“Because he is a boy and you are a girl; he is sixteen and you are only six; his nature is strong and gay, and yours is otherwise.”

“But I love him so much.  He should love me a little.”

“He does.  He is fond of you; you are his favourite.”

“Am I Graham’s favourite?”

“Yes, more than any little child I know.”

The assurance soothed her, and she smiled in her anguish.  As I warmed the shivering, capricious little creature in my arms I wondered how she would battle with life, and bear its shocks, repulses, and humiliations.

II.—­Madame Beck’s School

The next eight years of my life brought changes.  My own household and that of the Brettons suffered wreck.  My friends went abroad and were lost sight of, and I, after a period of companionship with a woman of fortune, found myself, at her death, with fifteen pounds in my pocket looking for a new place.  Then it was that I saw mentally within reach what I had never yet beheld with my bodily eyes—­I saw London.

When I awoke there next morning, my spirit shook its always fettered wings half loose.  I had a feeling as if I were at last about to taste life.  In that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah’s gourd.  I wandered whither chance might lead in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment.

That evening I formed a project of crossing to a continental port, and finding a vessel was about to start, I joined her at once in the river.  When the packet sailed at sunrise, I found the only passenger on board to whom I cared to speak—­and who, indeed, insisted on speaking to me—­was a girl of seventeen on her way to school in the city of Villette.  Miss Ginevra Fanshawe carelessly ran on with a full account of herself, her school at Madame Beck’s, her poverty at home, her education by her godfather, De Bassompierre, who lived in France, her want of accomplishments—­except that she could talk, play, and dance—­and the need for her to marry a rather elderly gentleman with cash.

It was this irresponsible talk, no doubt, that led me, in the absence of any other leading, to make Villette my destination.  On my arrival there, an English gentleman, young, distinguished, and handsome, observing my inability to make myself understood at the bureau where the diligence stopped, inquired kindly if I had any friends in the city, and on my replying that I had not, gave me the address of such an inn as I wanted, and personally directed me part of the way.  Even then, however, I failed in the gloom to find the inn, and was becoming quite exhausted, when over the door of a house, loftier by a storey than those around it, I saw a brass plate with the inscription, “Pensionnat de Demoiselles,” and, beneath, the name, “Madame Beck.”  Providence said:  “Stop here; this is your inn.”  I rang the door-bell.

“May I see Madame Beck?” I inquired of the servant who opened the door.  As I spoke in English I was admitted without a moment’s hesitation.