'Then if I have no papa, mamma must be a wife that has lost her
husband, and that, mamma told me at dinner yesterday, was a widow.'

'Was the like ever seen!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'And what
then, Miss Venetia?'

'It seems to me so odd that only two people should live here, and both
be widows,' said Venetia, 'and both have a little child; the only
difference is, that one is a little boy, and I am a little girl.'

'When ladies lose their husbands, they do not like to have their names
mentioned,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'and so you must never talk of
your papa to my lady, and that is the truth.'

'I will not now,' said Venetia.

When they returned home, Mistress Pauncefort brought her work, and
seated herself on the terrace, that she might not lose sight of her
charge. Venetia played about for some little time; she made a castle
behind a tree, and fancied she was a knight, and then a lady, and
conjured up an ogre in the neighbouring shrubbery; but these daydreams
did not amuse her as much as usual. She went and fetched her book, but
even 'The Seven Champions' could not interest her. Her eye was fixed
upon the page, and apparently she was absorbed in her pursuit, but
her mind wandered, and the page was never turned. She indulged in an
unconscious reverie; her fancy was with her mother on her visit; the
old abbey rose up before her: she painted the scene without an effort:
the court, with the fountain; the grand room, with the tapestry
hangings; that desolate garden, with the fallen statues; and that