She is altogether what you would
call a walking mystery. Her errand at Limmeridge House, however,
was simple enough. When she left Hampshire to nurse her sister,
Mrs. Kempe, through her last illness, she had been obliged to
bring her daughter with her, through having no one at home to take
care of the little girl. Mrs. Kempe may die in a week's time, or
may linger on for months; and Mrs. Catherick's object was to ask
me to let her daughter, Anne, have the benefit of attending my
school, subject to the condition of her being removed from it to
go home again with her mother, after Mrs. Kempe's death. I
consented at once, and when Laura and I went out for our walk, we
took the little girl (who is just eleven years old) to the school
that very day.'"
Once more Miss Fairlie's figure, bright and soft in its snowy
muslin dress--her face prettily framed by the white folds of the
handkerchief which she had tied under her chin--passed by us in
the moonlight. Once more Miss Halcombe waited till she was out of
sight, and then went on--
"'I have taken a violent fancy, Philip, to my new scholar, for a
reason which I mean to keep till the last for the sake of
surprising you. Her mother having told me as little about the
child as she told me of herself, I was left to discover (which I
did on the first day when we tried her at lessons) that the poor
little thing's intellect is not developed as it ought to be at her
age.
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