or them--too delicate. I
must familiarise my style--but she understands it. Her mother was a
Montmorency."

Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that Miss Sharp,
by the mother's side, was descended. Of course she did not say that her
mother had been on the stage; it would have shocked Mr. Crawley's
religious scruples. How many noble emigres had this horrid revolution
plunged in poverty! She had several stories about her ancestors ere
she had been many months in the house; some of which Mr. Crawley
happened to find in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library,
and which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the
high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this curiosity and
prying into dictionaries, could our heroine suppose that Mr. Crawley
was interested in her?--no, only in a friendly way. Have we not stated
that he was attached to Lady Jane Sheepshanks?

He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety of playing at
backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying that it was a godless amusement, and
that she would be much better engaged in reading "Thrump's Legacy," or
"The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work of a more serious
nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear mother used often to play the same
game with the old Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet,
and so found an excuse for this and other worldly amusements.

But it was not only by playing at backgammon with the Baronet, that the
little governess rendered herself agreeable to her employer. She found
many different ways of being useful to him. She read over, with
indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which, before she
came to Queen's Crawley, he had promised to entertain her. She
volunteered to copy many of his letters, and adroitly altered the
spelling of them so as to suit the usages of the present day. She
became interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the
farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful a
companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom take his
after-breakfast walk without her (and the children of course), when she
would give her advice as to the trees which were to be lopped in the
shrubberies, the garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut,
the horses which were to go to cart or plough. Before she had been a
year at Queen's Crawley she had quite won the Baronet's confidence; and
the conversation at the dinner-table, which