But still they never lost what Hilary termed their “respect” for Elizabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or an act of deception or dishonesty.  They took her faults as we must take the surface faults of all connected with us—­patiently rather than resentfully, seeking to correct rather than to punish.  And though there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—­the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil—­the law of loving-kindness.

Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl’s dismissal hung on a thread.  The first was when Mrs. Cliffe, mother of Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth stray shillings, which were never returned, was forbidden the house, Elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week afterward.

The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth’s destiny was when a volume of Scott’s novels, having been missing for some days, was found hidden in her bed, and she lying awake reading it was thus ignominiously discovered at eleven P. M. by Miss Selina, in consequence of the gleam of candle light from under her door.

It was true neither of these errors were actual moral crimes.  Hilary even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by declaring they had their source in actual virtues; that a girl who would stint herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking she had, even if unworthy, had a creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity in her disposition.  Also that a tired out maid-of all-work, who was kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of the “Heart of Mid-Lothian,” must possess a degree of both intellectual and moral capacity which deserved cultivation rather than blame.  And though this surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not of course be allowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took every opportunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, but of talking to her about them.  And also that a large proportion of these books were—­to Miss Selina’s unmitigated horror—­absolutely fiction! stories, novels, even poetry—­books that Hilary liked herself—­books that had built up in her own passionate dream of life; wherein all the women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted; and all the men were—­something not unlike Robert Lyon.

Did she do harm?  Was it; as Selina and even Johanna said sometimes, “dangerous” thus to put before Elizabeth a standard of ideal perfection, a Quixotic notion of life—­life in its full purpose power, and beauty—­such as otherwise never could have crossed the mind of this working girl, born of parents who, though respectable and worthy, were in no respect higher than the common working class?  I will not argue the point:  I am not making Elizabeth a text for a sermon; I am simply writing her story.