“Ah! then who called you a little deceitful one before?”
“He did, sir.”
“He did; and who is he?”
“My lover, sir;” and she hid her face in her little hands.
Afterwards she ingenuously intrusted to my keeping, and I could not well betray her, a little serio-comic sort of pastoral romance, which really interested me.
CHAPTER XXIX.
From that day forth, I know not why, I became the adviser and confidant of this young girl, who returned and conversed with me for hours. She at first said, “You are so good, sir, that I feel just the same when I am here as if I were your own daughter.”
“That is a very poor compliment,” replied I, dropping her hand; “I am hardly yet thirty-two, and you look upon me as if I were an old father.”
“No, no, not so; I mean as a brother, to be sure;” and she insisted upon taking hold of my hand with an air of the most innocent confidence and affection.
I am glad, thought I to myself, that you are no beauty; else, alas, this innocent sort of fooling might chance to disconcert me; at other times I thought it is lucky, too, she is so young, there could never be any danger of becoming attached to girls of her years. At other times, however, I felt a little uneasy, thinking I was mistaken in having pronounced her rather plain, whereas her whole shape and features were by no means wanting in proportion or expression. If she were not quite so pale, I said, and her face free from those marks, she might really pass for a beauty. It is impossible, in fact, not to find some charm in the presence and in the looks and voice of a young girl full of vivacity and affection. I had taken not the least pains to acquire her good-will; yet was I as dear to either as a father or a brother, whichever title I preferred. And why? Only because she had read Francesca da Rimini and Eufemio, and my poems, she said, had made her weep so often; then, besides, I was a solitary prisoner, without having, as she observed, either robbed or murdered anybody.