“Let me see your eyes. Why do you wear spectacles? You never wore them in Beak Street,” I say. You see I was very fond of the child. She had wound herself around me in a thousand fond ways. Owing to a certain Person’s conduct my heart may be a ruin--a Persepolis, sir--a perfect Tadmor. But what then? May not a traveller rest under its shattered columns? May not an Arab maid repose there till the morning dawns and the caravan passes on? Yes, my heart is a Palmyra, and once a queen inhabited me (O Zenobia! Zenobia! to think thou shouldst have been led away captive by an O’D.!) Now, I am alone, alone in the solitary wilderness. Nevertheless, if a stranger comes to me I have a spring for his weary feet, I will give him the shelter of my shade. Rest thy cheek awhile, young maiden, on my marble--then go thy ways, and leave me. This I thought, or something to this effect, as in reply to my remark, “Let me see your eyes,” Bessy took off her spectacles, and I took them up and looked at her. Why didn’t I say to her, “My dear brave Elizabeth! as I look in your face, I see you have had an awful deal of suffering. Your eyes are inscrutably sad. We who are initiated, know the members of our Community of Sorrow. We have both been wrecked in different ships, and been cast on this shore. Let us go hand-in-hand, and find a cave and a shelter somewhere together.” I say, why didn’t I say this to her? She would have come, I feel sure she would. We would have been semi-attached as it were. We would have locked up that room in either heart where the skeleton was, and said nothing about it, and pulled down the party-wall and taken our mild tea in the garden. I live in Pump Court now. It would have been better than this dingy loneliness and a snuffy laundress who bullies me. But for Bessy? Well--well, perhaps better for her too. I remember these thoughts rushing through my mind whilst I held the spectacles. What a number of other things too? I remember two canaries making a tremendous concert in their cage. I remember the voices of the two children quarrelling on the lawn, the sound of the carriage-wheels grinding over the gravel; and then of a little old familiar cracked voice in my ear, with a “La, Mr. Batchelor! are _you_ here?” And a sly face looks up at me from under an old bonnet. “It is mamma,” says Bessy. “And I’m come to tea with Elizabeth and the dear children; and while you are at dinner, dear Mr. Batchelor, thankful--thankful for all mercies! And, dear me! here is Mrs. Bonnington, I do declare! Dear madam, how well you look--not twenty, I declare! And dear Mr. Bonnington! Oh, sir! let me--let me, I _must_ press your hand. What a sermon last Sunday! All Putney was in tears!”