when they knew her. No matter
that she perseveringly wore old-fashioned gowns; that her speech was
formal and her manner cool; that she had twenty little ways such as
nobody else had: she was still such a stay, such a counsellor, so
truthful, so kind in her way, that, in Caroline's idea, none once
accustomed to her presence could easily afford to dispense with it.

As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it in her
intercourse with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor? The heiress was
rich--very rich--compared with her new friend: one possessed a clear
thousand a year, the other not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense
of equality experienced in her society, never known in that of the
ordinary Briarfield and Whinbury gentry.

The reason was, Shirley's head ran on other things than money and
position. She was glad to be independent as to property; by fits she was
even elated at the notion of being lady of the manor, and having tenants
and an estate. She was especially tickled with an agreeable complacency
when reminded of "all that property" down in the Hollow, "comprising an
excellent cloth-mill, dyehouse, warehouse, together with the messuage,
gardens, and outbuildings, termed Hollow's Cottage;" but her exultation
being quite undisguised was singularly inoffensive; and, for her serious
thoughts, they tended elsewhere. To admire the great, reverence the
good, and be joyous with the genial, was very much the bent of Shirley's
soul: she mused, therefore, on the means of following this bent far
oftener than she pondered on her social superiority.

In Caroline Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest because she was
quiet, retiring, looked delicate, and seemed as if she needed some one
to take care of her. Her predilection increased greatly when she
discovered that her own way of thinking and talking was understood and
responded to by this new acquaintance. She had hardly expected it. Miss
Helstone, she fancied, had too pretty a face, manners and voice too
soft, to be anything out of the common way in mind and attainments; and
she very much wondered to see the gentle features light up archly to the
reveille of a dry sally or two risked by herself; and more did she
wonder to discover the self-won knowledge treasured, and the untaught
speculations working in that girlish, curl-veiled head. Caroline's
instinct of taste, too, was like her own. Such books as Miss Keeldar had
read with the most pleasure were Miss