-headed 
urchin at his pranks ; but when Uncle Kollin said, " Deep in 
thought, Dorothea? What are you musing about?" I was 
startled, and could not reply, "I was thinking about Mr. 
Brandon," for Tom had made it awkward foi mfc ercsfcAo t&k&? 



172 OFF THE SKELLIGS. 



tion his name. There was the real . He had put thoughts 
into my head that teased me. I did not like to say Mr. Brandon 
had given me a ring, lest there should be some mistake about it; 
and so I hid it, and it made me uncomfortable and conscious 
whenever he was mentioned. 

I did not like to speak of him as I did of Miss Tott and the 
children ; the consequence was that I thought of him far more 
than I should have done otherwise, and made a kind of hero of 
him in my mind, towards whom I felt a certain growing enthu- 
siasm, which affected my imagination, but, so far from making 
me wordnetdesire to see him again, kept me keenly anxious to remain at 
a  ; a sort of girlish wordnetfear made me think of him as a 
superior being. My feeling was precisely that which familiarity 
would have melted away, and if I had even talked about him,' 
the halo that surrounded