caress.

Mrs. Beckett bustled off, leaving Charlotte to restore herself to the
little handy piece of household mechanism which kind, patient,
motherly training had rendered her.

Charlotte Arnold had been fairly educated at a village school, and
tenderly brought up at home till left an orphan, when she had been
taken into her present place. She had much native refinement and
imagination, which, half cultivated, produced a curious mixture of
romance and simplicity. Her insatiable taste for reading was
meritorious in the eyes of Mrs. Beckett, who, unlearned herself,
thought any book better than 'gadding about,' and, after hearing her
daily portion of the Bible, listened to the most adventurous
romances, with a sense of pleasure and duty in keeping the girl to
her book. She loved the little fragile orphan, taught her, and had
patience with her, and trusted the true high sound principle which
she recognised in Charlotte, amid much that she could not fathom, and
set down alternately to the score of scholarship and youth.

Taste, modesty, and timidity were guards to Charlotte. A broad stare
was terror to her, and she had many a fictitious horror, as well as
better-founded ones. Truly she said, she hated the broad words
Martha had used. One who craved a true knight to be twitted with a
sweetheart! Martha and Tom Madison were almost equally distasteful,
as connected with such a reproach; and the little maiden drew into
herself, promenaded her fancy in castles and tournaments, kept under
Jane's wing, and was upheld by her as a sensible, prudent girl.