She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterward
wondered that my employer had not told me more of her.
I slept little that night--I was too much excited;
and this astonished me, too, I recollect, remained with me,
adding to my sense of the liberality with which I was treated.
The large, impressive room, one of the best in the house, the great
state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured draperies,
the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see
myself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinary
charm of my small charge--as so many things thrown in.
It was thrown in as well, from the first moment, that I
should get on with Mrs. Grose in a relation over which,
on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded.
The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have
made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being
so glad to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she
was so glad--stout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman--
as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much.
I wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it,
and that, with reflection, with suspicion, might of course
have made me uneasy.

But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a
connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my
little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably
more than anything else to do with the restlessness that,
before morning, made me several times rise and wander
about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect;
to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn,
to look at such portions of the rest of the house as I