e not a very watchful guardian, but it was all the more
disagreeable when it spoke. The genuine good temper and habitual
self-possession--the calmness without disrespect--the cheerfulness
without carelessness--the respectful attention stripped of all meanness
or subservience which Lettice managed to preserve in her relations with
him--at last made its way quite to his heart, that is to say, to his
taste or fancy, for I don't think he had much of a heart. He began to
grow quite fond of her, and one day delighted, as much as he surprised
Mrs. Melwyn, by saying, that Miss Arnold really was a very pretty sort
of young woman, and he thought suited them very well. And so the grand
difficulty of managing with the general's faults was got over, but there
remained Mrs. Melwyn's and the servants'.

Lettice had never laid her account at finding any faults in Mrs. Melwyn.
That lady from the first moment she beheld her, had quite won her heart.
Her elegance of appearance, the Jove-like softness of her countenance,
the gentle sweetness of her voice, all conspired to make the most
charming impression. Could there lie any thing under that sweet outside,
but the gentlest and most indulgent of temper?

No, she was right there, nothing could be more gentle, more indulgent
than was Mrs. Melwyn's temper; and Lettice had seen so much of the
rough, the harsh, the captious, and the unamiable during her life, that
grant her the existence of those two qualities, and she could scarcely
desire any thing more. She had yet to learn what are the evils which
attend the timid and the weak.

She had yet to know that there may be much concealed self-indulgence,
where there is a most yielding disposition; and that they who are too
cowardly to resist wrong and violence courageously, from a weak and
culpable indulgence of their own shyness and timidity, will afford a
poor defense to those they ought to protect, and expose them to
innumerable evils.

Lettice had managed to become easy with the general; she could have been
perfectly happy with Mrs. Melwyn, but nothing could get over the
difficulties with the servants. Conscious of the misrule they exercised;
jealous of the newcomer--who soon showed herself to be a clever and
spirited girl--a sort of league was immediately instituted among them;
its declared object being either to break her spirit, or get rid of her
out of the house. The persecutions she endured; the daily minute
troubles and vexations; th