Villette

came upstairs.
    His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton. She recognized him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered, surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory; and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said, –
    »I could not help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without seeing with my own eyes how she settled.«
    »But you will unsettle her.«
    »I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?«
    This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her gently on the ground before him.
    »How is Polly's papa?« was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and gazed up into his face.
    It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
    Mr. Home was a stern-featured – perhaps I should rather say, a hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheek-bones were marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonized with his physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking.
    He laid his hand on the child's uplifted head. She said – »Kiss Polly.«
    He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she seemed to have got what she wanted –
all
she wanted, and to be in a trance of content. Neither in mien nor features was this creature like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled from his, as the cup from the flagon.
    Indisputably Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might secretly feel on some matters. »Polly,« he said, looking down on his little girl, »go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-handkerchief; bring it to me.«
    She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him, and though neither looked at or spoke to the other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
    During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual, full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the chairs.
    »Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs. Bretton:
I
must hand his tea.«
    She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
    »Be near me, as if we were at home, papa.«
    And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the sugar and put in the cream herself, »I always did it for you at home, papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self.«
    Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the bread and butter plates, the very cup and saucer tasked her insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
    »She is my comfort!« he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That lady had her own ›comfort‹ and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and for the moment, absent; so she sympathized with his foible.
    This second ›comfort‹ came on the stage in the course of the evening. I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs.