POLLY'S NARRATIVE.
I am the plainest woman in England, bar none.[6] Even in youth I was
not, strictly speaking, voluptuously lovely. Short, stumpy, with a
fringe like the thatch of a newly evicted cottage, such was my
appearance at twenty, and such it remains. Like Cain, I was branded.[7]
But enough of personalities. I had in youth but one friend, a lady of
kingly descent (the kings, to be sure, were Irish), and of bewitching
loveliness. When she rushed into my lonely rooms, one wild winter
night, with a cradle in her arms and a baby in the cradle; when she
besought me to teach that infant Hittite, Hebrew, and the Differential
Calculus, and to bring it up in college, on commons (where the air is
salubrious), what could I do but acquiesce? It is unusual, I know, for
a student of my sex, however learned, to educate an infant in college
and bring her up on commons. But for once the uncompromising nature of
my charms strangled the breath of scandal in the bud, and little
Leonora O'Dolite became the darling of the university. The old Keeper
of the Bodleian was a crusty bachelor, who liked nothing young but
calf, and preferred morocco to _that_. But even _he_ loved Leonora. One
night the little girl was lost, and only after looking for her in the
Hebdomadal Boardroom, in the Sheldonian, the Pusaeum, and all the
barges, did we find that unprincipled old man amusing her by letting
off crackers and Roman-candles among the Mexican MSS. in the Bodleian!
[6]
I may as well say at once that I _will not_ be responsible for
Polly's style. Sometimes it is flat, they tell me, and
sometimes it is flamboyant, whatever they may mean. It is
never the least like what one would expect an elderly lady don
(or Donna), to write.--ED.
[7]
See _The Mark of Cain_ [Arrowsmith], an excellent
shillingsworth.--ED.
Is this not 'log rolling'?--PUBLISHER.
These were halcyon hours, happier as Leonora grew up and received the
education prescribed for her by her parent. Her Hebrew was fair, and
her Hittite up to a first class, but, to my distress, she mainly
devoted herself to Celtic studies.
I should tell you that Leonora's chief interest in life was the
decipherment of the inscriptions on her cradle--the mummy case which
had rocked her ancestors since Abraham's time, and which is now in your
possession. Of itself it is a sufficient proof of the accuracy of this
narrative. The mummy case is not the ordinary coffin of Egyptian
commerce. The hieroglyphics have baffled Dr. Isaac Taylor, and have
been variously construed as Chinese, Etruscan, and Basque, by the
various professors of these learned lingoes.[8]
[8]
Don't you think this bit is a little dull? The public don't
care about dead languages.--PUBLISHER.
Story can't possibly get on without it, as you'll see. You
_must_ have something of this sort in a romance. Look at Poe's
cypher in the _Gold Beetle_, and the chart in _Treasure
Island_, and the Portuguee's scroll in _King Solomon's
Mines_.--ED.
Now about this mummy case: you must know that it had been in Leonora's
family ever since her ancestress, Theodolite, Pharaoh's daughter, left
Egypt, not knowing when she was well off, and settled in Ireland, of
all places, where she founded the national prosperity.[9]
[9]
Is not _this_ a little steep?--PUBLISHER.
No; it is in all the Irish histories. See Lady Wilde's
_Ancient Legends of Ireland_, if you don't believe me.--ED.
The mummy case and a queer ring (see cover) inscribed with a duck, a
duck's egg, and an umbrella, were about all that the O'Dolites kept of
their ancient property. The older Leonora grew the more deeply she
studied the inscriptions on the mummy case. She tried it as Zend, she
tried it as Sanskrit, and Japanese, and the American language, and
finally she tried it as Irish.
We had a very rainy season that winter even for Oxford, and the more it
rained the more Leonora pored over that mummy case. I kept telling her
there was nothing in it, but she would not listen to me.