“You speak very vaguely. Do you think little Polly’s memory not more definite?”

“Oh! we don’t talk of ‘little Polly’ now . Pray say, Miss de Bassompierre; and, of course, such a stately personage remembers nothing of Bretton. Look at her large eyes, Lucy; can they read a word in the page of memory? Are they the same which I used to direct to a hornbook? She does not know that I partly taught her to read.”

“In the Bible on Sunday nights?”

“She has a calm, delicate, rather fine profile now: once what a little restless, anxious countenance was hers! What a thing is a child’s preference⁠—what a bubble! Would you believe it? that lady was fond of me!”

“I think she was in some measure fond of you,” said I, moderately.