them, though she was fitted for the position neither by education nor
character. Mistress Margery Wimpole was a poor, dull creature, having no
wilful harm in her, but endowed with neither dignity nor wit. She lived
in fear of Sir Jeoffry, and in fear of the servants, who knew full well
that she was an humble dependant, and treated her as one. She hid away
with her pupils' in the bare school-room in the west wing, and taught
them to spell and write and work samplers. She herself knew no more.

The child who had cost her mother her life had no happier prospect than
her sisters. Her father felt her more an intruder than they had been, he
being of the mind that to house and feed and clothe, howsoever poorly,
these three burdens on him was a drain scarcely to be borne. His wife
had been a toast and not a fortune, and his estate not being great, he
possessed no more than his drinking, roystering, and gambling made full
demands upon.

The child was baptized Clorinda, and bred, so to speak, from her first
hour, in the garret and the servants' hall. Once only did her father
behold her during her infancy, which event was a mere accident, as he had
expressed no wish to see her, and only came upon her in the nurse's arms
some weeks after her mother's death. 'Twas quite by chance. The woman,
who was young and buxom, had begun an intrigue with a groom, and having a
mind to see him, was crossing the stable-yard, carrying her charge with
her, when Sir Jeoffry came by to visit a horse.

The woman came plump upon him, entering a stable as he came out of it;
she gave a frightened start, and almost let the child drop, at which it
set up a strong, shrill cry, and thus Sir Jeoffry saw it, and seeing it,
was thrown at once into a passion which expressed itself after the manner
of all his emotion, and left the nurse quaking with fear.