Cousin Holman gave me the weekly county newspaper to read aloud to her, while she mended stockings out of a high piled-up basket, Phillis helping her mother. I read and read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; of the bright colour of Phillis’s hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs; of the variety of inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made while I read, to show her sympathy, wonder, or horror at the newspaper intelligence. The tranquil monotony of that hour made me feel as if I had lived for ever, and should live for ever droning out paragraphs in that warm sunny room, with my two quiet hearers, and the curled-up pussy cat sleeping on the hearth-rug, and the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments. By-and-by Betty the servant came to the door into the kitchen, and made a sign to Phillis, who put her half-mended stocking down, and went away to the kitchen without a word. Looking at cousin Holman a minute or two afterwards, I saw that she had dropped her chin upon her breast, and had fallen fast asleep. I put the newspaper down, and was nearly following her example, when a waft of air from some unseen source, slightly opened the door of communication with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened; and I saw part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling apples with quick dexterity of finger, but with repeated turnings of her head towards some book lying on the dresser by her. I softly rose, and as softly went into the kitchen, and looked over her shoulder; before she was aware of my neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was in a language unknown to me, and the running title was L’Inferno. Just as I was making out the relationship of this word to “infernal”, she started and turned round, and, as if continuing her thought as she spoke, she sighed out,—
“Oh! it is so difficult! Can you help me?” putting her finger below a line.
“Me! I! I don’t even know what language it is in!”
“Don’t you see it is Dante?” she replied, almost petulantly; she did so want help.
“Italian, then?” said I, dubiously; for I was not quite sure.
“Yes. And I do so want to make it out. Father can help me a little, for he knows Latin; but then he has so little time.”
“You have not much, I should think, if you have often to try and do two things at once, as you are doing now.
“Oh! that’s nothing! Father bought a heap of old books cheap. And I knew something about Dante before; and I have always liked Virgil so much. Paring apples is nothing, if I could only make out this old Italian. I wish you knew it.”
“I wish I did,” said I, moved by her impetuosity of tone. “If, now, only Mr Holdsworth were here; he can speak Italian like anything, I believe.”
“Who is Mr Holdsworth?” said Phillis, looking up.