the pavement, and a glance from her black eye sometimes met mine like
a ray of light, as, punctually at twenty minutes to nine, we passed
each other near ---- House, each of us on our way to the theatre of
our daily operations. She was an embroideress, as I soon discovered
from a small stretching-frame, containing some unfinished work, which
she occasionally carried in her hand. She set me a worthy example of
punctuality, and I could any day have told the time to a minute
without looking at my watch, by marking the spot where we passed each
other. I learned to look for her regularly, and before I knew her
name, had given her that of 'Minerva,' in acknowledgment of her
efficiency as a mentor.

A year after the commencement of our acquaintance, which never ripened
into speech, happening to set out from home one morning a quarter of
an hour before my usual time, I made the pleasing discovery that my
juvenile Minerva had a younger sister, if possible still more
beautiful than herself. The pair were taking an affectionate leave of
each other at the crossing of the New Road, and the silver accents of
the younger as, kissing her sister, she laughed out, 'Good-by, Ellen,'
gave me the first information of the real name of my pretty mentor.
The little Mary--for so was the younger called, who could not be more
than eleven years of age--was a slender, frolicsome sylph, with a skin
of the purest carnation, and a face like that of Sir Joshua's seraph
in the National Gallery, but with larger orbs and longer lashes
shading them. As she danced and leaped before me on her way home
again, I could not but admire the natural ease and grace of every
motion, nor fail to comprehend and sympathise with the anxious looks
of the sisters' only parent, their widowed mother, who stood watching
the return of the younger darling at the door of a very humble
two-storey dwelling, in the vicinity of the New River Head.