My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace⁠—Bretton ...

Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful; she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive...

Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he could not be prevailed on to go out: he sat all day long by the fireside, sometimes silent, sometimes receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton’s chat, which w...

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure⁠—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets⁠—I betook myself home, having been ...

My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a new place. About this time I might be a little⁠—a very little, shaken in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the cont...

The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and opened my curtain, I saw the risen sun struggling through fog. Above my head, above the housetops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I...

I awoke next morning with courage revived and spirits refreshed: physical debility no longer enervated my judgment; my mind felt prompt and clear. Just as I finished dressing, a tap came to the door: ...

Being delivered into the charge of the maîtresse, I was led through a long narrow passage into a foreign kitchen, very clean but very strange. It seemed to contain no means of cooking⁠—neither firepla...

My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment. It was pleasant. I felt I was getting on; not lying the stagnant prey...

Madame Beck was a most consistent character; forbearing with all the world, and tender to no part of it. Her own children drew her into no deviation from the even tenor of her stoic calm. She was soli...

It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck’s children, took a fever. Désirée, suddenly cured of her ailments, was, together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the count...

Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden⁠—large, considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to ...

I had occasion to smile⁠—nay, to laugh, at Madame again, within the space of four and twenty hours after the little scene treated of in the last chapter. Villette owns a climate as variable, though no...

As soon as Georgette was well, Madame sent her away into the country. I was sorry; I loved the child, and her loss made me poorer than before. But I must not complain. I lived in a house full of robus...

Following Madame Beck’s fête, with its three preceding weeks of relaxation, its brief twelve hours’ burst of hilarity and dissipation, and its one subsequent day of utter languor, came a period of rea...

Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baff...

These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the condu...

During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham never took a seat near me, or in his frequent pacing of the room approached the quarter where I sat, or looked preoccupied, or more grave than u...

My stay at La Terrasse was prolonged a fortnight beyond the close of the vacation. Mrs. Bretton’s kind management procured me this respite. Her son having one day delivered the dictum that “Lucy was n...

One morning, Mrs. Bretton, coming promptly into my room, desired me to open my drawers and show her my dresses; which I did, without a word. “That will do,” said she, when she had turned them over. “Y...

Yet three days, and then I must go back to the pensionnat. I almost numbered the moments of these days upon the clock; fain would I have retarded their flight; but they glided by while I watched them:...

When all was still in the house; when dinner was over and the noisy recreation-hour past; when darkness had set in, and the quiet lamp of study was lit in the refectory; when the externes were gone ho...

To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a dell, deep-hollowed in forest secrecy; it lies in dimness and m...

Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memor...

Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winte...

From this date my life did not want variety; I went out a good deal, with the entire consent of Madame Beck, who perfectly approved the grade of my acquaintance. That worthy directress had never from ...

The morrow turned out a more lively and busy day than we⁠—or than I, at least⁠—had anticipated. It seems it was the birthday of one of the young princes of Labassecour⁠—the eldest, I think, the Duc de...

M. Paul Emanuel owned an acute sensitiveness to the annoyance of interruption, from whatsoever cause occurring, during his lessons: to pass through the classe under such circumstances was considered b...

I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand, for the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night-lamp afforded i...

Yet the reader is advised not to be in any hurry with his kindly conclusions, or to suppose, with an overhasty charity, that from that day M. Paul became a changed character⁠—easy to live with, and no...

The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm. This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at t...

Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my intercourse with the sumptuous Hôtel Crécy? That intercourse had, for an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompie...

On the first of May, we had all⁠—i.e. the twenty boarders and the four teachers⁠—notice to rise at five o’clock of the morning, to be dressed and ready by six, to put ourselves under the command of M....

Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I had any occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing some little commissions for her at the shops. Being disengaged, and ...

“Oubliez les Professeurs.”219 So said Madame Beck. Madame Beck was a wise woman, but she should not have uttered those words. To do so was a mistake. That night she should have left me calm⁠—not excit...

Besides Fifine Beck’s mother, another power had a word to say to M. Paul and me, before that covenant of friendship could be ratified. We were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched j...

It was very well for Paulina to decline further correspondence with Graham till her father had sanctioned the intercourse. But Dr. Bretton could not live within a league of the Hôtel Crécy, and not co...

But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done, as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen a...

Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could not leave this clique; the ground near them seemed to hold my feet. The canopy of entwined trees held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of ...

The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological pheno...

Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and Renovation which I won on the fête-night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore t...

Man cannot prophesy. Love is no oracle. Fear sometimes imagines a vain thing. Those years of absence! How had I sickened over their anticipation! The woe they must bring seemed certain as death. I kne...

Beautiful girl. ↩ Englishwoman! ↩ What are you doing there? That trunk is mine. ↩ Boarding-school. ↩ It is only Englishwomen who would attempt this kind of thing,⁠ … what courage those women have! ↩ T...