It is so dear of her never to exclude me, even when she is thinking and talking of Florence.

'If my little girl had lived,' she said once, 'I should have had two daughters.'" Malcolm had to hold his tongue at last, but he grumbled freely to Nurse Dawson.

In her he had a staunch ally; the old woman was devoted to Anna, and by no means sided with her mistress.
"You see it is just this way, Mr.Malcolm, my dear," she said to him once; "the mistress, bless her heart, thinks of nothing but them charitable societies, from morning till night; they are more to her than meat or drink or rest.

She is as strong as a horse, and so she is never tired like other folks.

Why, my dear, I have known her spend a whole day going from one meeting to another, speechifying and reading reports, and yet when I have gone up to dress her in the evening she has been as fresh as paint.