stitch in the ends of the fingers, when a stitch gave way; and the
consequence was that we were perfectly familiar with Miss Blake's
nails--and those nails looked as if, at an early period of her life, a
hammer had been brought heavily down upon them. Mrs. Elmsdale might well
be a beauty, for she had taken not only her own share of the good looks
of the family, but her sister's also.

We used often, at the office, to marvel why Miss Blake ever wore a
collar, or a tucker, or a frill, or a pair of cuffs. So far as clean
linen was concerned, she would have appeared infinitely brighter and
fresher had she and female frippery at once parted company. Her laces
were always in tatters, her collars soiled, her cuffs torn, and her
frills limp. I wonder what the natives thought of her in France! In
London, we decided--and accurately, I believe--that Miss Blake, in the
solitude of her own chamber, washed and got-up her cambrics and fine
linen--and it was a "get-up" and a "put-on" as well.

Had any other woman, dressed like Miss Blake, come to our office, I fear
the clerks would not have been over-civil to her. But Miss Blake was our
own, our very own. She had grown to be as our very flesh and blood. We
did not love her, but she was associated with us by the closest ties
that can subsist between lawyer and client. Had anything happened to
Miss Blake, we should, in the event of her death, have gone in a body to
her funeral, and felt a want in our lives for ever after.

But Miss Blake had not the slightest intention of dying: we were not
afraid of that calamity. The only thing we really did dread was that
some day she might insist upon laying the blame of River Hall remaining
uninhabited on our shoulders, and demand that Mr. Craven should pay her
the rent out of his own pocket.