: these were indeed just a little florid and wavy,
a trifle profuse in their grace. She kept an excellent table, and
every appointment about the house was in good style--a favourite
phrase with her. She was her own housekeeper, an exact mistress,
but considerate, so that her servants had no bad time of it. She
was sensible, kind, always responsive to appeal, had scarcely a
thread of poetry or art in her upper texture, loved fair play, was
seldom in the wrong, and never confessed it when she was. But when
she saw it, she took some pains to avoid being so in a similar way
again. She held hard by her own opinion; was capable of a mild
admiration of truth and righteousness in another; had one or two pet
commandments to which she paid more attention than to the rest; was
a safe member of society, never carrying tales; was kind with
condescension to the poor, and altogether a good wife for a minister
of Mr. Sclater's sort. She knew how to hold her own with any who
would have established superiority. A little more coldness, pride,
indifference, and careless restraint, with just a touch of rudeness,
would have given her the freedom of the best society, if she could
have got into it. Altogether it would not have been easy to find
one who could do more for Gibbie in respect for the social rapports
that seemed to await him. Even some who would gladly themselves
have undertaken the task, admitted that he might have fallen into
much less qualified hands. Her husband was confident that, if
anybody could, his wife would make a gentleman of Sir Gilbert; and
he ought to know, for she had done a good deal of polishing upon
him.

She was now seated on a low chair at the other side of the fire,
leaning back at a large angle, slowly contemplating out of her black
eyes the lad on the footstool, whose blue eyes she saw wandering
about the room, in a manner neither vague nor unintelligent, but
showing more of interest than of either surprise or admiration.
Suddenly he turned them full upon her; they met hers, and the light
rushed into them like a torrent, breaking forth after its way in a
soulful smile. I hope my readers are not tired of the mention of
Gibbie's smiles: I can hardly avoid it; they were all Gibbie had for
the small coin of intercourse; and if my readers care to be just,
they will please to remember that they have been spared many a he
said and she said. Unhappily for me there is no way of giving the
delicate diff