. Sherwood, who had been much captivated by
Mr. O'Callaghan's showy, off-hand manner, his civilities, and his
flatteries, felt, for the first time in her life, that she had been
taken in; and being a peculiarly prudent, cautious personage, of the
slow, sluggish, stagnant temperament, which those who possess it are
apt to account a virtue, and to hold in scorn their more excitable
and impressible neighbours, found herself touched in the very point of
honour, piqued, aggrieved, mortified; and denouncing the father as the
greatest deceiver that ever trod the earth, could not help transferring
some part of her hatred to the innocent child. She was really a good
sort of woman, as I have said before, and every now and then her
conscience twitched her, and she struggled hard to seem kind and to be
so: but it would not do.

There the feeling was, and the more she struggled against it, the
stronger, I verily believe, it became. Trying to conquer a deep-rooted
aversion, is something like trampling upon camomile: the harder you
tread it down the more it flourishes.

Under these evil auspices, the poor little Irish girl grew up amongst
us. Not ill-used certainly, for she was fed and taught as we were; and
some forty shillings a year more expended upon the trifles, gloves,
and shoes, and ribbons, which make the difference between nicety and
shabbiness in female dress, would have brought her apparel upon an
equality with ours. Ill-used she was not: to be sure, teachers, and
masters seemed to consider it a duty to reprimand her for such faults
as would have passed unnoticed in another; and if there were any noise
amongst us, she, by far the quietest and most silent person in the
house, was, as a matter of course, accused of making it. Still she was
not what would be commonly called ill-treated; although her young heart
was withered and blighted, and her spirit crushed and broken by the
chilling indifference, or the harsh unkindness which surrounded her on
every side.

Nothing, indeed, could come in stronger contrast than the position of
the young Irish girl, and that of her English companions. A stranger,
almost a foreigner amongst us, with no home but that great school-room;
no comforts, no in-dulgences, no knick-knacks, no money, nothing but the
sheer, bare, naked necessaries of a schoolgirl's life; no dear family
to think of and to go to; no fond father to come to see her; no brothers
and sisters; no kindred; no friends. It was