Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage.
I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or
disguise: she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not
worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was
not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she
could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a
flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of
the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay,
lively, and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a
cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly
interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind
was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John.
Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except that,
for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection
is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr.
Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome,
though I was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel."
I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a
lusus naturae, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was
sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and
thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the
cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered
first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and
dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches,
including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of
my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of
Morton and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with
surprise, and then electrified with delight.
"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a
love--what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the
first school in S-. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to
papa?"
"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist--delight
at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had
then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her
only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her
shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet
of fine card-board, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself
the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it was getting late then, I
told her she must come and sit another day.