The forewarning of my instinct was but fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like a white bird on the outside of the bed.

I scarcely knew how to accost her; she was not to be managed like another child.

She, however, accosted me.

As I closed the door, and put the light on the dressing-table, she turned tome with these words:--"I cannot--_cannot_ sleep; and in this way I cannot--_cannot_ live!" I asked what ailed her.
"Dedful miz-er-y!" said she, with her piteous lisp.
"Shall I call Mrs.Bretton ?" "That is downright silly," was her impatient reply; and, indeed, I well knew that if she had heard Mrs.Bretton's foot approach, she would have nestled quiet as a mouse under the bedclothes.

Whilst lavishing her eccentricities regardlessly before me--for whom she professed scarcely the semblance of affection--she never showed my godmother one glimpse of her inner self: for her, she was nothing but a docile, somewhat quaint little maiden.