dignity of station.

The Hall is her world, and the history of the family the only history
she knows, excepting that which she has read in the Bible. She can
give a biography of every portrait in the picture gallery, and is a
complete family chronicle.

She is treated with great consideration by the Squire. Indeed, Master
Simon tells me that there is a traditional anecdote current among the
servants, of the Squire's having been seen kissing her in the picture
gallery, when they were both young. As, however, nothing further was
ever noticed between them, the circumstance caused no great scandal;
only she was observed to take to reading Pamela shortly afterwards,
and refused the hand of the village inn-keeper, whom she had
previously smiled on.

The old butler, who was formerly footman, and a rejected admirer of
hers, used to tell the anecdote now and then, at those little cabals
that will occasionally take place among the most orderly servants,
arising from the common propensity of the governed to talk against
administration; but he has left it off, of late years, since he has
risen into place, and shakes his head rebukingly when it is mentioned.

It is certain that the old lady will, to this day, dwell on the looks
of the Squire when he was a young man at college; and she maintains
that none of his sons can compare with their father when he was of
their age, and was dressed out in his full suit of scarlet, with his
hair craped and powdered, and his three-cornered hat.

She has an orphan niece, a pretty, soft-hearted baggage, named Phoebe