There were in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny.

Julia Bertram was only twelve, and Maria but a year older.

The little visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible.

Afraid of everybody, ashamed of herself, and longing for the home she had left, she knew not how to look up, and could scarcely speak to be heard, or without crying.

Mrs.Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy.