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ER6063X_C000.indd ii 7/26/08 7:43:07 AM
 Psychology Press

New York London

ER6063X_C000.indd iii 7/26/08 7:43:07 AM

 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square
New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RN

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-8058-6063-4 (Hardcover)

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, trans-
mitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without written permission from the publishers.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Infant pathways to language : methods, models, and research directions / editors, John
Colombo, Peggy McCardle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8058-6063-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Language acquisition. I. Colombo, John. II. McCardle, Peggy D.

P118.I4325 2009
401’.93--dc22 2008025211

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com

and the LEA and Routledge Web site at

http://www.routledge.com

ER6063X_C000.indd iv 7/26/08 7:43:08 AM

 Contents

Foreword ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Contributors xv
Chapter 1 Measuring Language in Infancy 1
Peggy McCardle, John Colombo, and Lisa Freund
Section I Recognizing Patterns 13
Chapter 2 What Statistical Learning Can
and Can’t Tell Us about Language
Acquisition 15
Richard N. Aslin and Elissa L. Newport
Chapter 3 Acquiring Grammatical Patterns 31
Constraints on Learning
Jenny R. Saff ran
Chapter 4 Are Infants Constrained in Their
Linguistic Generalizations? Some
Theoretical and Methodological
Observations 49
LouAnn Gerken
Chapter 5 How Different Is Disordered
Language? 65
Mabel L. Rice

ER6063X_C000toc.indd v 7/28/08 9:45:11 AM

 vi CONTENTS

Section II From Patterns to Meaning 83

Chapter 6 Infant Speech Perception and
Later Language Acquisition 85
Methodological Underpinnings
Janet F. Werker and Christopher T. Fennell
Chapter 7 How Infants Discover Distinct Word
Types and Map Them to Distinct
Meanings 99
Sandra Waxman
Chapter 8 Early Learning through Language 119
Judy S. DeLoache, Patricia A. Ganea, and
Vikram K. Jaswal
Section III Predictors of Language Emergence 141
Chapter 9 Early Attentional Predictors of
Vocabulary in Childhood 143
John Colombo, D. Jill Shaddy, Otilia M. Blaga,
Christa J. Anderson, Kathleen N. Kannass, and
W. Allen Richman
Chapter 10 Social Cognition and Language 169
The Role of Gaze Following in Early Word
Learning
Andrew N. Meltzoff and Rechele Brooks
Chapter 11 Using the Hands to Study How Children
Learn Language 195
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Section IV Models and Methods to Study Infant
Language 211
Chapter 12 Linking Infant Speech Perception to
Language Acquisition 213
Phonetic Learning Predicts Language Growth
Patricia K. Kuhl
Chapter 13 Early Word Learning and
Categorization 245
Methodological Issues and Recent Empirical
Evidence
Leslie B. Cohen and Jason Brunt

ER6063X_C000toc.indd vi 7/28/08 9:45:13 AM

 CONTENTS vii

Chapter 14 Language Acquisition, Domain

Specificity, and Descent with
Modification 267
Gary F. Marcus and Hugh Rabagliati
Chapter 15 Neuroimaging Tools for Language
Study 287
Lisa Freund
Chapter 16 Pathways to Infant Language
Research 297
Commentary and Future Directions
Peggy McCardle, Lisa Freund, and Gary Marcus
Index 305

ER6063X_C000toc.indd vii 7/28/08 9:45:13 AM

ER6063X_C000toc.indd viii 7/28/08 9:45:14 AM
 Foreword

Over the past 25 years, researchers in the area of infant cognitive and language
development have become increasingly concerned with individual differences,
identification of individuals at risk, and prediction of mature function. As such,
the field has begun to explore the feasibility of applying basic science technolo-
gies and measurement to clinical issues. Although movement toward this goal
was steady, it was also characteristically slow. In addition, most of this work
typically focused on more general aspects of cognitive and intellectual function,
rather than on other more specific abilities or skills in later development.
Among the topics left relatively unexplored was the relation between infant
abilities and later language outcomes, including language impairment. This was
surprising, given that work on infant abilities relevant to language acquisition
and outcome was available both in good quantity and in high quality. Those
who worked in the area knew that, at least theoretically, such work held great
promise for direct application to typical and atypical language development, but
there had been little, if any, formal consideration of the degree to which infant
paradigms and protocols might be useful or translatable for specific applications
to language. Most importantly, there was no summative body of work directed
specifically toward this topic.
In the context of the expressed national priority for promoting translational
research in all sciences, and the desire to further explore and expand this agenda for
the health and well-being of the field of developmental science, in late 2003 the edi-
tors of this volume began talking with me, as the Director of the Merrill Advanced
Studies Center at the University of Kansas, about the need for a small conference to
address these issues. The editors bring a powerful blend of programmatic research
expertise in infancy and the national priorities for basic-to-translational research.
The idea was to bring together a small group of expert researchers with program-
matic externally funded investigations in this realm to address these issues, and to
produce a volume that would represent the state of the science in this area.

ix

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 x FOREWORD

The conference was held September 15–17, 2005 at the Tempe Mission Palms
Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, under joint sponsorship of the Merrill Advanced
Study Center at the University of Kansas and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The
speakers presented their research programs in infant cognitive development and
how they saw those programs interfacing with the understanding and prediction
of language acquisition and outcomes including language impairment. In many
cases, researchers presented for the first time data on infants who had been tested
with their laboratory measures and whose language status had been subsequently
assessed. These examples often provided a remarkable—and, in some cases, very
provocative—empirical confirmation that the promise of addressing the path-
ways to language from infancy was indeed attainable.
The relatively small number of outstanding scholar/participants created many
opportunities for informal interactions and discussions that furthered the pos-
sibility of new insights and collaborative approaches across labs. The chapters in
this book represent the amalgamation of the ideas that the presenters brought
to the meeting and the ways those ideas were adjusted by the input and reac-
tion from the other participants. The summaries that appear here reflect the care
and thought that is characteristic of each of their research programs, as well as
the innovative and theoretically well grounded interpretations each brings to the
topic of language outcomes.
The Merrill Advanced Studies Center is pleased to help facilitate working
conferences with such a timely topic as this one. The ways in which the infancy
period sets the stage for language acquisition are vital for us to understand if
we are to develop accurate means of assessment and prediction that allow for
early and effective intervention and also allow for a better understanding of the
causes of language acquisition and impairment. The chapters in this book bring
to the reader the contributions of very productive investigators dedicated to stud-
ies of infants from a fairly wide range of perspectives. This is a good beginning
for pulling together vital areas of relevant inquiry. We hope the content of this
volume not only informs the reader but also inspires new insights about the infant
pathways to language and how to sort out the antecedents of varying outcomes.

Mabel L. Rice

ER6063X_C000e.indd x 7/26/08 10:36:58 AM

 Preface*

In September 2005, a small group of researchers was invited to a workshop

sponsored jointly by the Merrill Advanced Studies Center and the Eunice Shriver
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The charge to
this group was to explore current progress in research in infant cognitive and
language development, to explain the different tools they are using, to discuss
ways to increase innovation, and to describe and evaluate research needs and
current directions. The chapters in this volume are derived from the individual
presentations that were given at that workshop, and have been informed and
influenced by the discussions that took place there. The organizers felt that it
was time to bring together actual users of and believers in different paradigms
and approaches to create a group that was diverse not only in backgrounds and
disciplines but also in the approaches used to study these topics. The organizers
also hoped to encourage participants, through discussion and perhaps, at times,
disagreement, to seek a common ground for communication that could result
in advances in theory and approaches and that could both describe the next
frontiers and begin a push toward them. In fact, this is exactly what happened—
the discussions were fruitful for all who participated, and this book is an effort to
share the knowledge that was both presented and developed at that workshop.
We offer this volume not only to inform the field about the work of some of
the leaders in infant cognitive and language development but also to serve as
an example of the types of disciplines that can and should be communicating
with one another if we are to continue to progress in ways that integrate multiple
disciplines and techniques, that are informed by theories, that test those theories,
and that openly accept—even welcome—challenges to those theories that will

* The opinions and assertions herein are those of the authors and should not be construed
as representing the policies of the NICHD, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

xi

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 xii PREFACE

provide an empirical basis on which to judge their value. Thus, this book has as
its goal—which was also the goal of the meeting but is now stated in a broader
context—to both inform and engage multiple disciplines, to engage everyone
to think across disciplines and paradigms, and to embrace the integration of
creativity and science.
We need new paradigms, and we need to fully explore new ways of using old
paradigms. We need new measures and new approaches to measurement. We
need to continuously refine and improve our theories and to embrace, with an
open mind, opposing theories as an opportunity to creatively engage in the best
demonstration of our science. We hope that the book will in some ways contrib-
ute to the field’s addressing those needs.
This volume seeks to offer a blend of theories and empirical evidence to sup-
port, refute, or modify them. Most of the chapters examine the link between the-
ory and methodology, and we hope that their appearance together will serve as
a waypoint in the establishment of such a movement as we continue to study, in
greater depth and with innovative measures and approaches across disciplines,
the infant pathways to language.

Peggy McCardle
John Colombo
Lisa Freund

ER6063X_C000f.indd xii 6/26/08 2:21:26 PM

 Acknowledgments

The foundational conference that gave rise to the discussions and papers that
became this volume, Infant Pathways to Language: Methods, Models, and
Research Directions, was held September 15–17, 2005, in Mission Tempe
Palms, Phoenix, AZ. It was supported by the Merrill Advanced Studies Cen-
ter and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD). The Merrill Advanced Studies Center, one of
12 centers in the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at the University
of Kansas (UK), Lawrence, Kansas, is a catalyst for scholarship on disabilities
and policies that shape university research. Their conferences and publications
establish new directions and build collaborative projects in both science and
policy.
The NICHD, which is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that compose the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, was initially established
in 1962 to investigate the broad aspects of human development as a means of
understanding developmental disabilities, including mental retardation and
the events that occur during pregnancy. Today, the Institute conducts and
supports research on all stages of human development, from preconception to
adulthood, to better understand the health of children, adults, families, and
communities. The editors and authors wish to acknowledge the generous fund-
ing from these two organizations, which made possible this conference and its
contributions to the advancement of research on infant language and cognitive
development.
In addition, we wish to thank several individuals who helped to make the
conference a success: Steve Warren, Richard L. Schiefelbusch (for whom the
Institute for Life Span Studies at UK is named), and Robert “Bob” Barnhill
served as discussants for this conference, although they did not author chapters
for the volume. All three were members of the board of directors of the Merrill
Advanced Studies Center at the time of the conference and still serve in valued

xiii

ER6063X_C000g.indd xiii 6/26/08 2:21:45 PM

 xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

capacities at UK and/or the Merrill Center. Mabel Rice, Director of the Merrill
Center, gave wise counsel both in planning and conducting the conference
and beyond. Patsy Woods at UK was patient, conscientious, and very helpful
in keeping the conference participants organized. Claire Jones at the NICHD
also provided valued assistance. We also wish to offer a special thanks to Cath-
leen Petree, our acquisitions editor at LEA/Taylor & Francis, who skillfully and
cheerfully shepherded us through all the necessary processes of making this
book a reality.

ER6063X_C000g.indd xiv 6/26/08 2:21:47 PM

 Contributors

Christa J. Anderson University of Texas at Austin

Department of Psychology Austin, Texas
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas Leslie B. Cohen
Department of Psychology
Richard N. Aslin Infant Cognition Laboratory
Department of Brain University of Texas at Austin
and Cognitive Sciences Austin, Texas
University of Rochester
Rochester, New York John Colombo
Department of Psychology
Otilia M. Blaga and The Schiefelbusch
Department of Psychology Institute for Life Span Studies
University of Kansas University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

Rechele Brooks Judy S. DeLoache

Institute for Learning Department of Psychology
and Brain Sciences University of Virginia
University of Washington Charlottesville, Virginia
Seattle, Washington
Christopher T. Fennell
Jason Brunt School of Psychology
Department of Psychology University of Ottawa
Infant Cognition Laboratory Ottawa, Ontario

xv

ER6063X_C000h.indd xv 7/26/08 11:08:21 AM

 xvi CONTRIBUTORS

Lisa Freund Gary F. Marcus

National Institute Department of Psychology
of Child Health and NYU Center for Child
Human Development Language
(NICDH) New York University
Bethesda, Maryland New York, New York

Patricia A. Ganea Peggy McCardle

Department of Psychology National Institute
Boston University of Child Health and
Boston, Massachusetts Human Development (NICDH)
Bethesda, Maryland
LouAnn Gerken
Department of Psychology Andrew N. Meltzoff
University of Arizona Institute for Learning
Tucson, Arizona and Brain Sciences
University of Washington
Susan Goldin-Meadow Seattle, Washington
Department of Psychology
Elissa L. Newport
University of Chicago
Department of Brain
Chicago, Illinois 60637
and Cognitive Sciences
Vikram K. Jaswal University of Rochester
Department of Psychology Rochester, New York
University of Virginia Hugh Rabagliati
Charlottesville, Virginia Department of Psychology
New York University
Kathleen N. Kannass
New York, New York
Department of Psychology
Loyola University of Chicago Mabel L. Rice
Chicago, Ilinois Dole Human
Development Center
Patricia K. Kuhl
University of Kansas
Institute for Learning
Lawrence, Kansas
and Brain Sciences and
Department of Speech W. Allen Richman
and Hearing Sciences Department of Education
University of Washington Macon State College
Seattle, Washington Macon, Georgia

ER6063X_C000h.indd xvi 7/26/08 11:08:22 AM

 CONTRIBUTORS xvii

Jenny R. Saffran University of Kansas

Department of Lawrence, Kansas
Psychology and
Sandra Waxman
Waisman Center
Department of Psychology
University of
Northwestern University
Wisconsin—Madison
Evanston, Ilinois
Madison, Wisconsin
Janet F. Werker
D. Jill Shaddy Department of Psychology
The Schiefelbusch University of British Columbia
Institute for Life Span Studies Vancouver, British Columbia

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ER6063X_C000h.indd xviii 7/26/08 11:08:23 AM
 1
Measuring Language
in Infancy 1
Peggy McCardle, John Colombo,
and Lisa Freund

The behavioral and brain sciences are faced with important new challenges in this
first decade of the new millennium. With the completion of the mapping of the
human genome, the importance of genetic factors in shaping behavioral functions
in early childhood and of the domain of gene–environment interactions has come
to the forefront of consideration as well. The field of developmental cognitive
neuroscience is growing tremendously, particularly toward an understanding of
those neural processes that are implicated in developmental disability and delay.
In addition, as a result of more than 50 years of research on the effects of early
experience and environment, the fields of education, early childhood, and clinical
child psychology have come to understand the primacy of early experience and
development on brain development and function. For evidence of this change,
one need look no further than the widespread success of recent volumes such as
Critical Thinking about Critical Periods (Bailey, Bruer, Symons, & Lichtman, 2001)
and From Neurons to Neighborhoods (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
Much of this progress is taking place within the context of an implicit consen-
sus around developmental systems theory (Gottleib, 1992, 1997; Edelman, 1987;
see also Lickliter & Honeycutt, 2003). While there is still some variance in the
minor areas in which this theoretical framework is interpreted, its key focal con-
ceptualization is that brain–behavior relationships are both epigenetic and trans-
actional. That is, brain structure and function can be considered both a cause and
an effect of experience; experience can be considered both a cause and an effect
of brain structure and function. This simple notion captures the rich dynamic
nature of developmental processes. Although it paints a daunting picture for the
developmental scientist, it also makes a strong call for an interdisciplinary or
multidisciplinary research focus on developmental problems.

ER6063X_C001.indd 1 7/28/08 1:53:31 PM

 2 INFANT PATHWAYS TO LANGUAGE: METHODS, MODELS, AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This newfound approach has attracted scientists from many fields to the study
of early development. One particular example of this is the fact that scientists
from many fields have now turned to the study of infancy and early childhood in
order to address important issues, and scientists who study language have been
among those first in line to conduct the work. Language researchers’ interests
have taken several forms. Some have been interested in the characteristics of the
early environment in which skills or capacities develop (e.g., Hart & Risley, 1995,
1999). The extant data suggest that characteristics of the early social or linguistic
environment are related to the early and rapid acquisition of words, and that, in
turn, this early acquisition profi le paves the way to school success (e.g., Walker,
Greenwood, Hart, & Carta, 1994). Over the past three decades, spurred on by this
emphasis, major advances have been made in the development of paradigms and
techniques designed to assess the emergence and development of early language
and cognitive functions. Researchers interested in the cognitive underpinnings
of language have turned to the use of these paradigms in order to explain the
degree, manner, and processes in which those cognitive functions might eluci-
date language acquisition and development.
For many years, the field of infant cognition has relied on the variants of the
looking–habituation paradigm, which utilizes changes in infant visual regard
and looking time to determine whether and what kinds of stimulus change
infants are capable of detecting or recognizing. The head-turn conditioning and
preference procedures have produced a wealth of data during the last decade on
language learning in the first year of life. In recent years, researchers have begun
to push the envelope and have stretched the technique to address problems and
questions beyond simple discrimination and recognition memory.
Based on the framework provided by the developmental systems model, these
infant paradigms—long used to assess lower-order cognitive skills (i.e., atten-
tion, discrimination, recognition memory, spatial orientation)—have now been
adapted to study higher-order cognitive function. These include the study of
infants’ early conceptions of the physical laws governing objects (Baillargeon,
1994), statistical learning (Saff ran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996), the perception of
event structure (Baldwin, Baird, Saylor, & Clark, 2001), the linking of multiple
object features in categories and concepts (Booth, Waxman, & Huang, 2005),
and various forms of endogenous or volitional attention (Colombo & Cheatham,
2006). Several of these have been proposed to underlie some aspect of language.
In addition, other important paradigms have also emerged in the last several
decades that are unrelated to the common looking-time methods. These include
the use of reaching behavior to determine infants’ ability to spatially orient to a
target or visual eye-tracking to assess infants’ ability to attend to and to anticipate
an event. As the technology has become increasingly sophisticated and avail-
able, researchers have also begun to use neuroimaging techniques such as evoked

ER6063X_C001.indd 2 7/28/08 1:53:33 PM

 MEASURING LANGUAGE IN INFANCY 3

response potentials, magnetoencephalography, and near infrared spectroscopy,

to study the brain–behavior links in infant language and cognition.
The present work assumes that existing assessment instruments or measure-
ment tools represent meaningful measures of cognitive and language function
in infancy and early childhood. A second assumption is that the inferential base
afforded by these paradigms is rigorous enough to allow for confident assump-
tions about higher-order cognitive functions and extensions to word learning
or language processing. Ideally, one would look to develop a series of tools for
assessment or measurement from infancy through preschool that would accu-
rately reflect specific components that represented a state-of-the-science under-
standing of cognitive function. Ideally, the disciplines involved would develop
innovative approaches to the overall study of early cognitive and language func-
tions such that the findings would have greater generalizability.
Both the extant measures and current paradigms do not easily allow for the
study of developmental change over time, and mapping such trajectories is essen-
tial to our understanding of the brain–behavior relationship as it evolves over
time. A major difficulty for researchers interested in change over time has been
the difficulty in maintaining comparability of tasks or paradigms as infant and
child abilities change over time. Interpreting behavioral results across ages is
fraught with difficulty. Infants, children, and adults may show the same behav-
ioral outcome but through different underlying mechanisms. On the other hand,
infants, children, and adults may rely on a constant underlying mechanism yet
show different behavioral outcomes. By simplifying tasks to their components
and keeping the task demands simple, some of these difficulties can be overcome
when assessing behavior across ages. That is, the same task can be used across
several ages, and the interpretation of behavioral results can be constrained.
However, it will be essential to create paradigms that rely on convergence from
multiple assessments of multiple task components using multiple methods
(e.g ., tapping behavior and brain function patterns) to truly understand devel-
oping brain–behavior relations over time. Further, one would want such tools
and paradigms to be widely available and relatively easy to administer or imple-
ment (in the case of novel paradigms) and to interpret. Finally, in order to extend
infant language and cognition studies into brain and neurological systems will
require measures that are sensitive to individual differences—that is, measures
that can be used with a fairly wide range of performance levels at given ages and
in a reliable and valid way.
Using existing measures and paradigms for new purposes can cause several
things to happen. Their use carries with it possible concern or resistance from
those who developed or have been using these measures in more traditional ways;
some may be wedded to certain standards and reluctant to see those breached or
changed, as it were. Such concerns may be legitimate, but there may be cases

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 4 INFANT PATHWAYS TO LANGUAGE: METHODS, MODELS, AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

where the use of existing measures and approaches for new purposes serves to
highlight the limitations of those measures and approaches, calling some of the
existing research into question. Intellectual curiosity may be counterbalanced by
caution or, worse, distrust or a sense of competition as newcomers enter the turf
of more established researchers. While few will say that innovation is not a good
thing, most will also admit that the research science infrastructure is conserva-
tive. Innovation is risky, as funders seek to balance risk with solid investment,
and more junior researchers often are advised by their mentors and more senior
colleagues to follow a more conservative path to “get established.” At the same
time, we all know that innovation and creativity are crucial to pushing the fron-
tiers of any area of science. This is no less true in the area of infant development
than in any other area of science.
In this volume, as in the discussions at the conference from which it derives,
the authors are pushing the frontiers of research approaches and methods in
infant language and cognition. They are innovatively combining methods, intro-
ducing new measures, and demonstrating the use of technologies and measure-
ment approaches that can inform the study of word learning and categorization,
gaze, attention, gesture, and physiological functions. The book is laid out in four
main sections (with an introduction and final chapter not within those sections).
The first section of the book, “Recognizing Patterns,” deals with infants’ ability
to recognize and generalize from patterns for linguistic and nonlinguistic input.
Discussion centers around similarities and differences in statistical learning and
rule learning, how such learning might be constrained, and the value of current
approaches to studying infant language. In discussions of statistical learning, it
seems clear that while infants are highly sensitive to some aspects of the input,
we still have not completely defined or firmly decided what specific statistics are
encoded (e.g., in terms of the types of elements encoded) or what decision rules
are operating and what the constraints are.
These issues are laid out in Richard Aslin and Elissa Newport’s chapter, which
emphasizes both how pervasive and puzzling statistical learning is; operating in
both humans and nonhumans, across at least three domains, yet it is not suffi-
cient to entirely explain language acquisition. To grasp the global picture and to
approach the level of complexity acknowledged to exist, some reconciliation or
integration of research findings from statistical learning and rule learning as well
with those of other approaches to infant and early childhood language learning is
necessary. Are rule learning and statistical learning really different mechanisms,
or can one (statistical learning) actually account for at least some aspects of the
other (rule learning)?
Jenny Saff ran, in her work on predictive dependencies, begins to address the
issue of constraints on statistical learning. She has argued that human learning
mechanisms play a role in shaping the structure of human languages (Saffran,

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 MEASURING LANGUAGE IN INFANCY 5

Pollack, Seibel, & Shkolnik, 2007); the chapter here focuses on interspecies and
intraspecies investigation of two languages—one more predictable (the “P” lan-
guage) and one less predictable. Both infants and monkeys were able to learn a
simple version of this language, but only the infants were able to learn a scaled-up
version, wherein rules pertained to categories rather than individual elements.
Saff ran argues that human learning mechanisms that are not specifically tailored
for language learning may nevertheless be constraints that have at least in part
shaped the structure of human language. Further research on rule learning that
is not unique to language and on the constraints at work in human learning, both
for language and in other domains, should continue to shed additional light on
this issue.
LouAnn Gerken, in her chapter, examines whether there are constraints
on the dimensions learners consider. She laments the lack of tools to investi-
gate infant generalization, highlighting the dilemma of the novelty–familiarity
preference and its poorly understood variability. Gerken suggests—based on her
findings of both early familiarity and later novelty preferences—that infants are
learning both during familiarization and during testing. She hypothesizes that
those infants able to master the structure of input during familiarization may
demonstrate a novelty preference while those with lower “strength of learning”
may demonstrate a familiarity preference. Gerken concludes by calling for the
development of methods that will better enable firm conclusions.
In the final chapter of the first section, Mabel Rice examines patterns of a
different kind: those that distinguish atypical language development—specific
language impairment (SLI)—from typical language development. After review-
ing inclusionary and exclusionary criteria for categorizing children as SLI as
well as the distinction between delayed versus disordered language, she presents
a model (Rice, 2004) in which some elements are disrupted relative to others,
leading to an overall lack of synchrony in the linguistic system. Rice asserts that
language growth shows strong similarities across all children, yet growth is not
uniform across all dimensions of language, and that perhaps different mecha-
nisms drive different dimensions of language (semantics and syntax). She also
uses gender differences to illustrate an asynchrony: Boys appear to start later
with their language development but are more likely to be able to overcome the
early delay. Fertile areas of research into this puzzle include the possible roots
in infancy of such gender differences, as well as how genetic influences might
operate, and the role of environmental influences (parenting, home resources)
as they interact with other factors such as genetic influences. Rice concludes that
disordered language may be less different from typical language development
than previously assumed.
In Section 2 of the book, “From Patterns to Meaning,” the authors address
how infant speech perception, social cognition, early conceptualization, and

ER6063X_C001.indd 5 7/28/08 1:53:35 PM

 6 INFANT PATHWAYS TO LANGUAGE: METHODS, MODELS, AND RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

learning link to meaning and how all of this links to language learning itself. As
children develop, language abilities unfold or are triggered in ways that we are
still seeking to understand. These authors thus address issues of methodology as
well as their chosen content areas in the study of child language development,
moving us toward more productive approaches to solving the many remaining
puzzles about language development.
Janet Werker and Christoper Fennell, in their chapter, lay out two competing
theories of lexical development: (1) representational discontinuity, in which lexi-
cal representations must be constructed anew when the infant begins to acquire
vocabulary; and (2) resource limitation, which assumes that the representation
used in vocabulary acquisition is the same one learned earlier but that success or
failure is explained by a processing limitation. Using evidence on Werker’s own
switch task (Werker, Cohen, Lloyd, Casasola, & Stager, 1998) and a complemen-
tary methodology, preferential looking, they invoke the PRIMIR (Processing
Rich Information from Multidimensional Interactive Representations) frame-
work (Curtain & Werker, 2007) to provide an account of the development change
infants experience as they move from associative learning to being able to use a
multidimensional lexical representation in more complex word learning. Citing
Hindi-English Dutch-English cross-linguistic work, Werker and Fennell illus-
trate that, in keeping with the PRIMIR framework, infants at 17 months of age
can in fact use native-language phonetic detail to guide their word learning.
Sandra Waxman proposes that infant conceptual and linguistic develop-
ment have at least rudimentary links even before infants being to produce single
words. Through a series of cleverly designed experiment with infants of various
ages, using both live interactions and an automated procedure, Waxman pres-
ents evidence concerning infant learning of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Using
data from multiple studies and two procedures, she argues that infants share
with mature language users the expectation that different word types refer to dif-
ferent aspects of a scene or event, that objects fit into categories and have certain
properties, and that events also fit into categories. That is, infants begin with
general expectations that link novel words to broad commonalities, and over
time these are refined to specifically link grammatical forms (nouns, adjectives,
and verbs) to particular meanings (categories, properties, and events). Waxman
acknowledges the primarily descriptive nature of these findings and sets out the
goal of developing necessary analytic tools to capture the timing and course by
which infants map novel words to meanings more formally, thereby defining
with greater precision the time course of word learning.
In addressing the links between early language acquisition and learning,
Judy DeLoache, Patricia Ganea, and Vikram Jaswal argue that infants and young
children are not only learning language but are also learning through language.
These authors emphasize the importance of interaction with adults for infants to

ER6063X_C001.indd 6 7/28/08 1:53:35 PM

 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
downstairs. In the passage below he met Mrs. Preedy, and related to
her what he had heard. She endeavoured to persuade him that his
fancy had been playing him tricks.
“How is it possible,” she asked him, “that you could have heard
any sound in the next house when there’s nobody there?”
A convincing question, my dear, which carries its own convincing
answer.
Richard Manx wavers, and promises her not to speak to the
neighbours of his distressing impression. He says he will wait “till it
comes again.” It comes again on this night the events of which I am
describing, and in great fear (which may or may not be real) he
creeps downstairs to Mrs. Preedy to inform her of it. He says the
noise may not be made by a mortal; it may be made by a spirit. So
much the worse. A man or a woman one can meet and hold, and
ask questions of, but a spirit!——the very idea is enough to make
one’s hair stand on end.
It did not make my hair stand on end, nor did Richard Manx’s
suggestion frighten me in the least. It excited me almost to fever
heat, but there was no fear in my excitement. Expectation, hope,
painful curiosity—these were the feelings which animated me.
What if Richard Manx were, for some reason of his own, inventing
this story of strange noises in an empty house, the boards of which
are stained with the blood of a murdered man? The idea did not
dawn upon me; it flashed upon me in a certain expression which
dwelt upon Richard Manx’s face while Mrs. Preedy’s back, for a
moment, was turned to him.
When they were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table,
the man was timid, confiding, humble; but when Mrs. Preedy turned
towards the dresser for the sugar basin, there stole into his face the
expression I have referred to. What did it denote? Cunning, ferocity,
triumph, duplicity. It was but for a moment; upon Mrs. Preedy
confronting him again, he relapsed into humbleness and timidity.
What was the meaning of this sudden change? That the man was
playing a part? Clearly. Then behind his systematic acting was
hidden a motive. What motive?
 He had accepted Mrs. Preedy’s invitation to a glass of gin and
water, and had asked for sugar. It was while she was getting the
sugar that he had allowed the mask to slip from his false face.
“If it gets known,” she said, “I’m a ruined woman!”
“Ah,” said Richard Manx, “I comprehend what you mean by ruined.
A house with a shadow—a spirit ghost in it, would be—a—horrible!
Listen you. This house is likewise.” Mrs. Preedy shuddered. “Well,” he
continued, “I will say—a—nothing.” He placed his hand on his heart
and leered at her. “On my honour. But be you positive—what I have
heard is not—a—fancy. It is veritable.”
He said a great deal more to the same effect, and I never saw a
woman more completely prostrated.
Richard Manx speaks imperfect English, and I cannot make up my
mind whether he is a Frenchman, or a German, or an Italian, or an
Impostor. I am not only suspicious of the man, I am suspicious of his
broken English.
What I wanted now to ascertain was whether any person had
heard the tapping or the scratching in No. 119, and the person I
fixed upon to settle this point was Mrs. Bailey, our old lady lodger on
the first floor. If anything was going on in the next house it could
scarcely have escaped her ears.
Yesterday morning while I was tidying up her room, I broached
the subject.
“I wonder,” I said, “whether the next house will ever be let.”
“I wouldn’t take it,” said Mrs. Bailey, “if they offered it to me for
nothing a-year—eh?”
“It wouldn’t be a pleasant place to live in certainly,” I remarked. “I
should be afraid of ghosts.”
“Do you believe in them, eh, Becky?”
“I’ve never seen one,” I replied, “but I can’t help believing in them
—a little. There’s one comfort—they don’t trouble people who
haven’t wronged them. So we’re all right.”
“Yes, Becky, yes—they wouldn’t come through brick walls to scare
a poor old woman, eh?”
 “No,” I said, “and I’ve never read of a ghost speaking or making a
noise of any kind. Have you?”
“Not that I can remember,” replied the old lady.
“Mrs. Bailey,” I said, “since the night of the murder you have not
heard anything going on next door?”
“Not a sound, Becky. It’s been as still as a mouse.”
“As a mouse,” I repeated; “ah, but mice scratch at walls
sometimes.”
“So they do; but there can’t be any mice next door, or I should
have heard them. Nothing for them to eat, Becky—eh? Mice can’t
eat ghosts—eh?”
“No, indeed,” I said. “I hope you are sleeping well, Mrs. Bailey.”
“No, I am not, Becky. As night comes on I get a pain in my side,
and it keeps me awake for hours.”
“What a shame!” I exclaimed. “I’ll come and rub it for you, if you
like, when my work’s done. Were you awake last night, Mrs. Bailey?”
“I didn’t close my eyes till past two this morning; too bad, eh,
Becky?”
“Indeed it is. I hope you were not disturbed.”
“Only my side, Becky; nothing else.”
This conversation convinced me that Richard Manx had not heard
any such sound as he stated. What was his purpose in endeavouring
to deceive Mrs. Preedy?
The same day I was sent out to the greengrocer’s, and the woman
said to me that she supposed I was not going to stop much longer in
my place.
“Why not?” I asked.
“There isn’t one girl in a thousand,” said the woman, “as had live
willingly in a haunted house. Why, Becky, it’s the talk of the
neighbourhood!”
“All I can say is,” I replied, “that I have heard nothing of it, and I
don’t think Mrs. Preedy has, either.”
“Ah,” remarked the woman, “they say you must go abroad if you
want to hear any news about yourself.”
 My dear, the woman in the greengrocer’s shop spoke the truth.
Before the day was out, it was the talk of the neighbourhood, that
both houses, Nos. 118 and 119 Great Porter Square, were haunted.
When I went out last evening to write my first letter to you, I was
told of it by half-a-dozen people, and the policeman himself (they
are all friends of mine) made inquiries as to the time and shapes in
which the ghostly visitants presented themselves. And to-day I have
observed more than a dozen strangers stop before our house and
point up to it, shaking their heads mysteriously.
Mrs. Preedy opened the subject to me this evening.
“Becky,” she said, “there is no end to the wickedness of people.”
“That there isn’t, mum,” I replied, sympathetically.
“Why, Becky,” she exclaimed, “have you heard what they are
saying about the house?”
“O, yes,” I said, “everybody says its haunted.”
“Do you believe it, Becky?”
“Not me, mum!” (Observe my grammar, my dear.) “Not me! Who
should know better than those that live in a house whether it’s
haunted or not?”
“That’s it, Becky,” cried Mrs. Preedy, excitedly; “that’s it. Who
should know better than us? And I’m sure I’ve never seen anything
nor heard anything. Nor you either, Becky.”
“Nor me, neither,” I replied. “But the worst of it is, mum, mud
sticks. Give a dog a bad name, and you may as well hang him at
once.”
Now, who spread this rumour about our house being haunted?
Somebody, for sure, who has a motive in giving the place a bad
reputation. There is never smoke without a fire. Shall I tell you who
is the cause of all this? Richard Manx.
What leads me to this conclusion? you ask. Instinct, my dear. It is
an important quality in animals; why not in human beings? What
possible motive can Richard Manx have in spreading such a report?
you ask next. A just Heaven only knows, my dear. But I will find out
his motive, as I am a living and loving woman.
 You are not acquainted with Richard Manx, you may say. Nor am
I. But is it certain that it is his true name? You are not the only
person in the world who has concealed his true name. You
concealed yours for an innocent reason. Richard Manx may conceal
his for a guilty one. Then think of me, known simply as Becky. Why,
my dearest, the world is a perfect medley! Shall I tell you something
else about him? My dear, he paints. I hear you, in your
unsophisticated innocence, exclaim, “O, he is an artist!” He is, in one
sense. His canvass is the human skin. He paints his face.
What will you ask now? Of course, your question will be, “How on
earth do you know that he paints his face?” My dear, here I am your
superior. Trust a woman to know a natural from an artificial colour.
These few last questions trouble your soul. “Does she paint, then?”
you mutter. “No, my dear,” I answer, “my complexion is my own!”
Twice have I seen Richard Manx to-day, and I have not avoided
him. I looked at him. He looked at me.
“You are Becky,” he said; and if ever a foreigner spoke like an
Englishman, Richard Manx did when he said, “You are Becky.”
“Yes, if you please, sir,” I replied, coyly.
“You are a—what you call maid-of-all work here,” he said.
Maid-of-all-work! What do real, genuine foreigners know of
English maids-of-all-work? The very use of the term was, in my
judgment, an argument against him.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And a very pretty maid-of-all-work,” he said, with a smile.
“There’s missus calling!” I cried, and I ran downstairs.
In that short interview I had convinced myself that he painted,
and I had made up my mind that he wore a wig. Think of that, my
dear! Our innocent, timid, humble young man lodger, with a false
head of hair! I blush.
The meaning of all this is, that Richard Manx is no chance lodger.
He came here designedly. He has not paid his rent. It is part of his
design. He would be more likely to attract attention as a man with
plenty of money than as a man with none. There are so many poor
people in the world, and they are comparatively so unimportant? He
has spread a rumour that the house he lodges in and the next house
are haunted. It is part of his design. To bring the houses into
disrepute will cause people to avoid them, will lessen the chance of
their being occupied. The better opportunity for him to carry out,
without being observed, any scheme he may have in his false and
wicked mind.
I have but one thing more to relate, and that will bring the history
of your adventurous little woman up to the present moment of
writing. It is an important incident, and has a direct bearing upon all
that has gone before. At nine o’clock to-night the street door was
opened and closed. My mistress and I were in the kitchen.
“It is Mr. Manx,” said Mrs. Preedy.
“I didn’t know he had a latch key,” I observed.
“I gave him one to-day,” said Mrs. Preedy. “He is looking for a
situation, poor young man, and asked me for a latch key, as he
might have to keep out late at night, and didn’t like to disturb me.”
“Very considerate of him,” I said. “What kind of situation is he
after? Is he anything at all?”
“He is a professor of languages, Becky, and a musician besides.”
“What kind of musician?” I asked, scornfully. “A trombone player?”
“I can’t say, Becky.”
“Does he play the cornet, or the fiddle,” I continued, with a certain
recklessness which overcame me for a few moments, “or the harp,
or the flute, or the piano?” And as I said “or the piano?” a dish I was
wiping slipped clean out of my hands, and was broken to pieces.
“What a careless girl you are, Becky!” cried my mistress. “That
makes the third you have broken since you’ve been here.”
“Never mind,” I said, “I have had a legacy left me.”
She stared at me, and cried “A legacy!” And, upon my word, my
dear, until she repeated the words, I scarcely knew what it was I had
said. However, I was committed to it now, and was bound to
proceed.
“Yes; a legacy. That is what I really went about last night.”
 The information so staggered her that her voice became quite
deferential.
“Is it much, Becky?”
“A clear three hundred pounds,” I replied, “and perhaps a little
more. I shall know for a certainty in a week or two.”
“You’ll be giving me notice presently, I daresay, Becky, now you’ve
come into money.”
“Not unless you want to get rid of me,” I replied.
“Becky,” said Mrs. Preedy, graciously, “I am very satisfied with you.
You can remain with me as long as you like, and when we part I
hope we shall part friends.”
“I hope so too, mum; and I hope you’ll think none the worse of
me because I’ve been so fortunate. I should like to hear of your
having such a slice of luck.”
“Thank you, Becky,” said my mistress, meekly, “but I wasn’t born
with a silver spoon in my mouth.”
“Ah,” said I, wisely, “it isn’t always the most deserving as gets the
best rewarded.”
Do you know, my dear, so strong is the force of example and
association, that I sometimes catch myself speaking exactly as if I
had been born in that station of life which I am at present occupying
in Mrs. Preedy’s service.
Here a bell rang. “That’s Mrs. Bailey’s bell,” I said; “shall I go up to
her, or will you?”
“You go, Becky,” said Mrs. Preedy; “she likes you best.”
Up I went, and found Mrs. Bailey writhing in bed; she was
evidently in pain.
“My side, Becky, my side!” moaned the old creature. “You
promised to rub it for me?”
“Wait a minute,” I said, “I’ll go and fetch some liniment.”
I ran downstairs, and took from my little bedroom a bottle of
liniment which I had bought at the chemist’s in expectation of such
an emergency as this. Then I rubbed the old lady’s side, and soon
afforded her relief.
 “What a soft hand you’ve got!” she said, “It’s almost like a lady’s
hand.”
I sighed. “I haven’t been a common servant all my life,” I said.
“But never mind me. Do you feel easier?”
“I am another woman, dear,” she replied. “O dear, O dear!”
And the old creature began to cry, and moan, and shake. I pitied
her most truly at that moment.
“What are you crying for?” I asked.
“O dear, O dear!” she repeated. “I had a daughter once, who
might have looked after me in my old days. My Lizzie! my Lizzie!”
She continued to weep in the most distressing manner, calling upon
her Lizzie in touching tones. I asked tenderly if her daughter was
dead, and her reply was—
“God only knows!”
And then she related to me, often stopping to sob and moan in
grief, a sad, sad story of a girl who had left her home, and had
almost broken her parents’ hearts. I cannot stop now to tell you the
story as this lonely woman told it to me, for my fingers are
beginning to pain me with the strain of this long letter, and I have
still something more to say which more nearly concerns ourselves.
Bear in mind that from the time Richard Manx had entered the
house, no other persons had entered or left it. Had the street door
been opened I should for a certainty have remarked it.
Mrs. Bailey had told the whole of the sad story of her daughter’s
shame and desertion, and was lying in tears on her bed. I was
sitting by her side, animated by genuine sympathy for the lonely old
lady. Suddenly an expression of alarm appeared on her face, which
gradually turned quite white.
“Becky!” she cried.
I leant over her, my heart beating quick, for she had startled me. I
feared that her last hour had arrived. I was mistaken. It was fear of
another kind which had aroused her from the contemplation of her
special sorrow.
“Don’t you hear?” she asked, presently.
 “What?” I exclaimed, following her looks and words in an agony of
expectation.
“The next house,” she whispered, “where the man was murdered!
The empty house! Something is moving there!”
I threw myself quickly on the bed, and lay by the old lady’s side.
“There, Becky! Do you hear it now?”
“Hush,” I whispered. “Don’t speak or stir! Let us be sure.”
It was not possible that both of us could be dreaming the same
dream at the same moment. There was a sound as of some person
moving in No. 119.
“Answer me in a whisper,” I said, with my mouth close to Mrs.
Bailey’s ear. “The room in which the murder was committed is on a
level with this?”
“Yes,” she replied, in a whisper, as I had directed.
“Do you think the sounds are in that room?”
“I am sure of it, Becky.”
I lay still for about the space of a another minute. Then I rose
from the bed.
“What are you going to do, Becky?” asked Mrs. Bailey; “Don’t
leave me!”
“I must,” I said, firmly. “For about five minutes. I will come back. I
promise you faithfully I will come back. Are you afraid to be left
alone?”
“Somebody—or something—might come into the room while you
are away,” said the old lady, shuddering. “If you must go, lock me in,
and take the key with you. But don’t be longer than five minutes, if
you have a spark of pity for a poor, deserted old woman!”
I acted upon her suggestion. I locked her in and went—— Where?
Upstairs or down? Up, to Richard Manx’s room.
I reached his door and listened. No sound came to my ears—no
sound of a waking or sleeping inmate of the room. I retreated down
half-a-dozen stairs with a heavy tread. No one appeared at the attic
door to inquire the meaning of the noise. I ascended the stairs
again, and, with a woman’s touch, placed my hand on the handle of
the door. It yielded. I looked into the room. No person was there. I
ventured boldly in. The room was empty!
Assuring myself of this, I left the room as quickly as I had entered
it. I did not pause at Mrs. Bailey’s room on the first floor. I went
down to the street door, and quietly put up the door chain. Now, no
person could possibly enter or leave the house without my
knowledge.
Then I went down to Mrs. Preedy in the kitchen, and said that
Mrs. Bailey was unwell, and wished me to stop with her for a little
while.
“Stop, and welcome, Becky,” said Mrs. Preedy, with the sweetest
smile.
What a power is money! My fanciful legacy of a paltry three
hundred pounds had placed this woman and me on an equality, and
she was the first to acknowledge it.
I ascended to Mrs. Bailey’s room, and unlocked her door. I had
really not been absent for more than five minutes, but she said it
seemed like thirty. I remained with her for over an hour, during
which time the muffled sounds in the next house continued. I
convinced myself that they could not be heard in any other room by
going out, now and again, for a few moments, and listening in other
rooms on the first and second floors. At length the sound ceased,
and after waiting a quarter of an hour longer without it being
renewed, I bade Mrs. Bailey good night, telling her, in a cheerful
voice, that she was mistaken in supposing there were no mice in the
empty house next door.
“Are you sure it is mice, Becky?” she asked, anxiously.
“Am I sure?” I repeated, laughing. “Why, you nervous old
creature, what else can it be? Let us make a bargain to say nothing
about it except to each other, or we shall have everybody laughing
at us. And what would be worse, the detectives might appear again.”
The bargain was made, and I kissed the old lady, and left her.
I went straight upstairs, cautiously, as before. Richard Manx was
in his room!
 I went down to the street door. The chain was up! A convincing
proof that it was this very Richard Manx, our young man lodger—the
man who paints and wears a wig, and who is flat-footed—whose
movements I had heard through the wall which divides Mrs. Bailey’s
room from the room in which the murder was committed.
I am too tired to write a minute longer. This is the longest letter I
have ever written. Good night, dear love. God bless and guard you!
Your ever devoted,
Becky.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
THE “EVENING MOON” RE-OPENS THE SUBJECT OF THE GREAT PORTER SQUARE
MURDER, AND RELATES A ROMANTIC STORY CONCERNING THE MURDERED
MAN AND HIS WIDOW.

A few hours before Becky wrote this last letter to the man she
loved, the Evening Moon presented its readers with a Supplement
entirely devoted to particulars relating to the murder in No. 119,
Great Porter Square. The Supplement was distinguished by a
number of sensational headings which the street news-vendors
industriously circulated with the full force of their lungs:—

THE MURDER IN GREAT PORTER SQUARE.

A ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE.

A HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS.

WEALTH, BEAUTY, AND LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

After a lapse of several weeks, we re-open the subject of the

murder in Great Porter Square. Although the murderer is still at
large, the affair has advanced another and most important stage,
and one element of mystery in connection with it is satisfactorily
cleared up. We are about to disclose the name of the murdered
man, and at the same time to lay before our readers certain
interesting information relating to him which without doubt will be
eagerly read. For this information we are again indebted to the
Special Reporter, whose graphic account of the trial and of his
subsequent adventures in relation to Antony Cowlrick, the person
accused of the murder, has been circulated far and wide.
 Until now, the murder in Great Porter Square has been
distinguished by two unsatisfactory features. The first and most
important is that the murderer was undiscovered. Unhappily no light
has been thrown upon this part of the affair. The second, and most
interesting feature, was that the man who was murdered was
unknown. We do not remember a parallel case. But the murdered
man is now identified, and his widow is lamenting his cruel and
untimely death. Before our readers reach the end of our article,
which, for the purpose of better description, we throw into narrative
form, they will indeed admit that truth is stranger than fiction.
There lived in the West of London, near to one of our most
fashionable parks, a gentleman of the name of Holdfast. He was a
widower, having lost his wife a year before the commencement of
our narrative. He had but one child, a son named Frederick, who
was at Oxford, with a liberal allowance. The son is described as a
young gentleman with engaging manners, and of a lively disposition;
it was whispered also, that he was given to dissipation, and had
made his father’s purse suffer to a woeful extent. There is nothing
extraordinary in this. What are rich fathers good for in this world if
they send their sons to college and keep their pockets buttoned?
Money lenders must live, and they take especial good care to thrive
and grow fat. Young gentlemen must see life, and they take especial
good care to drink deep of the intoxicating cup, and to sow a
plentiful crop of wild oats. It is an old story, and our readers will
have no difficulty in supplying certain accessories in the shape of
pretty women, late suppers, horse racing, gambling, kite flying, post
obits, and the thousand and one other commonplace but important
elements in the younger days of manhood in the life of an only son.
The death of Mr. Holdfast’s wife was a severe blow to him; his son
was left to him, truly; but what comfort to the bereaved father could
a son have been who was endowed with vicious tastes, and whose
career of dissipation was capped by a depraved association with
degraded women—especially with one with whom he formed a close
connection, which would have broken his father’s heart, had that
father himself not been of a self-sustaining, proud, and high-minded
disposition. The news of his son’s disgraceful connection, although it
did not break the father’s heart, was the means of effecting a breach
between the father and son which was destined never to be healed.
Before, however, this severance took place, an important change
occurred in Mr. Holdfast’s household. Mr. Holdfast married again, a
very lovely woman, whose name, before she became Mrs. Holdfast,
was Lydia Wilson.
The lady was young, and an orphan. Her relatives were far away
in the country, and she was alone in London. Her entire wealth
amounted to about five hundred pounds in United States bonds. It
was while she was on a visit to the City, with the intention of
converting these bonds into English money, that she and Mr.
Holdfast first met. The Royal Exchange does not suggest itself as the
most likely place in the world in which a gentleman of Mr. Holdfast’s
age and character would fall in love at first sight. It happened,
however. He saw the young lady looking about her, perplexed and
bewildered by the bustling throng of clerks, brokers, and
speculators; it was the busiest time of the day, and it could not
escape Mr. Holdfast’s notice, his attention having been first arrested
by the loveliness of her face and figure, that she was utterly unused
to the busy scene in which she found herself. The young lady made
an attempt to cross the road between the Mansion House and the
Royal Exchange; she became confused amid the bewildering tangle
of vehicles, and was in danger of being run over, when Mr. Holdfast
hastened to her rescue. The road safely crossed, she looked into Mr.
Holdfast’s face and thanked him. So there, in the midst of the
world’s busiest mart, the story of a romance was commenced which
might serve novelists with a tempting theme. For the particulars of
the story we are now relating we are indebted to the lady herself,
still young and beautiful, but plunged into the deepest grief by the
murder of her husband. It is difficult for us to appropriately describe
her modesty and innocent confidence in the interview between her
and our Reporter. It is not that she is beautiful, and one of England’s
fairest daughters, but it is that truth dwells in her face and eyes. Her
voice is peculiarly soft and sweet, and to doubt her when she speaks
is an impossibility.
Nothing was more natural than that Mr. Holdfast, having thus far
assisted the young lady, should inquire if he could be of any further
use to her. Miss Lydia Wilson really was in quest of a broker, to
whom she had been recommended to negotiate the sale of her
bonds, but in her confusion and terror she had forgotten both name
and address. Ascertaining the nature of her mission, Mr. Holdfast
offered to introduce her to a respectable firm; she accepted his offer,
and they walked together to the broker’s office. On the way they
conversed, and Mr. Holdfast learnt, among other particulars, that the
young lady was an orphan, and that these bonds represented all
that she had in the world to depend upon. In the broker’s office the
young lady produced her securities and gave them to the principal of
the firm. He sent out at once to ascertain the exact price of the
market; the clerk departed, with the bonds in his possession, and
was absent longer than he was expected to be. At length he
returned, and requested a private interview with his employer. The
interview took place, and the broker presently returned, and inquired
of Miss Wilson how she became possessed of the bonds.
The lady replied haughtily that she was not in a broker’s office to
be catechised by a stranger about her private affairs; and upon that
Mr. Holdfast also spoke warmly in the lady’s behalf. The broker
rejoined that Miss Lydia Wilson was as much a stranger to him as he
was to her. Again, Mr. Holdfast, seeing that the lovely woman who
had been thrown upon his protection was agitated by the broker’s
manner, interposed.
“You forget,” he said, “that it was I who introduced this lady to
your firm. Is not my introduction a sufficient guarantee?”
“Amply sufficient,” said the broker. “But business is business; such
securities as these cannot easily be disposed of.”
“Why?” inquired Mr. Holdfast.
“Because,” said the broker, “they are forgeries.”
“Then I am ruined!” cried the young lady.
 “No,” said Mr. Holdfast. “If the bonds are forgeries, you shall not
be the loser—that is, if you will confer upon me the honour of
accepting me as your banker.”
The young lady could not continue so delicate a conversation in
the presence of a man who seemed to doubt her. She rose to leave
the broker’s office, and when she and Mr. Holdfast were again in the
open air, he said:
“Allow me to know more of you. I shall undoubtedly be able to
assist you. You cannot conceal from me that the unexpected
discovery of this forgery is likely to deeply embarrass you. Do not
consider me impertinent when I hazard the guess that you had an
immediate use for some part of the money you expected to receive
from the sale of these securities.”
“You guess rightly,” said the young lady; “I wished to discharge a
few trifling debts.” Her lips trembled, and her eyes were filled with
tears.
“And—asking you to pardon my presumption—your purse is not
too heavily weighted.”
“I have just,” said the young lady, producing her purse, and
opening it, “three shillings and sixpence to live upon.”
Now, although this was a serious declaration, the young lady,
when she made it, spoke almost merrily. Her lips no longer trembled,
her eyes were bright again. These sudden changes of humour, from
sorrow to gaiety, from pensiveness to light-heartedness, are not her
least charming attributes. Small wonder that Mr. Holdfast was
captivated by them and by her beauty!
“What a child you are!” he exclaimed. “Three shillings and
sixpence is not sufficient to keep you for half a day.”
“Is it not?” asked the young lady, with delightful simplicity. “What
a pity it is that we cannot live like fairies.”
“My dear young lady,” remarked Mr. Holdfast, taking her hand in
his, “you sadly need a protector. Have you really any objection to
letting me hear the story of these bonds?”
She related it to him without hesitation. It was simple enough.
Some years ago, being already motherless, her father died, and left
her in the care of his sister, a married woman with a family. The
orphan girl had a guardian who, singular to say, she never saw. He
lived in London, she in the country. The guardian, she understood
from her father’s last words, held in trust for her a sum of money,
represented by bonds, which she would receive when she became
twenty-one years of age. In the meantime she was to live with her
aunt, who was to be paid from the money due from time to time for
interest on the bonds. The payment for her board and lodging was
forwarded regularly by the young lady’s guardian, and she looked
forward impatiently to the time when she would become her own
mistress. She was unhappy in the house of her aunt, who treated
her more like a dependent than a relative and a lady.
“I think,” said Mrs. Holdfast to our Reporter, “that she was
disappointed the money had not been left to her instead of me, and
that she would have been glad if I had died, so that she might
obtain possession of it as next of kin. It would not have benefited
her, the bonds being of no value, for it was hardly likely she would
have met with such a friend as Mr. Holdfast proved to me—the best,
the most generous of men! And I have lost him! I have lost him!”
Bursts of grief such as this were frequent during the interview,
which we are throwing into the form of a narrative, with no more
licence, we hope, than we are entitled to use.
The story went on to its natural end. The young lady’s position in
the house to which her father confided her became almost
unendurable, but she was compelled to suffer in silence. A small
allowance for pocket money was sent to her by her guardian, and
the best part of this she saved to defray the expenses to London and
to enable her to live for a while; for she was resolved to leave her
aunt on the very day she reached the age of twenty-one.
“Do I look older?” she asked of our Reporter.
He replied, with truth and gallantry, that he would have scarcely
taken her for that.
“You flatter me,” she said, with a sad smile; “I feel as if I were
fifty. This dreadful blow has made an old woman of me!”
 To conclude the story she related to Mr. Holdfast, the day before
she was twenty-one she received a packet from her guardian in
London, and a letter saying that he was going abroad, to America
she believed, perhaps never to return, and that he completed the
trust imposed upon him by her father by sending her her little
fortune. It was contained in the packet, and consisted of the United
States bonds which had that day been declared to be forgeries. The
departure of her guardian did not cause her to waver in her
determination to leave her aunt’s home the moment she was entitled
to do so. Her life had been completely wretched and unhappy, and
her only desire was to place a long distance between herself and her
cruel relative, so that the woman could not harass her. The day
arrived, and with a light heart, with her fortune in her pocket, Lydia
Wilson, without even wishing her aunt good-bye or giving the
slightest clue as to the direction of her flight, left her home, and
took a railway ticket to London. “Not all the way to London first,”
said the young lady; “I broke the journey half-way, so that if my
aunt followed me, she would have the greater difficulty in
discovering me.” The young lady arrived in London, and took a
modest lodging in what she believed to be a respectable part of the
City. When she met Mr. Holdfast, she had been in London five
weeks, and the little money she had saved was gone, with the
exception of three shillings and sixpence. Then she fell back upon
the bonds, and considered herself as rich as a princess.
“But even this money,” said Mr. Holdfast to her, “would not last for
ever.”
“O, yes, it would,” insisted the young lady; “I would have made it
last for ever!”
What was to be done with so impracticable and charming a
creature, with a young lady, utterly alone and without resources, and
whose tastes, as she herself admits, were always of an expensive
kind?
Mr. Holdfast saw the danger which beset her, and determined to
shield her from harm. To have warned her of the pitfalls and traps
with which such a city as London is dotted would have been next to
useless. To such an innocent mind as hers, the warning itself would
have seemed like a trap to snare the woman it was intended to save.
“Have you any objection,” said Mr. Holdfast, when the young lady’s
story was finished, “to my endeavouring to find the guardian who
has wronged you? America is now a near land, and I could enlist the
services of men who would not fail to track the scoundrel.”
But to this proposition the young lady would not consent. The
bonds might have been given to her guardian by her dead father. In
that case, the honour of a beloved parent might be called into
question. Anything in preference to that; poverty, privation, perhaps
an early death! Mr. Holdfast was touched to his inmost soul by the
pathos of this situation.
“I will keep the bonds,” he said, “and shall insist upon your
accepting the offer of my friendship.”
“Promise me, then,” said the young lady, conquered by his
earnestness and undoubted honesty of intention, “that you will take
no steps to compromise the honoured name of my dear father.
Promise me that you will not show the bonds to strangers.”
“No eye but mine shall see them,” said Mr. Holdfast, opening his
safe and depositing the prized securities in a secret drawer. “And
now,” he continued, “you bank with me, and you draw from me fifty
pounds, represented by eight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns in
gold. Here they are. Count them. No? Very well. Count them when
you get home, and take great care of them. You little know the
roguery of human nature. There’s not a day that you cannot read in
the London papers accounts of ladies having their pockets picked
and their purses stolen. Let me see your purse. Why, it is a fairy
purse! You cannot get half of this money into it. My dear young lady,
we cannot live like the fairies. Human creatures are bound to be, to
some small extent, practical. Take my purse—it is utterly unfit for
your delicate hands, but it will answer its present purpose. See. I
pack the money safely in it; take it home and put it in a place of
safety.”
“How can I repay you?” asked the young lady, impressed no less
by this gentleman’s generosity than by his wonderful kindness of
manner.
“By saying we are friends,” he replied, “and by promising to come
to see me soon again.”
“Of course, I must do that,” she said, gaily, “to see that my banker
does not run away.”
The next thing he asked for was her address, but she was not
inclined, at first, to give it to him; he appreciated the reason for her
disinclination, and said that he had no intention of calling upon her,
and that he wanted the address to use only in the event of its being
necessary to write to her.
“I can trust you,” she said, and complied with his wish.
To his surprise and gratification the young lady, of her own accord,
paid him a visit on the following day. She entered his office with a
smiling face, causing, no doubt, quite a flutter in the hearts of Mr.
Holdfast’s clerks and bookkeepers. It is not often so fair a vision is
seen in a London’s merchant’s place of business.
From the young lady’s appearance Mr. Holdfast was led to believe
that she had news of a joyful nature to communicate, and he was
therefore very much astonished when she said, in the pleasantest
manner:
“I have lost your purse.”
“With the money in it?” he inquired, his tone expressing his
astonishment.
“Yes, I am sorry to say,” she replied, laughing at his consternation,
“with the money in it. I did not like to come back yesterday, for fear
you would scold me.”
“You lost it yesterday, then?”
“Yes, within an hour of my leaving your office.”
“How on earth did it happen?”
“In the simplest manner possible. You were quite right, Mr.
Holdfast, in saying that I did not know the roguery of human nature.
I was standing at a cake shop, looking in at the window—I am so
fond of cakes!—and two little girls and a woman were standing by
my side. The children were talking—they would like this cake, they
would like that—and such a many round O’s fell from their lips that I
could not help being amused. Poor little things! They looked very
hungry, and I quite pitied them. Some one tapped my left shoulder,
and I turned round to see who it was—when, would you believe it?—
your purse, which was in my right hand, was snatched from me like
lightning. And the extraordinary part of the affair is, that I saw no
one behind me, nor any person except the woman and two children
within yards of me!”
She related the particulars of the robbery as though it had not
happened to her and did not affect her, but some stranger who had
plenty of money, and would not feel the loss.
“What did you do?” asked Mr. Holdfast.
“I laughed. I couldn’t help it—it was so clever! Of course I looked
about me, but that did not bring back your purse. Then I took the
poor children into the cake shop, and treated them to cakes, and
had some myself, and gave them what money remained of my three
shillings and sixpence, and sent them home quite happy.”
“And left yourself without a penny?” said Mr. Holdfast, almost
overcome with delight, as he afterwards told her, at her childish
innocence, simplicity and kindness.
“Yes,” she replied, overjoyed that he did not scold her, “I left
myself without a penny.”
“You will have to buy me another purse,” he said.
The young lady exhibited her own little fairy porte-monnaie, and
turned it out—there was not a sixpence in it. “You must give me
some money to do it with,” she said.
“You are not fit to be trusted with money,” he said; “I really am
puzzled what to do with you.”
Upon this she burst into tears; her helpless position, and his
goodness and tenderness, overcame her.
“If you cry like that,” he said softly, “I shall never forgive myself.”
Her depression vanished; her sunny look returned; and they
conversed together thereafter as though they had known each other
for years—as though he had been her father’s friend, and had
nursed her on his knee when she was a child. Needless to say, he
made matters right with this simple, innocent, confiding young lady,
and that from that time there existed between them a bond which
was destined to ripen into the closest and most binding tie which
man and woman can contract. At first she looked upon him as her
second father, but insensibly there dawned upon her soul a love as
sweet and strong as if he had been a twenty years younger man
than he was. When he asked her to be his wife, telling her that he
most truly loved her, that he would devote himself to her and make
her the happiest woman in the world, she raised a thousand
objections.
“One objection would be sufficient,” he said, sadly, “if you cannot
forget it. My age.”
She declared, indeed, that that was not an obstacle—that she
looked up to him as she could to no other man—that he was the
noblest being who had ever crossed her path of life, and that she
could never, never forget him. Mr. Holdfast urged her then to explain
to him in plain terms the precise nature of her objections.
“I can make you happy,” he said.
“You could make any woman happy,” she replied.
“And I should be the happiest man—you would make me so.”
“I would try,” she replied, softly.
“Then tell me why you raise cruel obstacles in the way of our
happiness. I will marry you by force if you are not candid with me.”
“You know nothing of my family,” she said; “my parents are dead,
and the few relatives I have I would not allow to darken the
threshold of your door.”
“Nor shall they. You shall be the mistress and the master of my
house, and I will be your slave.”
“For shame to talk in that way to a foolish girl like me—to a girl
who is almost nameless, and who has not a shilling to her fortune!”
“Have I not more than enough? Do you wish to make me believe
that you do not understand my character?”
“No; I do understand it, and if you were poor like me, or I were
rich like you— But even then there would be an obstacle hard to
surmount. Your son is but a few years older than myself—he might
be my brother. I should be ashamed to look him in the face. He
would say I married you for your money. Before the wedding day,
were he to say a word to me, were he to give one look, to touch my
pride, I would run away, and you would never, never find me. Ah! let
us say good-bye—let us shake hands and part! It is best so. Then I
shall never have anything to reproach myself with. Then I should not
be made to suffer from the remarks of envious people that I tricked
you into a marriage with a penniless, friendless girl!”
“As God is my judge,” he cried, “you shall be my wife, and no
other man’s! I will not let you escape me! And to make matters sure,
we will give neither my son—who would bring my name to shame—
nor envious people the power to say a word to hurt your feelings.
We will be married privately, by the registrar. Leave all to me. I look
upon you as my wife from this day. Place your hand in mine, and say
you will marry me, or I will never more believe in woman’s truth.”
His impetuosity carried the day—he spoke with the fire of a young
man of twenty-five. She placed her hand in his, and said,
“I am yours.”
Three weeks afterwards, Lydia Wilson became Mr. Holdfast’s wife,
and his son Frederick was in ignorance that he had married again.
The date of the marriage was exactly two years to the day before
the fatal night upon which Mr. Holdfast was found murdered in
No. 119 Great Porter Square.
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