"I did not oppose stubborn common sense to this fond delusion. It might be good for her to believe in the things that are not. The tender fancy might bridge over the dark gulf of sorrow. I tried to divert her mind to lighter subjects--talked to her of this monstrous London of which she knew nothing, and of which I knew very little. "On the following evening I took Esperanza and my old nurse to a theatre, a form of entertainment in which Martha especially delighted. I was not very happy in my choice of a play. Had I taken my _protégée_ to see Jefferson, she would have been touched and delighted. Unluckily I chose another theatre where a burlesque was being played which was just a shade more vulgar than the average burlesque of those days. Esperanza was puzzled and disgusted. I discovered that her love of music was an exclusive passion. She cared for nothing else in the way of art. I tried her with a picture-gallery, only to find her ignorant and indifferent. Two things only impressed her in the whole of the National Gallery--a landscape of Turner's, and a portrait by Reynolds, in which she fancied a resemblance to her father. "My last Sunday before term began was spent almost entirely with Esperanza. I accepted Martha's invitation to partake of her Sunday dinner, and sat at meat with dear old Benjamin for the first time in my life, though I had eaten many a meal with his worthy wife in the days when my legs reached a very little way below the table and my manners were in sore need of the good soul's supervision--happy childish days, before governess and lesson-books had appeared upon the scene of my life; days in which life was one long game of play, interrupted only by childish illnesses that were like bad dreams, troubled and indistinct patches on the fair foreground of the childish memory. The good Benjamin ate his roast beef in a deprecating and apologetic attitude, sitting, I fear, uncomfortably, on the edge of his chair. Esperanza ate about as much solid food as a singing bird might have done; but she looked stronger and in better health than on the night of the _séance_, and she looked almost happy. After the roast beef and apple-tart, I took her to an afternoon service at St. Paul's, where the organ-music filled her with rapture. "'I shall come here every Sunday,' she said, as we left the cathedral.