Villette

warmed me. Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards, black benches, desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and crimson splendour which quite dazzled me.
    When my godmother had held my hand for a little while, and chatted with me, and scolded me for having become thinner than when she last saw me, she professed to discover that the snow-wind had disordered my hair, and sent me up-stairs to make it neat, and remove my shawl.
    Repairing to my own little sea-green room, there also I found a bright fire, and candles too were lit: a tall waxlight stood on each side the great looking-glass; but between the candles, and before the glass, appeared something dressing itself – an airy, fairy thing – small, slight, white – a winter spirit.
    I declare, for one moment I thought of Graham and his spectral illusions. With distrustful eye I noted the details of this new vision. It wore white, sprinkled slightly with drops of scarlet; its girdle was red; it had something in its hair leafy, yet shining – a little wreath with an evergreen gloss. Spectral or not, here truly was nothing frightful, and I advanced.
    Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me, the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with their pencilling the orb they guarded.
    »Ah! you are come!« she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she smiled slowly, and gazed intently.
    I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.
    »Miss de Bassompierre,« I pronounced.
    »No,« was the reply, »not Miss de Bassompierre for
you.
« I did not inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.
    »You are changed, but still you are yourself,« she said, approaching nearer. »I remember you well – your countenance, the colour of your hair, the outline of your face ...«
    I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.
    »It makes me almost cry to look so far back,« said she; »but as to being sorry, or sentimental, don't think it: on the contrary, I am quite pleased and glad.«
    Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I stammered, »I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago, when you were hurt ...?«
    She smiled. »You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to your bedside, and you took me in? You have no memory for the comfort and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home.«
    At last I saw it all. »And you are little Polly?«
    »I am Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre.«
    How time can change! Little Polly wore in her pale, small features, her fairy symmetry, her varying expression, a certain promise of interest and grace; but Paulina Mary was become beautiful – not with the beauty that strikes the eye like a rose – orbed, ruddy, and replete; not with the plump, and pink, and flaxen attributes of her blond cousin Ginevra; but her seventeen years had brought her a refined and tender charm which did not lie in complexion, though hers was fair and clear; nor in outline, though her features were sweet, and her limbs perfectly turned; but, I think, rather in a subdued glow from the soul outward. This was not an opaque vase, of material however costly, but a lamp chastely lucent, guarding from extinction, yet not hiding from worship, a flame vital and vestal. In speaking of her attractions, I would not exaggerate language; but, indeed, they seemed to me very real and engaging. What though all was on a small scale, it was the perfume which gave this white violet distinction, and made it superior to the broadest camelia – the fullest dahlia that ever bloomed.
    »Ah! and you remember the old time at Bretton?«
    »Better,« said she, »better, perhaps, than you. I remember it with minute distinctness: not only the time, but the days of the time, and the hours of the days.«
    »You must have forgotten some things?«
    »Very little, I imagine.«
    »You were then a little creature of quick feelings: you must, long ere this, have outgrown the