As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among children of the loftiest pretensions.

It was with the air of a little princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss.

Yet withal she was so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating, that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs.

And, indeed, she deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than Mr.Dale could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism,--and that is a pride by no means common.

She had an intuitive forethought for others: you could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism, abnegation of self; and though she was an original child, and often grave and musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her character, still she was not above the happy genial merriment of childhood,--only her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures more composed, than those of children habituated to many play-fellows usually are.