Venetia | Page 9

observation. At length she said, in a thoughtful tone, 'Mistress Pauncefort, I should have liked to have gone and seen the little boy.'
'You shall go and see him another day, Miss,' replied her attendant.
'Mistress Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'are you a widow?'
Mistress Pauncefort almost started; had the inquiry been made by a man, she would almost have supposed he was going to be very rude. She was indeed much surprised.
'And pray, Miss Venetia, what could put it in your head to ask such an odd question?' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'A widow! Miss Venetia; I have never yet changed my name, and I shall not in a hurry, that I can tell you.'
'Do widows change their names?' said Venetia.
'All women change their names when they marry,' responded Mistress Pauncefort.
'Is mamma married?' inquired Venetia.
'La! Miss Venetia. Well, to be sure, you do ask the strangest questions. Married! to be sure she is married,' said Mistress Pauncefort, exceedingly flustered.
'And whom is she married to?' pursued the unwearied Venetia.
'Your papa, to be sure,' said Mistress Pauncefort, blushing up to her eyes, and looking very confused; 'that is to say, Miss Venetia, you are never to ask questions about such subjects. Have not I often told you it is not pretty?'
'Why is it not pretty?' said Venetia.
'Because it is not proper,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'because your mamma does not like you to ask such questions, and she will be very angry with me for answering them, I can tell you that.'
'I tell you what, Mistress Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'I think mamma is a widow.'
'And what then, Miss Venetia? There is no shame in that.'
'Shame!' exclaimed Venetia. 'What is shame?'
'Look, there is a pretty butterfly!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'Did you ever see such a pretty butterfly, Miss?'
'I do not care about butterflies to-day, Mistress Pauncefort; I like to talk about widows.'
'Was there ever such a child!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, with a wondering glance.
'I must have had a papa,' said Venetia; 'all the ladies I read about had papas, and married husbands. Then whom did my mamma marry?'
'Lord! Miss Venetia, you know very well your mamma always tells you that all those books you read are a pack of stories,' observed Mistress Pauncefort, with an air of triumphant art.
'There never were such persons, perhaps,' said Venetia, 'but it is not true that there never were such things as papas and husbands, for all people have papas; you must have had a papa, Mistress Pauncefort?'
'To be sure I had,' said Mistress Pauncefort, bridling up.
'And a mamma too?' said Venetia.
'As honest a woman as ever lived,' said Mistress Pauncefort.
'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 long, gloomy gallery. And in all these scenes appeared that little boy, who, somehow or other, seemed wonderfully blended with her imaginings. It was a very long day this; Venetia dined along with Mistress Pauncefort; the time hung very heavy; at length she fell asleep in Mistress Pauncefort's lap. A sound roused her: the carriage had returned; she ran to greet her mother, but there was no news; Mrs. Cadurcis had been absent; she had gone to a distant town to buy some furniture; and, after all, Lady Annabel had not seen the little boy.

CHAPTER VI.
A few days