Page:Villette (1st edition).djvu/362

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10
VILLETTE.

perforce, recognized and hailed the rosewood, the drapery, the porcelain, of the drawing-room.

Bretton! Bretton! and ten years ago shone reflected in that mirror. And why did Bretton and my fourteenth year haunt me thus? Why, if they came at all, did they not return complete? Why hovered before my distempered vision the mere furniture, while the rooms and the locality were gone? As to that pin-cushion made of crimson satin, ornamented with gold beads and frilled with thread-lace, I had the same right to know it as to know the screens—I had made it myself. Rising with a start from the bed, I took the cushion in my hand and examined it. There was the cipher "L. L. B." formed in gold beads, and surrounded with an oval wreath embroidered in white silk. These were the initials of my godmother's name—Louisa Lucy Bretton.

Am I in England? Am I at Bretton? I muttered; and hastily pulling up the blind with which the lattice was shrouded, I looked out to try and discover where I was; half-prepared to meet the calm, old, handsome buildings and clean gray pavement of St. Ann's Street, and to see at the end, the towers of the minster: or, if otherwise, fully expectant of a town