and surreptitiously indulged "the little wild-cat,"
as the school generally dubbed the Speaker's great-niece, whenever she
could.

But with the third year fresh elements and interests had entered in.
Romance awoke, and with it certain sentimental affections. In the first
place, a taste for reading had rooted itself--reading of the adventurous
and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had
absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one
people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have
opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must
use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer
occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen--what
concentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumes
was Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another was Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"; a
third was a little red volume of "Marmion" which an aunt had given her.
She probably never read any of them through--she had not a particle of
industry or method in her composition--but she lived in them. The parts
which it bored her to read she easily invented for herself, but the
scenes and passages which thrilled her she knew by heart; she had no
gift for verse-making, but she laboriously wrote a long poem on the
death of Rienzi, and she tried again and again with a not inapt hand to
illustrate for herself in pen and ink the execution of Wallace.

But all these loves for things and ideas were soon as nothing in
comparison with a friendship, and an adoration.

To take the adoration first. When Marcella came to Cliff House she was
recommended by the same relation who gave her "Marmion" to the kind
offices of the clergyman of the parish, who happened to be known to some
of the Boyce family. He and his wife--they had no children--did their
duty amply by the odd undisciplined child. They asked her to tea once or
twice; they invited her to the school-treat, where she was only
self-conscious and miserably shy; and Mr. Ellerton had at least one
friendly and pastoral talk with Miss Frederick as to the difficulties of
her pupil's character. For a long time little came of it. Marcella was
hard to tame, and when she went to tea at the Rectory Mrs. Ellerton, who
was refined and sensible, did not know what to make of her, though in
some unaccountable way she was drawn to and interested by the child. But
with the expansion of her thirteenth ye