tty pet.' We waited a number of days, until Mrs.
Waddy received a letter from him. She came full-dressed into my room,
requesting me to give her twenty kisses for papa, and I looked on while
she arranged her blue bonnet at the glass. The bonnet would not fix in
its place. At last she sank down crying in a chair, and was all brown
silk, and said that how to appear before a parcel of dreadful men, and
perhaps a live duke into the bargain, was more than she knew, and more
than could be expected of a lone widow woman. 'Not for worlds!' she
answered my petition to accompany her. She would not, she said, have me
go to my papa there for anything on earth; my papa would perish at the
sight of me; I was not even to wish to go. And then she exclaimed, 'Oh,
the blessed child's poor papa!' and that people were cruel to him, and
would never take into account his lovely temper, and that everybody was
his enemy, when he ought to be sitting with the highest in the land. I
had realized the extremity of my forlorn state on a Sunday that passed
empty of my father, which felt like his having gone for ever. My
nursemaid came in to assist in settling Mrs. Waddy's bonnet above the
six crisp curls, and while they were about it I sat quiet, plucking
now and then at the brown silk, partly to beg to go with it, partly in
jealousy and love at the thought of its seeing him from whom I was so
awfully separated. Mrs. Waddy took fresh kisses off my lips, assuring me
that my father would have them in twenty minutes, and I was to sit and
count the time. My nursemaid let her out. I pretended to be absorbed in
counting, till I saw Mrs. Waddy pass by the window. My heart gave a leap
of pain. I found the street-door open and no one in the passage, and
I ran out, thinking that Mrs. Waddy would be obliged to take me if she
discovered me by her side in the street.

I was by no means disconcerted at not seeing her immediately. Running
on from one street to another, I took the turnings with unhesitating
boldness, as if I had a destination in view. I must have been out near
an hour before I understood that Mrs. Waddy had eluded me; so I resolved
to enjoy the shop-windows with the luxurious freedom of one whose
speculations on those glorious things all up for show are no longer
distracted by the run of time and a nursemaid. Little more than a
glance was enough, now that I knew I could stay as long as I liked. If I
stopped at all, it was rather to exhibit the bravad