Villette

When I was young, I often stayed with my godmother, Mrs. Bretton, in the quiet old town of Bretton.Her house was large, clean, and calm, and time there passed like a slow, smooth river.Mrs. Bretton was a tall, handsome widow, sensible and kind, not given to strong feeling.

Her only child, Graham, was a bright, good-looking boy of sixteen, used to being liked.I was a quiet girl who preferred to watch other people rather than be watched myself.One autumn, the calm of the house was broken by the arrival of a visitor.

He was Mr. Home, an old friend of the family, a grave man with a troubled face.His wife had lately died, and he was about to travel abroad for a long time.He asked Mrs. Bretton to take care of his small daughter while he was gone.

The child was called Polly, and she was not quite seven years old.She was tiny, neat, and unnaturally still, and she spoke like a careful little grown woman.When her father was in the room, she watched his every movement; when he left it, she seemed hardly to breathe.

On the night before he went away, she sat on his knee without a word for hours, holding his coat in her small hands.After his carriage had gone, she did not cry loudly, as other children do.Instead she crept into a corner and stayed there, grieving with a silence that was hard to watch.

Slowly, over the following weeks, the child fastened all her fierce little heart onto Graham instead.I said nothing, but I watched them all, and I forgot none of what I saw.