alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it, and the labour was
renewed. The only thing in which she showed ability, if so it might be
called, was in the use of the needle. The sisters of the convent had
already taught her many pretty devices in this art; and when she found
that at the school they were admired--that she was praised instead of
blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned so readily all that they
could teach in this not unprofitable accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer
slyly and secretly turned her tasks to account and made a weekly
perquisite of the poor pupil's industry. Another faculty she possessed,
in common with persons usually deficient, and with the lower species--
viz., a most accurate and faithful recollection of places. At first Mrs.
Boxer had been duly sent, morning, noon, and evening, to take her to, or
bring her from, the school; but this was so great a grievance to Simon's
solitary superintendent, and Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to
allow her to go and return alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both,
was waived. Fanny exulted in this liberty; and she never, in going or in
returning, missed passing through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully
at the tomb from which she yet believed Morton would one day reappear.
With his memory she cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty
protector; but they were separate feelings, which she distinguished in
her own way.

"Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away,
far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but
her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and
then they should live together!"

One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman
on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords
to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful