hile you played with Adele in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I
recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the door
was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adele claimed your outward
attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere: but
you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and
amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once
into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now
and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling
snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and
dreamed. I think those day visions were not dark: there was a
pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in
your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding:
your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit
follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven.
The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened
you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet! There was
much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of
your own abstraction. It seemed to say--'My fine visions are all very
well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy
sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly
aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather
black tempests to encounter.' You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs.
Fairfax some occupation: the weekly house accounts to make up, or
something of that sort, I think it was. I was vexed with you for getting
out of my sight.

"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my
presence. An unusual--to me--a perfectly new character I suspected was
yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered the
room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were quaintly
dressed--much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found you full
of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your
air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature,
but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making
herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet
when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your
interlocutor's face: there was penetratio