The immediate result of the child’s confidences to me was a great increase of my love for and interest in herself. We became almost inseparable in and out of school-hours; I encouraged her to talk; and she soon fell into the habit of telling me, whether I was listening or not, those long rambling stories which have no beginning, no sequence, and no end, which are the solace of children who have no companions of their own age. When my attention was wandering from these incoherent tales, I sometimes had it abruptly brought back by some flight of her childish fancy, which set me wondering if it had been suggested by some half-forgotten experience. Thus one day, when I was working, and she was sitting on a footstool by my side, with two or three twigs bearing oak-apples which represented, as far as I could judge from her severity to some and her tenderness to the others, the personages of her story, my attention was arrested by the words-- “And so the Prince said to Princess Christie”--the heroine of the story, so named in honor of me--“‘I’ve brought you some jewels much finer than yours.’ But Princess Christie cried and said, ‘I don’t want them. Where did you get them? I know where you got them. You are a naughty bad Prince, and I won’t wear any jewels any more.’” And I thought of what Mr. Rayner had told me of his wife’s hearing, on her return home from a ball, of her baby-boy’s death and of her saying she would never wear jewels again. But Haidee had been but a baby-girl at the time; her words must be a mere coincidence. But some of the coincidences of her narrative were less difficult of explanation, for she went on-- “And so Prince Caramel said, ‘Very well; I’ll send you some more roses if you won’t throw them away, and some marbles. But you mustn’t cry, you know. I won’t have a Princess that cries. I sha’n’t look at you in church if you cry. If you don’t cry, I’ll let you have some jam too as well as butter, and you shall have a ride on the butcher’s horse up and down the back-yard. And then I’ll put you in a fairy-boat, and we’ll fly away--fly away right over the trees and over the marsh, and past Mr. Boggett’s and up into the clouds, and live in a swallow’s nest, and never do any lessons.” And so on, going off in a wild and unexpected way into all sorts of extravagances, while I thought, with burning cheeks, that my demure little maiden had heard and seen more than I had suspected, and marvelled at the tangle of fancy and reality that grew up from it in her innocent mind. And sometimes she would say, “Let us sing, Miss Christie;” and I would sing some ballad, while she would coo an irregular but not inharmonious accompaniment. And we were occupied in this fashion, sitting by the open window one afternoon, when Mr. Rayner appeared in the garden. “Go on, go on; I have been listening to the concert for ever so long. It is as pretty as birds.”