he was always glad
to see them, and always treated them well. She was ready to feed
them at all times; she was not candid or malicious when backbiting
them; she never threw the burden of her pleasures on her friends'
shoulders--as ladies at Littlebath will sometimes do. She did not
boast either of her purse or her acquaintance; and as long as she was
allowed to do exactly what she liked she generally kept her temper.
She had an excellent digestion, and greatly admired the same quality
in other people. She did not much care what she said of others, but
dearly liked to have mischief spoken of herself. Some one once had
said--or very likely no one had said it, but a _soupcon_ of a hint
had in some way reached her own ears--that she had left Torquay
without paying her bills. It was at any rate untrue, but she had
sedulously spread the report; and now wherever she ordered goods,
she would mysteriously tell the tradesman that he had better inquire
about her in Devonshire. She had been seen walking one moonlight
night with a young lad at Bangor: the lad was her nephew; but some
one had perhaps jested about Miss Todd and her beau, and since that
time she was always talking of eloping with her own flesh and blood.

But Miss Todd was not a bad woman. She spent much in feeding those
who perhaps were not hungry; but she fed the hungry also: she
indulged a good deal in silk brocades; but she bought ginghams
as well, and calicos for poor women, and flannel petticoats for
motherless girls. She did go to sleep sometimes in church, and would
sit at a whist-table till two o'clock of a Sunday morning; but having
been selected from a large family by an uncle as his heir, she had
divided her good things with brothers and sisters, and nephews and
nieces. And so there were some hearts that blessed her, and some
friends who loved her with a love other than that of her friends of
Littlebath and Ems, of Jerusalem and Harrowgate.

And she had loved in her early days, and had been told and had
believed that she was loved. But evidence had come to her that her
lover was a scamp--a man without morals and without principle; and
she had torn herself away from him. And Miss Todd had offered to him
money compensation, which the brute had taken; and since that, for
his sake, or rather for her love's sake, she had rejected all further
matrimonial tenders, and was still Miss Todd: and Miss Todd she
intended to remain.

Being such as she was, the world