Paulina Home's father was obliged to travel to recruit his health, and her mother being dead, Mrs. Bretton had offered to take temporary charge of the child.
During the two months Paulina stayed with us, the one member of the household who reconciled her to absence from her father was John Graham Bretton, Mrs. Bretton's only child, a handsome, whimsical youth of sixteen. He began by treating her with mock seriousness as a person of consideration, and before long was more than the Grand Turk in her estimation; indeed, when a letter came from her father on the Continent, asking that his little girl might join him there, we wondered how she would take the news. I found her in the drawing-room engaged with a picture-book.
"Miss Snowe," said she, "this is a wonderful book. It was given me by Graham. It tells of distant countries."
"Polly," I interrupted, "should you like to travel?"
"Not just yet," was the prudent answer; "but perhaps when I am grown a woman I may travel with Graham."
"But would you like to travel now if your papa was with you?"
"What is the good of talking in that silly way?" said she. "What is papa to you? I was just beginning to be happy."
Then I told her of the letter, and the tidings kept her serious the whole day. When Graham came home in the evening, she whispered, as she heard him in the hall: "Tell him by-and-by; tell him I am going."
But Graham, who was preoccupied about some school prize, had to be told twice before the news took proper hold of his attention. "Polly going?" he said. "What a pity! Dear little Mouse, I shall be sorry to lose her; she must come to us again."
On going to bed, I found the child wide awake, and in what she called "dreadful misery!"