pportunity Miss Halcombe
cautiously led her half-sister to speak of their mother, of old times,
and of Anne Catherick. Miss Fairlie's recollections of the little
scholar at Limmeridge were, however, only of the most vague and general
kind. She remembered the likeness between herself and her mother's
favourite pupil, as something which had been supposed to exist in past
times; but she did not refer to the gift of the white dresses, or to
the singular form of words in which the child had artlessly expressed
her gratitude for them. She remembered that Anne had remained at
Limmeridge for a few months only, and had then left it to go back to
her home in Hampshire; but she could not say whether the mother and
daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of afterwards. No
further search, on Miss Halcombe's part, through the few letters of
Mrs. Fairlie's writing which she had left unread, assisted in clearing
up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. We had identified the
unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time with Anne Catherick--we
had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably
defective condition of the poor creature's intellect with the
peculiarity of her being dressed all in white, and with the
continuance, in her maturer years, of her childish gratitude towards
Mrs. Fairlie--and there, so far as we knew at that time, our
discoveries had ended.

The days passed on, the weeks passed on, and the track of the golden
autumn wound its bright way visibly through the green summer of the
trees. Peaceful, fast-flowing, happy time! my story glides by you now
as swiftly as you once glided by me. Of all the treasures of enjoyment
that you poured so freely into my heart, how much is left me that has
purpose and value enough to be written on this page? Nothing but the
saddest of all confessions that a man can make--the confession of his
own folly.

The secret which that confession discloses should be told with little
effort, for it has indirectly escaped me already. The poor weak words,
which have failed to describe Miss Fairlie, have succeeded in betraying
the sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all. Our words
are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a
service.

I loved her.

Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the mockery that is
contained in those three words. I can sigh over my mournful confession
with the tenderest woman who reads it