r--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