ssessed her secret, for I
had not scrupled to tell her as much: but the fact is that as it was
her nature to doubt the reality and under-value the worth of modesty,
affection, disinterestedness--to regard these qualities as foibles of
character--so it was equally her tendency to consider pride, hardness,
selfishness, as proofs of strength. She would trample on the neck
of humility, she would kneel at the feet of disdain; she would meet
tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with
ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were
her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a
preference--they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical
degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with
indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as
set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she
succumbed--they were her natural masters; she had no propensity to hate,
no impulse to resist them; the indignation their behests awake in some
hearts was unknown in hers. From all this it resulted that the false and
selfish called her wise, the vulgar and debased termed her charitable,
the insolent and unjust dubbed her amiable, the conscientious and
benevolent generally at first accepted as valid her claim to be
considered one of themselves; but ere long the plating of pretension
wore off, the real material appeared below, and they laid her aside as a
deception.

CHAPTER XVI.

In the course of another fortnight I had seen sufficient of Frances
Evans Henri, to enable me to form a more definite opinion of her
character. I found her possessed in a somewhat remarkable degree of at
least two good points, viz., perseverance and a sense of duty; I
found she was really capable of applying to study, of contending with
difficulties. At first I offered her the same help which I had always
found it necessary to confer on the others; I began with unloosing for
her each knotty point, but I soon discovered that such help was regarded
by my new pupil as degrading; she recoiled from it with a certain proud
impatience. Hereupon I appointed her long lessons, and left her to solve
alone any perplexities they might present. She set to the task with
serious ardour, and having quickly accomplished one labour, eagerly
demanded more. So much for her perseverance; as to her sense of duty,
it evinced itself thus: she liked to learn, but hated to teach