And now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose

portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became naturally

Rebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to her

benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her power.

Who can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected orphan;

and, if there entered some degree of selfishness into her calculations,

who can say but that her prudence was perfectly justifiable?

"I am alone in the world," said the friendless girl. "I have nothing to look

for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little

pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds

and an establishment secure, poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better

than hers) has only herself and her own wits to trust to. Well, let us

see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable maintenance, and if

some day or the other I cannot show Miss Amelia my real superiority

over her. Not that I dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a

harmless, good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when I can

take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I not?"

Thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the

future for herself--nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles

in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of what else have

young ladies to think, but husbands? Of what else do their dear mammas

think? "I must be my own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling

consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little misadventure

with Jos Sedley.

So she wisely determined to render her position with the Queen's

Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end resolved to make

friends of every one around her who could at all interfere with her

comfort.

As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and a woman,

moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the least

consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all

necessary to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it.

She used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and, though

she treated that lady with every demonstration of cool respect, it was

to the rest of the family that she wisely directed the chief part of

her attentions.

With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly gained, her method

was pretty simple. She did not pester their young brains with too much

learning, but, on the contrary, let them have their own way in regard

to educating themselves; for what instruction is more effectual than

self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond of books, and as there was

in the old library at Queen's Crawley a considerable provision of works

of light literature of the last century, both in the French and English

languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary of the Tape and

Sealing Wax Office at the period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever

troubled the bookshelves but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably,

and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction to

Miss Rose Crawley.




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