It must be admitted, however, that by this time, notwithstanding the
various shocks she had received, Miss Belinda had begun to discover in
her young guest divers good qualities which appealed to her
affectionate and susceptible old heart. In the first place, the girl
had no small affectations: indeed, if she had been less unaffected she
might have been less subject to severe comment. She was good-natured,
and generous to extravagance. Her manner toward Mary Anne never ceased
to arouse Miss Belinda to interest. There was not any condescension
whatever in it, and yet it could not be called a vulgarly familiar
manner: it was rather an astonishingly simple manner, somehow
suggestive of a subtile recognition of Mary Anne's youth, and ill-luck
in not having before her more lively prospects. She gave Mary Anne
presents in the shape of articles of clothing at which Slowbridge
would have exclaimed in horror if the recipient had dared to wear them;
but, when Miss Belinda expressed her regret at these indiscretions,
Octavia was quite willing to rectify her mistakes.

"Ah, well!" she said, "I can give her some money, and she can buy some
things for herself." Which she proceeded to do; and when, under her
mistress's direction, Mary Anne purchased a stout brown merino, she took
quite an interest in her struggles at making it.

"I wouldn't make it so short in the waist and so full in the skirt, if I
were you," she said. "There's no reason why it shouldn't fit, you know,"
thereby winning the house-maiden's undying adoration, and adding much to
the shapeliness of the garment.

"I am sure she has a good heart," Miss Belinda said to herself, as the
days went by. "She is like Martin in that. I dare say she finds me very