WYLDER'S HAJVJJ.
29
People complained that acquaintance made little way
-with her. That you were, perhaps, well satisfied with your
first day's progress, but the next made no head-way; you
found yourself this morning exactly at the point from
which you commenced yesterday, and to-morrow would re-
commence where you started the day before. This is
very disappointing, but may sometimes be accounted for
by there being nothing really to discover. It seemed to
me, however, that the distance had positively increased
since yesterday, and that the oftener she met me the more
strange she became. If Dorcas Brandon had been a plain
woman, I think she would have been voted an impertinent
bore; but she was so beautiful that she became an enigma.
I looked at her as she stood gravely gazing from the win-
dow. Is it Lady Macbeth? No; she never would have
had energy to plan her husband's career and manage that
affair of Duncan. A sultana rather — sublimely egotisti-
cal, without reverence — a voluptuous and haughty embo-
diment of indifference. I paused, looking at a picture, but
thinking of her, and was surprised by her voice very near
me. .
"Will you give me just a minute Mr. De Cresseron,
in the drawing-room, while I show you a miniature? I
want your opinion."
So she floated on and I accompanied her. "I think,"
she said, "you mentioned yesterday, that you remembered
me when an infant. You remember my poor mamma,
don't you, very well?"
This was the first time she had yet shown any tenden-
cy, so far as I had seen, to be interested in anything, or to
talk to me. I seized the occasion, and gave her, as well
as I could, the sad and pretty picture that remained, and
always will, in the vacant air, when I think of her, on the
mysterious retina of memory.