her servants; for Jane,
though she could hardly read, and carried her accounts in her head, had
manners of a gentle warmth and propriety that had a grace of their own,
even in her racy, bad grammar; and there was no withstanding the merry
smile that twitched up one side of her mouth, while her eyes twinkled
in the varied moods prompted by an inexhaustible fund of good temper,
sympathy, and affection, but the fulness of her love was for the
distant 'Master Oliver,' whose young nursery-maid she had been. Her
eyes winked between tears and smiles when she heard that Miss Mary had
seen him but five months ago, and she inquired after him, gloried in
his prosperity, and talked of his coming home, with far less reserve
than his mother had done.

Mary was struck, also, with the pretty, modest looks of the little
underling, and remarked on them as they proceeded to the inspection of
the next house.

'Yes,' said Louis, 'Charlotte is something between a wood sorrel and a
five-plume moth. Tom Madison, as usual, shows exquisite taste. She is
a perfect Lady of Eschalott.'

'Now, Louis!' said his aunt, standing still, and really looking
annoyed, 'you know I cannot encourage any such thing. Poor little
Charlotte is an orphan, and I am all the more responsible for her.'

'There's a chivalry in poor Tom--'

'Nonsense!' said his aunt, as if resolved not to hear him out, because
afraid of herself. 'Don't say any more about it. I wish I had never
allowed of his bringing your messages.'

'Who set him down in the kitchen to drink a cup of beer?' said Louis,
mischievously.

'Ah! well! one comfort is, that girls never care for boys of the same
age,' replied Aunt Catharine, as she turned the key, and admitted them
into No. 7; when Fitzjocelyn confused Mary's judgment with his
recommendations, till Aunt Catharine pointing out the broken shutter,
and asking if he would not have been better employed in fetching the
carpenter, than in hectoring the magistrates, he promised to make up
for it, fetched a piece of wood and James's tools, and was quickly at
work, his Aunt only warning him, that if he lost Jem's tools she would
not say it was her fault.

By the time Mary's imagination had portrayed what paper, paint,
furniture, and habitation might make the house, and had discerned how
to arrange a pretty little study in case of her father's return; he had
completed the repair in a workmanlike manner, and putting two fingers
to his cap, ask