tion on the subject of his daughter--his anxiety
to see her marry above her station--his stupid resolution to give
her the false, flippant, fashionable education which she subsequently
received. I thwarted his plans in nothing, openly--counteracted them in
everything, secretly. The more I strengthened my sources of influence
over Margaret, the more pleased he was. He was delighted to hear her
constantly referring to me about her home-lessons; to see her coming to
me, evening after evening, to learn new occupations and amusements. He
suspected I had been a gentleman; he had been told I spoke pure English;
he felt sure I had received a first-rate education--I was nearly as good
for Margaret as good society itself! When she grew older, and went to
the fashionable school, as her father had declared she should, my offer
to keep up her lessons in the holidays, and to examine what progress she
had made, when she came home regularly every fortnight for the Sunday,
was accepted with greedy readiness, and acknowledged with servile
gratitude. At this time, Mr. Sherwin's own estimate of me, among his
friends, was, that he had got me for half nothing, and that I was worth
more to him than a thousand a-year.

"But there was one member of the family who suspected my intentions from
the first. Mrs. Sherwin--the weak, timid, sickly woman, whose opinion
nobody regarded, whose character nobody understood--Mrs. Sherwin, of
all those who dwelt in the house, or came to the house, was the only one
whose looks, words, and manner kept me constantly on my guard. The very
first time we saw each other, that woman doubted _me,_ as I doubted
_her;_ and for ever afterwards, when we met, she was on the watch.
This mutual distrust, this antagonism of our two natures, never openly
proclaimed itself, and never wore away. My chance of security lay, not
so much in my own caution, and my perfect command of look and action
under all emergencies, as in the self-distrust and timidity of her
nature; in the helpless inferiority of position to which her husband's
want of affection, and her daughter's want of respect, condemned her
in her own house; and in the influence of repulsion--at times, even of
absolute terror--which my presence had the power of communicating to
her. Suspecting what I am assured she suspected--incapable as she was
of rendering her suspicions certainties--knowing beforehand, as she
must have known, that no words she could speak would gain the