, and thy grave looked gay!

It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the
music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves
of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating
the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her,
but now the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however,
in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song
that came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she
understood, but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went
alone through the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger
would turn in pity and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties
that seemed to suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as
Mrs. Boxer, in her visits to the various shops in the suburb, took
care to bemoan her hard fate in attending to a creature so evidently
moon-stricken, it was no wonder that the manner and habits of the child,
coupled with that strange predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which
is not uncommon with persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed
the character thus given to her.

So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the
children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious
fear mingled with contempt, "It's the idiot girl!"--Idiot--how much more
of heaven's light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights
that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull
ray--esteeming themselves as stars!

Months-years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to
her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny.
Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel.
But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer's manner to her before
Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed
the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been scandal
some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master
and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something
bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been
vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion.