ames could be extinguished. But for that accident
she would have been a singularly good-looking woman of a type which
was common in books of beauty at the beginning of this reign.

She could read and write after a fashion, and was intelligent, but
ignorant, deceitful, superstitious, and hysterical. Mrs. Caldwell
continually lectured Beth about going into the kitchen so much; but
she only lectured on principle really. Young ladies could not be
allowed to associate with servants as a rule, but an exception might
be made in the case of a good, steady, sober sort of person, such as
Mrs. Caldwell believed Harriet to be, who would keep the troublesome
child out of mischief, and do her no harm. Harriet, as it happened,
delighted in mischief, and was often the instigator; but Mrs. Caldwell
might be excused for not suspecting this, as she only saw her on her
best behaviour. When the children were safe in bed, and Miss Victoria
Bench, who was an early person, had also retired, Harriet would put on
a clean apron, and appear before Mrs. Caldwell in the character of a
respectable, vigilant domestic, more anxious about her mistress's
interests than her own; and she would then make a report in which Beth
figured as a fiend of a child who could not be trusted alone for a
moment, and Harriet herself as a conscientious custodian, but for whom
nobody knows what might have happened.

When Harriet had no particular incident to report at these secret
conferences, she would tell Mrs. Caldwell her dreams, and describe
signs and portents of coming events which she had observed during the
day; and Mrs. Caldwell would listen with interest. Superstition is a
subject on which the most class-proud will consult with the lowest and
the wickedest; it is a mighty leveller downwards. But the poor lady
had a lonely life. It was not Mrs. Caldwell's fault, but the fault of
her day, that she was not a noble woman. She belonged to early
Victorian times, when every effort was made to mould the characters of
women as the homes of the period were built, on lines of ghastly
uniformity. The education of a girl in those days was eminently
calculated to cloud her intelligence and strengthen every failing
developed in her sex by ages of suppression. Mrs. Caldwell was a
plastic person, and her mind had been successfully compressed into the
accustomed groove until her husband came and helped it to escape a
little in one or two directions--with the effect, however, of