Villette

enclosing a portrait. It was drawn – well drawn, though but a sketch – in water-colours; a head, a boy's head, fresh, life-like, speaking, and animated. It seemed a youth of sixteen, fair-complexioned, with sanguine health in his cheek; hair long, not dark, and with a sunny sheen; penetrating eyes, an arch mouth, and a gay smile. On the whole a most pleasant face to look at, especially for those claiming a right to that youth's affection – parents, for instance, or sisters. Any romantic little school-girl might almost have loved it in its frame. Those eyes looked as if when somewhat older they would flash a lightning response to love: I cannot tell whether they kept in store the steady-beaming shine of faith. For whatever sentiment met him in form too facile, his lips menaced, beautifully but surely, caprice and light esteem.
    Striving to take each new discovery as quietly as I could, I whispered to myself –
    »Ah! that portrait used to hang in the breakfast-room, over the mantel-piece: somewhat too high, as I thought. I well remember how I used to mount a music-stool for the purpose of unhooking it, holding it in my hand, and searching into those bonny wells of eyes, whose glance under their hazel lashes seemed like a pencilled laugh; and well I liked to note the colouring of the cheek, and the expression of the mouth.« I hardly believed fancy could improve on the curve of that mouth, or of the chin; even
my
ignorance knew that both were beautiful, and pondered, perplexed over this doubt: »How it was that what charmed so much, could at the same time so keenly pain?« Once, by way of test, I took little Missy Home, and, lifting her in my arms, told her to look at the picture.
    »Do you like it, Polly?« I asked. She never answered, but gazed long, and at last a darkness went trembling through her sensitive eye, as she said, »Put me down.« So I put her down, saying to myself: »The child feels it too.«
    All these things did I now think over, adding, »He had his faults, yet scarce ever was a finer nature; liberal, suave, impressible.« My reflections closed in an audibly pronounced word, »Graham!«
    »Graham!« echoed a sudden voice at the bedside. »Do you want Graham?«
    I looked. The plot was but thickening; the wonder but culminating. If it was strange to see that well-remembered pictured form on the wall, still stranger was it to turn and behold the equally well-remembered living form opposite – a woman, a lady, most real and substantial, tall, well-attired, wearing widow's silk, and such a cap as best became her matron and motherly braids of hair. Hers, too, was a good face; too marked, perhaps, now for beauty, but not for sense or character. She was little changed; something sterner, something more robust – but she was my godmother: still the distinct vision of Mrs. Bretton.
    I kept quiet, yet internally I was much agitated: my pulse fluttered, and the blood left my cheek, which turned cold.
    »Madam, where am I?« I inquired.
    »In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present: make your mind quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning.«
    »I am so entirely bewildered, I do not know whether I can trust my senses at all, or whether they are misleading me in every particular: but you speak English, do you not, madam?«
    »I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long discourse in French.«
    »You do not come from England?«
    »I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You seem to know my son?«
    »Do I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son – the picture there?«
    »That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced his name.«
    »Graham Bretton?«
    She nodded.
    »I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, ––shire?«
    »Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign school here: my son recognized you as such.«
    »How was I found, madam, and by whom?«
    »My son shall tell you that by-and-by,« said she; »but at present you are too confused and weak for conversation: try to eat some breakfast, and then sleep.«
    Notwithstanding all I had undergone – the bodily fatigue, the perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather – it seemed that I was better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast being offered, I experienced