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172 "I should think you might hear that: it would puzzle me to hold a long discourse in French".

"You do not come from England?"

"I am lately arrived thence. Have you been long in this country? You seem to know my son?"

"Do, I, madam? Perhaps I do. Your son—the picture there?"

"That is his portrait as a youth. While looking at it, you pronounced his name".

"Graham Bretton?"

She nodded.

"I speak to Mrs. Bretton, formerly of Bretton, shire?"

"Quite right; and you, I am told, are an English teacher in a foreign school here: my son recognized you as such".

"How was I found, madam, and by whom?"

"My son shall tell you that by-and-by", said she, "but at present you are too confused and weak for conversation; try to eat some breakfast, and then sleep".

Notwithstanding all I had undergone—the bodily fatigue, the perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather—it seemed that I was better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was abating; for whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered, and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth and a biscuit.

As evening began to darken, and the ceaseless blast still blew wild and cold, and the rain streamed on, deluge-like, I grew weary—very weary of my bed. The room, though pretty, was small: I felt it confining; I longed for a change. The increasing chill and gathering gloom, too, depressed me; I wanted to see—to feel firelight. Besides, I kept thinking of the son of that tall matron: when should I see him? Certainly not till I left my room.

At last the bonne came to make my bed for the night. She prepared to wrap me in a blanket and place me in the little chintz chair; but, declining these attentions, I proceeded