Frederick's partner, who saw a likeness in Marcella to a long-dead small
sister of her own, and surreptitiously indulged "the little wild-cat,"
as the school generally dubbed the Speaker's great-niece, whenever she
could.

But with the third year fresh elements and interests had entered in.
Romance awoke, and with it certain sentimental affections. In the first
place, a taste for reading had rooted itself--reading of the adventurous
and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had
absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one
people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have
opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must
use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer
occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen--what
concentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumes
was Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another was Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"; a
third was a little red volume of "Marmion" which an aunt had given her.
She probably never read any of them through--she had not a particle of
industry or method in her composition--but she lived in them. The parts
which it bored her to read she easily invented for herself, but the
scenes and passages which thrilled her she knew by heart; she had no
gift for verse-making, but she laboriously wrote a long poem on the
death of Rienzi, and she tried again and again with a not inapt hand to
illustrate for herself in pen and ink the execution of Wallace.

But all these loves for things and ideas were soon as nothing in
comparison with a friendship, and an adoration.

To take the adoration first. When Marcella came to Cliff House she was
recommended by the same relation who gave her "Marmion" to the kind