I am always trying to find my
childhood."

She took a necklace from the box, composed of a single string of
small, beautiful pearls, from which hung an egg-shaped amethyst of
pure violet. She fastened the necklace round her throat.

"It is as lucent as the moon," she said, looking down at the amethyst,
which shed a watery light; "I wish you had given it to me before."

Breaking the seal of the letter, with a twist of her mouth at the
coat-of-arms impressed upon it, she shook out the closely written
pages, and saying, "There is a volume," began reading. "It is
very good," she observed at the end of the first page, "a regular
composition," and went on with an air of increasing interest. "How
does he look?" she asked, stopping again.

"As if he longed to see you."

Her eyes went in quest of him so far that I thought they must be
startled by a sudden vision.

"How did you find his family?"

"Not like him much."

"I knew that; he would not have loved me so suddenly had I not been
wholly unlike any woman he had known."

"His character is individual."

"I should know that from his influence upon you."

She looked at me wistfully, smoothed my hair with her cool hand, and
resumed the letter.

"He thinks he will not come to Surrey with you; asks me to tell him my
wishes," she repeated rapidly, translating from the original. "What do
I think of our future? How shall we propose any change? Will Cassandra
describe her visit? Will she tell me that he thinks of going abroad?"

She dropped the letter. "What pivot is he swinging on? What is he
uncertain about?"

"There must be more to read."

She turned another page.

"If I go to Switzerland (I think of going on account of family
affairs), when shall I return? My family, of course, expected me to
marry in their pale; that is, my mother rather prefers to select a
wife for me than that I should do it. But, as you shall never come to
Belem, her plans or wishes need make no difference to us. If Cassandra
would be to us what she might, how things would clear! Don't you
think, my love, that there should be the greatest sympathy between
sisters?"

I laughed.

Verry said she did not like his letter much after all. He evidently
thought her incapable of understanding ordinary matters. It was well,
though; it made their love idyllic.

"Let us speak of matters nearer home."

"Let us go to my room; the storm is so loud this side of the house."

"No; you must stay till