But the sight of
Castle Treddles had disturbed all my own castles in the air. The
realities of the matter, like a stone plashed into a limpid
fountain, had destroyed the reflection of the objects around,
which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the crystal
surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which
had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another
way. I would try to get Christie Steele out of her PUBLIC, since
she was not striving in it, and she who had been my mother's
governante should be mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her
history over to myself.
She was grand-daughter, I believe--at least some relative--of the
famous Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift's friend, Captain
Creichton, shot on his own staircase in the times of the
persecutions; [See Note 2.--Steele a Covenanter, shot by Captain
Creichton.] and had perhaps derived from her native stock much
both of its good and evil properties. No one could say of her
that she was the life and spirit of the family, though in my
mother's time she directed all family affairs.
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