Nor was kindness from him the only tie between them. Elizabeth discerned his sadness, and tried to cheer his gloom. Now and then the fierceness of his temper broke forth towards others; but she was never terrified, and grieved for the object of his indignation; or if she felt it to be unjust, she pleaded the cause of the injured, and, by her caresses, brought him back to himself. She early learned the power she had over him, and loved him the more fondly on that account. Thus there existed a perpetual interchange of benefit--of watchful care--of mutual forbearance--of tender pity and thankfulness. If all this seems beyond the orphan's years, it must be remembered that peculiar circumstances develop peculiar faculties; and that, besides, what is latent does not the less exist on that account. Elizabeth could not have expressed, and was, indeed, unconscious of the train of feeling here narrated. It was the microcosm of a plant folded up in its germe. Sometimes looking at a green, unformed bud, we wonder why a particular texture of leaves must inevitably spring from it, and why another sort of plant should not shoot out from the dark stem: but, as the tiny leaflet uncloses, it is there in all its peculiarity, and endowed with all the especial qualities of its kind. Thus with Elizabeth, however, in the thoughtlessness and inexperience of childhood, small outward show was made of the inner sense; yet in her heart, tenderness, fidelity, and unshaken truth were folded up, to be developed as her mind gained ideas, and sensation gradually verged into sentiment. The course of years, also, is included in this sketch. She was six years old when she left Paris--she was nearly ten when, after many wanderings, and a vast tract of country overpassed, they arrived at Odessa. There had always been a singular mixture of childishness and reflection in her, and this continued even now. As far as her own pleasures were concerned, she might be thought behind her age: to chase a butterfly--to hunt for a flower--to play with a favourite animal--to listen with eagerness to the wildest fairy tales--such were her pleasures; but there was something more as she watched the turns of countenance in him she named her father--adapted herself to his gloomy or communicative mood--pressed near him when she thought he was annoyed--and restrained every appearance of discomfort when he was distressed by her being exposed to fatigue or the inclement sky.