could catch, and to listen, while, in the fading dusk,
the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence
of a sound or two, less natural and not without, but within,
that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I
believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child;
there had been another when I found myself just consciously
starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep.
But these fancies were not marked enough not to be thrown off,
and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say,
of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me.
To watch, teach, "form" little Flora would too evidently
be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been
agreed between us downstairs that after this first occasion
I should have her as a matter of course at night, her small
white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room.
What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and she
had remained, just this last time, with Mrs. Grose only as
an effect of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness
and her natural timidity. In spite of this timidity--
which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world,
had been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it,
without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep,
sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael's holy infants,
to be discussed, to be imputed to her, and to determine us--
I feel quite sure she would presently like me. It was part
of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I
could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper
with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and
a bib, brightly facing me, between them, over bread and milk.
There were naturally things that in Flora's presence could