Bridget's prediction was not long being verified. Upholsterers were soon in attendance, re-modeling and re-furnishing poor Mary's apartments, of which the pretty _danseuse_ shortly took unblushing and triumphant possession. It was understood in the house, that her will was to be law; and implicit obedience to the same the surest passport to head-quarters. Poor Lucy, willing to bear any thing rather than separation from the child--chased from one room to another--finally took refuge with her charge in the attic, whither poor Mary's portrait had long since been banished. For the little Fanny's sake, she patiently endured every humiliation; she heeded not the careless insolence of the new _régime_ of servants. She bore every caprice of the tyrannical little _danseuse_. Patiently her feeble limbs tottered up stairs and down, performing the offices of nurse and servant to her grandchild; patiently she soothed it when ill, or amused it when fretful; uncomplainingly she bore from her son-in-law his maudling curses, when they passed each other on the stairs, or in the hall. Every thing--any thing, but separation from Mary's child, which nestled every day closer to her heart; and whose soft eyes and glossy curls reminded her every day more forcibly of her lost daughter. Every day she prayed to God to spare the withered trunk till the vine which clambered round it should gather strength to brave the winds and storms. Fanny slept securely on her breast, while the bacchanalian song resounded through the house, and obscene jests, and curses loud and deep, made night hideous. And when the moonbeams penetrated the little window, and, falling upon Mary's portrait, revealed her in all her beauty, before the shadow had fallen on her fair brow, or dimmed her lustrous eyes, or robbed that dimpled mouth of its sunny smile, poor Lucy would nestle closer to little Fanny, and pray God that so bitter a cup might pass from _her_.
Dear little Fanny! with her plump little arms thrown carelessly over her curly head, her pearly teeth just gleaming through her parted lips, as if some kind angel even then were promising her exemption from such a doom.
Time crept on, blanching Lucy's cheek to deadly paleness, tinting Fanny's with a lovelier rose; thinning Lucy's silver hair, piling the golden clusters round Fanny's ivory brow; bending Lucy's shrunken limbs, rounding Fanny's into symmetry and grace.