ties and homoeopathies of language; and if he
condescend to sleep for a few moments, how divinely still must every thing
be! What infinite care is there in pinning the screen; what fortifications
are built round about him; and what a world of protection in every
movement! And then, when all is complete, she must still sit there, with
that strange upward look which she has acquired lately, seeming to reach
quite beyond the stars. She is a strange woman! Yesterday, having dined
rather late, I happened to forget myself for a few moments on the lounge;
and on waking, I found her kneeling before me, and looking up in my face
with an expression that to me is peculiarly embarrassing; not the quick,
joyous look, followed as quickly by the touch of lips; not that, but
something quite indescribable. Perhaps I am not as considerate as I ought
to be on such occasions, for doubtless she knows what she would be at, but
I confess I do not. Indeed, she is constantly bringing out new points and
flourishes, which to me are all vowels of the Hebrew; no doubt very sweet
and musical, and certainly very necessary to the sense of the reading, but
they are past all finding out. When she dazzles me with these brilliants,
I sometimes reply in the Tartar, and so we are quits.

'Young JULIAN developes slowly. He has smiled once or twice, but in a
manner so precocious, that it would be alarming, if he were at all
delicate. Fortunately he is not. His utterance as yet is quite
unintelligible, though no doubt he has his meaning. To Mrs. JULIAN it is
all poetry. '_Poeta nascitur_' may be quite true, but if he rhymes, which
is quite possible to her ear, I am constrained to think that it is
entirely accidental. I hope, at least, that he is not so viciously gifted.
. . . HAVE I told you that she refuses a nurse, and that too pretty
sharply? Well, that is not all; I can hardly touch the boy myself. She is
so afraid I shall crush it! My raptures, she says, are not becoming; she
even says that I 'frighten the child!' But she is the strangest of women!
Last night, happening to wake some time in the small hours, I heard a
slight noise in the room, and emerging from a dream, in which I remembered
to have heard a good deal of crying and hushing, I listened intently for
some moments, but couldn't for my life guess what it could be. There was
nothing moving in the room, and the sound appeared to arise from some slow
and uniform movement, so that it couldn't be the w