'
'And of having no mother to find them out!' cried Albinia.
'Indeed,' said Mrs. Dusautoy, anxious to console and encourage, as
well as to talk the young step-mother out of her self-reproach, 'I do
not think that if I had been my good aunt's own child, she would have
been more likely to find out that anything was amiss. It was the
fashion to be strong and healthy in that house, and I was never
really ill--but I came as a little stunted, dwining cockney, and so I
was considered ever after--never quite comfortable, often forgetting
myself in enjoyment, paying for it afterwards, but quite used to it.
We all thought it was "only Fanny," and part of my London breeding.
Yes, we thought so in good faith, even after the largest half of my
life had been spent in Yorkshire.'
'And what brought it to a crisis? Did they go on neglecting you?'
exclaimed Albinia.
'Why, my dear,' said the little lady, a glow lighting on her cheek,
and a smile awakening, 'my uncle took a new curate, whom it was the
family custom to call "the good-natured giant," and whose approach
put all of us young ladies in a state of great excitement. It was
all in character with his good-nature, you know, to think of dragging
the poor little shrimp up the hill to church, and I believe he did
not know how she would get on without his strong arm; for do you
know, when he had the curacy of Lauriston given him, he chose to
carry the starveling off with him, instead of any of those fine,
handsome prosperous girls.
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