t like you to ask such questions, and she will be very
angry with me for answering them, I can tell you that.'

'I tell you what, Mistress Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'I think mamma
is a widow.'

'And what then, Miss Venetia? There is no shame in that.'

'Shame!' exclaimed Venetia. 'What is shame?'

'Look, there is a pretty butterfly!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort.
'Did you ever see such a pretty butterfly, Miss?'

'I do not care about butterflies to-day, Mistress Pauncefort; I like
to talk about widows.'

'Was there ever such a child!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, with a
wondering glance.

'I must have had a papa,' said Venetia; 'all the ladies I read about
had papas, and married husbands. Then whom did my mamma marry?'

'Lord! Miss Venetia, you know very well your mamma always tells
you that all those books you read are a pack of stories,' observed
Mistress Pauncefort, with an air of triumphant art.

'There never were such persons, perhaps,' said Venetia, 'but it is not
true that there never were such things as papas and husbands, for all
people have papas; you must have had a papa, Mistress Pauncefort?'

'To be sure I had,' said Mistress Pauncefort, bridling up.

'And a mamma too?' said Venetia.

'As honest a woman as ever lived,' said Mistress Pauncefort.

'Then if I have no papa, mamma must be a wife that has lost her
husband, and that, mamma told me at dinner yesterday, was a widow.'

'Was the like ever seen!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'And what
then, Miss Venetia?'

'It seems to me so odd that only two people should live here, and both
be widows,' said Venetia, 'and both have a little child; the only
difference is, that one is a little boy, and I am a little girl.'

'When ladies lose their husbands, they do not like to have their names
mentioned,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'and so you must never talk of
your papa to my lady, and that is the truth.'

'I will not now,' said Venetia.

When they returned home, Mistress Pauncefort brought her work, and
seated herself on the terrace, that she might not lose sight of her
charge. Venetia played about for some little time; she made a castle
behind a tree, and fancied she was a knight, and then a lady, and
conjured up an ogre in the neighbouring shrubbery; but these daydreams
did not amuse her as much as usual. She went and fetched her book, but
even 'The Seven Champions' could not interest her. Her eye was fixed
upon the page, and apparently s