"We shall see," continued the old lady. "It was in a very curious way that I, many years afterwards, learned many particulars of the ways and character of this little girl in her very early years, before I was personally acquainted with her. After my eldest son was born, being in want of a nursemaid, Fanny, the very servant
who had waited on Miss Evelyn and Mrs. Harris, offered herself; and as I had known her well and loved her much, though I had lost sight of her for some years, I most gladly engaged her. She told me many things of Mrs. Harris and her little lady, which I never could have known otherwise. She said that Mrs. Harris was so much puzzled at the ways of the little girl, that she used often to speak of it to Fanny.
"'Miss Evelyn,' she said one day, 'is the queerest little thing I ever met with; I don't know where her thoughts are. When I am dressing her to go down to tea in the saloon, and putting on her nice smart dresses, and telling her to look in the glass and see how pretty she is—and to be sure she is as pretty as any waxwork—she either does not answer at all, as if she did not hear me, or has some out-of-the-way question to ask about her lamb, or some bird she has seen, or the clouds, or the moon, or some other random stuff; there is no fixing her to any sense.'
"'Perhaps, Mrs. Harris,' Fanny said, 'she has heard your praises, and those of other people, till she is tired of them.'
"'Pish!' answered Mrs. Harris; 'did you ever hear of anyone ever being tired of their own praises? The more they hear of them the more they crave them; but this child has not sense enough to listen to them. Do you know what it is for a person to have their wits a wool-gathering? Depend on it that Miss Vaughan, with all her riches and all her prettiness, is a very dull child; but it is not my business to say as much as that to the ladies; they will find it out by-and-by, that is sure. But it is a bad look-out for you and me, Fanny, with such chances as we have; for if Miss Evelyn was like other young ladies, we might be sure to make our fortune by her. I have known several people in my condition get such a hold on
the hearts of children of high condition, like Miss Vaughan, that they never could do without them in no way, in their after lives. But I don't see that we get on at all with this stupid little thing; though for the life of me I cannot tell what the child's head is running upon. She never opens out to me, or asks a question, unless it is about some of the dumb animals, or the flowers in the garden, and the trees in the wood.'
"I cannot tell what the child's head is running on."—[Page 433].