smallest
respect or credit from her husband or her child--that woman's life,
while I was at North Villa, must have been a life of the direst mental
suffering to which any human being was ever condemned.

"As time passed, and Margaret grew older, her beauty both of face and
form approached nearer to perfection than I had foreseen, closely as I
watched her. But neither her mind nor her disposition kept pace with
her beauty. I studied her closely, with the same patient, penetrating
observation, which my experience of the world has made it a habit with
me to direct on every one with whom I am brought in contact--I studied
her, I say, intently; and found her worthy of nothing, not even of the
slave-destiny which I had in store for her.

"She had neither heart nor mind, in the higher sense of those words. She
had simply instincts--most of the bad instincts of an animal; none of
the good. The great motive power which really directed her, was
Deceit. I never met with any human being so inherently disingenuous,
so naturally incapable of candour even in the most trifling affairs of
life, as she was. The best training could never have wholly overcome
this vice in her: the education she actually got--an education under
false pretences--encouraged it. Everybody has read, some people
have known, of young girls who have committed the most extraordinary
impostures, or sustained the most infamous false accusations; their
chief motive being often the sheer enjoyment of practising deceit. Of
such characters was the character of Margaret Sherwin.

"She had strong passions, but not their frequent accompaniment--strong
will, and strong intellect. She had some obstinacy, but no firmness.
Appeal in the right way to her vanity, and you could make her do the
thing she had declared she would not do, the minute after she had
made the declaration. As for her mind, it was of the lowest schoolgirl
average. She had a certain knack at learning this thing, and remembering
that; but she understood nothing fairly, felt nothing deeply. If I had
not had my own motive in teaching her, I should have shut the books
again, the first time she and I opened them together, and have given her
up as a fool.

"All, however, that I discovered of bad in her character, never made
me pause in the prosecution of my design; I had carried it too far for
that, before I thoroughly knew her. Besides, what mattered her duplicity
to _me?_--I could see through it. Her strong