were her feet--by no means models as were those of her friend Lady
Eustace. She was a little, thin, quick, graceful creature, whom it was
impossible that you should see without wishing to have near you. A most
unselfish little creature she was, but one who had a well-formed idea of
her own identity. She was quite resolved to be somebody among her fellow-
creatures--not somebody in the way of marrying a lord or a rich man, or
somebody in the way of being a beauty, or somebody as a wit, but somebody
as having a purpose and a use in life. She was the humblest little thing
in the world in regard to any possible putting of herself forward or
needful putting of herself back; and yet, to herself; nobody was her
superior. What she had was her own, whether it was the old grey silk dress
which she had bought with the money she had earned, or the wit which
nature had given her. And Lord Fawn's title was his own, and Lady Fawn's
rank her own. She coveted no man's possessions, and no woman's; but she
was minded to hold by her own. Of present advantages or disadvantages--
whether she had the one or suffered from the other--she thought not at
all. It was her fault that she had nothing of feminine vanity. But no man
or woman was ever more anxious to be effective, to persuade, to obtain
belief, sympathy, and co-operation--not for any result personal to
herself, but because by obtaining these things she could be effective in
the object then before her, be what it might.

One other thing may be told of her. She had given her heart, for good and
all, as she owned to herself, to Frank Greystock. She had owned to herself
that it was so, and had owned to herself that nothing could come of it.
Frank was becoming a man of mark, but was becoming a man of mark without
much money. Of all men he was the last who could afford to marry a
governess. And then, moreover, he had never said a word to make her think
that he loved her. He had called on her once or twice at Fawn Court, as
why should he not? Seeing that there had been friendship between the