ittle cross, which, as we have seen, Pen gave her,
had such a sparkling and brilliant kohinoor in her bosom, as is even
more precious than that famous jewel; for it not only fetches a price,
and is retained, by its owner in another world where diamonds are
stated to be of no value, but here, too, is of inestimable worth to its
possessor; is a talisman against evil, and lightens up the darkness of
life, like Cogia Hassan's famous stone.

So that before Miss Bell had been a year in Lady Rockminster's house,
there was not a single person in it whose love she had not won by the
use of this talisman. From the old lady to the lowest dependent of her
bounty, Laura had secured the goodwill and kindness of everybody. With a
mistress of such a temper, my Lady's woman (who had endured her mistress
for forty years, and had been clawed and scolded and jibed every day and
night in that space of time) could not be expected to have a good temper
of her own; and was at first angry against Miss Laura, as she had been
against her Ladyship's fifteen preceding companions. But when Laura was
ill at Paris, this old woman nursed her in spite of her mistress, who
was afraid of catching the fever, and absolutely fought for her medicine
with Martha from Fairoaks, now advanced to be Miss Laura's own maid. As
she was recovering, Grandjean the chef wanted to kill her by the numbers
of delicacies which he dressed for her, and wept when she ate her first
slice of chicken. The Swiss major-domo of the house celebrated Miss
Bell's praises in almost every European language, which he spoke with
indifferent incorrectness; the coachman was happy to drive her out;
the page cried when he heard she was ill; and Calverley and Coldstream
(those two footmen, so large, so calm ordinarily, and so difficult
to move) broke out into extraordinary hilarity at the news of her
convalescence, and intoxicated the page at a wine-shop, to fete Laura's
recovery. Even Lady Diana Pynsent (our former acquaintance Mr. Pynsent
had married by this time), Lady Diana, who had had a considerable
dislike to Laura for some time, was so enthusiastic as to say that she
thought Miss Bell was a very agreeable person, and that grandmamma had
found a great trouvaille in her. All this goodwill and kindness Laura
had acquired, not by any arts, not by any flattery, but by the simple
force of good-nature, and by the blessed gift of pleasing and being
pleased.

On the one or two occasions when he