of enemies.
Agnes, on the other hand, took the very same view of the case as herself;
and, though otherwise the gentlest of all gentle creatures, yet here, from
the generous fervour of her reverence for justice, and her abhorrence of
oppression, she gave herself no trouble to moderate the energy of her
language: nor did I, on my part, feeling that substantially she was in the
right, think it of importance to dispute about the exact degrees of the
wrong done or the indignation due to it. In this way it happened naturally
enough that at one and the same time, though little contemplating either of
these results, Agnes had done a prodigious service to the poor desolate
mother by breaking the force of her misery, as well as by arming the active
agencies of indignation against the depressing ones of solitary grief, and
for herself had won a most grateful and devoted friend, who would have gone
through fire and water to serve her, and was thenceforwards most anxious for
some opportunity to testify how deep had been her sense of the goodness
shown to her by her benign young mistress, and how incapable of suffering
abatement by time. It remains to add, which I have slightly noticed before,
that this woman was of unusual personal strength: her bodily frame matched
with her intellectual: and I notice this _now_ with the more emphasis,
because I am coming rapidly upon ground where it will be seen that this one
qualification was of more summary importance to us--did us more 'yeoman's
service' at a crisis the most awful--than other qualities of greater name
and pretension. _Hannah_ was this woman's Christian name; and her name and
her memory are to me amongst the most hallowed of my earthly recollections.

One of her two fellow-servants, known technically amongst us as the
'parlour-maid,' was also, but not equally, attached to her mistress; and
merely because her nature, less powerfully formed and endowed, did not allow
her to entertain or to comprehend any service equally fervid of passion or
of impassioned action. She, however, was good, affectionate, and worthy to
be trusted. But a third there was, a nursery-maid, and therefore more
naturally and more immediately standing within the confidence of her
mistress--her I could not trust: her I suspected. But of that hereafter.
Meantime, Hannah--she upon whom I leaned as upon a staff in all which
respected her mistress, ran up-stairs, after I had spoken and received her
answer, in order h