, was simple enough. When she
left Hampshire to nurse her sister, Mrs. Kempe, through her last
illness, she had been obliged to bring her daughter with her, through
having no one at home to take care of the little girl. Mrs. Kempe may
die in a week's time, or may linger on for months; and Mrs. Catherick's
object was to ask me to let her daughter, Anne, have the benefit of
attending my school, subject to the condition of her being removed from
it to go home again with her mother, after Mrs. Kempe's death. I
consented at once, and when Laura and I went out for our walk, we took
the little girl (who is just eleven years old) to the school that very
day.'"

Once more Miss Fairlie's figure, bright and soft in its snowy muslin
dress--her face prettily framed by the white folds of the handkerchief
which she had tied under her chin--passed by us in the moonlight. Once
more Miss Halcombe waited till she was out of sight, and then went on--

"'I have taken a violent fancy, Philip, to my new scholar, for a reason
which I mean to keep till the last for the sake of surprising you. Her
mother having told me as little about the child as she told me of
herself, I was left to discover (which I did on the first day when we
tried her at lessons) that the poor little thing's intellect is not
developed as it ought to be at her age. Seeing this I had her up to
the house the next day, and privately arranged with the doctor to come
and watch her and question her, and tell me what he thought. His
opinion is that she will grow out of it. But he says her careful
bringing-up at school is a matter of great importance just now, because
her unusual slowness in acquiring ideas implies an unusual tenacity in
keeping them, when they are once received into her mind. Now, my love,
you must not imagine, in your off-hand way, that I have been attaching
myself to an idiot. This poor little Anne Catherick is a sweet,
affectionate, grateful girl, and says the quaintest, prettiest things
(as you shall judge by an instance), in the most oddly sudden,
surprised, half-frightened way. Although she is dressed very neatly,
her clothes show a sad want of taste in colour and pattern. So I
arranged, yesterday, that some of our darling Laura's old white frocks
and white hats should be altered for Anne Catherick, explaining to her
that little girls of her complexion looked neater and better all in
white than in anything else. She hesitated and seemed puz