscuit.

  As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild andcold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary--very wearyof my bed. The room, though prett
y, was small: I felt it confining: Ilonged for a change. The increasing chill and gathering gloom, too,depressed me; I wanted to see--to feel firelight. Besides, I keptthinking 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 towrap 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--apleasant smile, though not soft. "You are quite better then? Quitestrong--eh?"

  She spoke to me so much as of old she used to speak that I almostfancied she was beginning to know me. There was the same sort ofpatronage in her voice and manner that, as a girl, I had alwaysexperienced from her--a patronage I yielded to and even liked; it wasnot founded on conventional grounds of superior wealth or station (inthe last particular there had never been any inequality; her degree wasmine); but on natural reasons of physical advantage: it was the shelterthe 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: Itook it, and we descended one flight of carpeted steps to a landingwhere a tall door, standing open, gave admission into the blue-damaskroom. How pleasant it was in its air of perfect domestic comfort! Howwarm in its amber lamp-light and vermilion fire-flush! To render thepicture perfect, tea stood ready on the table--an English tea, whereofthe whole shining service glanced at me familiarly; from the solidsilver urn, of antique pattern, and the massive pot of the same metal,to the thin porcelain cups, dark with purple and gilding. I knew thevery seed-cake of peculiar form, baked in a peculiar mould, whichalways had a place on the tea-table at Bretton. Graham liked it, andthere it was as of yore--set before Graham's plate with the silverknife and fork beside it. Graham was then expected to tea: Graham wasnow, perhaps, in the house; ere many minutes I might see him.

  "Sit down--sit down," said my conductress, as my step faltered a littlein passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passedbehind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found anotherseat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to make a fussabout any person or anything; without remonstrance she suffered me tohave my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the newspaper. Iliked to watch every action of my godmother; all her movements were soyoung: she must have been now above fifty, yet neither her sinews norher spirit seemed yet touched by the rust of age. Though portly, shewas alert, and though serene, she was at times impetuous--good healthand an excellent temperament kept her green as in her spring.

  While she read, I perceived she listened--listened for her son. She wasnot the woman ever to confess herself uneasy, but there was yet no lullin the weather, and if Graham were out in that hoarse wind--roaringstill 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, inanother minute, a lifting of her eyes from the page, and a slightinclination of her head towards the door, denoted that she heard somesound. Presently her brow cleared; and then even my ear, lesspractised, caught the iron clash of a gate swung to, steps on gravel,lastly the door-bell. He was come. His mother filled the teapot fromthe urn, she drew nearer the hearth the stuffed and cushioned bluechair--her own chair by right, but I saw there was one who might withimpunity usurp it. And when that _one_ came up the stairs--which hesoon did, after, I suppose, some such attention to the toilet as thewild and wet night rendered necessary, and strode straight in--

  "Is it you, Graham?" said his mother, hiding a glad smile and speakingcurtly.

  "Who else should it be, mamma?" demanded the Unpunctual, possessinghimself 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 butmine; if you had one spark of a sense of propriety, you would alwaysleave that chair for the Old Lady."

  "So I should; only the dear Old Lady persists in leaving it for me. Howis 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. Grahamcourteously rose up to greet me. He stood tall on the hearth, a figurejustifying 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 lastnight, and if I had not been forced to hurry away to a dying patient, Icertainly would not have left you; but my mother herself is somethingof a doctress, and Martha an excellent nurse. I saw the case was afainting-fit, not necessarily dangerous. What brought it on, I have yetto learn, and all particulars; meantime, I trust you really do feelbetter?"

  "Much better," I said calmly. "Much better, I thank you, Dr. John."

  For, reader, this tall young man--this darling son--this host ofmine--this Graham Bretton, _was_ Dr. John: he, and no other; and, whatis more, I ascertained this identity scarcely with surprise. What ismore, when I heard Graham's step on the stairs, I knew what manner offigure would enter, and for whose aspect to prepare my eyes. Thediscovery was not of to-day, its dawn had penetrated my perceptionslong since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though tenyears (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as theymature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference aswould suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. JohnGraham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: hehad his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all theexcellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. Ifirst recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back,when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortificationof an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point,that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habitsof his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep tonesthe accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him ofold, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye andlip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under hiswell-charactered brow.

  To _say_ anything on the subject, to _hint_ at my discovery, had notsuited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling.On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I likedentering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through,while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination whichshone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and castlight no farther.

  Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to comeforward and announce, "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in myteacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. Heheard me called "Miss," and "Miss Lucy;" he never heard the surname,"Snowe." As to spontaneous recognition--though I, perhaps, was stillless changed than he--the idea never approached his mind, and whyshould I suggest it?

  During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that mealover, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of thecushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongstthem. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat tenminutes, 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 strongerlikeness! Graham, have you observed it?"

  "Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! Onewould think you had an attack of second sight."

  "Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing tome.

  "Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell
you abruptness isyour fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does notknow your ways."

  "Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is shelike, Graham?"

  "Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought tosolve it!"

  "And you have known her some time, you say--ever since you first beganto attend the school in the Rue Fossette:--yet you never mentioned tome that singular resemblance!"

  "I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I donot 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 Ishook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while Ireadily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it neveroccurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."

  "Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she atonce stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without beingparticularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make abustle, 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 oldacquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed of hisparoxysm 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 suspectedthis fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! Irecollect 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 thistime, 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, hewould have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very closely,to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and, though hemight feel a little curious, the importance of the case was by no meanssuch as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.

  For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered thecircumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slightannoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on mymind.

  "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, Iwondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic toyour usually averted eyes."

  "You see how it was now?"

  "Perfectly."

  And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about pasttimes; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, toexplain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handedconflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. Johnlistened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they hadknown: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune hadretrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, withsuch a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight withthe world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of thoseon whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity mightset against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat her downwith smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not rash, yetvaliant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to win fromher 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); thiscountry site being chosen for the sake of his mother's health, withwhich town air did not now agree. Hither he had invited Mrs. Bretton,and she, on leaving England, had brought with her such residuefurniture of the former St. Ann's Street mansion as she had thought fitto keep unsold. Hence my bewilderment at the phantoms of chairs, andthe 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 verypale. To-morrow I will venture to put some questions respecting thecause of her loss of health. She is much changed, indeed, since lastJuly, when I saw her enact with no little spirit the part of a verykilling fine gentleman. As to last night's catastrophe, I am surethereby 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, lightedme up the one flight of stairs.

  When I had said my prayers, and when I was undressed and laid down, Ifelt that I still had friends. Friends, not professing vehementattachment, not offering the tender solace of well-matched andcongenial relationship; on whom, therefore, but moderate demand ofaffection was to be made, of whom but moderate expectation formed; buttowards whom my heart softened instinctively, and yearned with animportunate gratitude, which I entreated Reason betimes to check.

  "Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly," Iimplored: "let me be content with a temperate draught of this livingstream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcomewaters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth'sfountains know. Oh! would to God I may be enabled to feel enoughsustained by an occasional, amicable intercourse, rare, brief,unengrossing and tranquil: quite tranquil!"

  Still repeating this word, I turned to my pillow; and _still_ repeatingit, I steeped that pillow with tears.