It was of the Lady Rosina that the servants were afraid, especially with reference to that so-called day of rest which, under her dominion, had become to many of them a day of restless torment.

It had not always been so with the Lady Rosina; but her eyes had been opened by the wife of a great church dignitary in the neighbourhood, and she had undergone regeneration.
How great may be the misery inflicted by an energetic, unmarried, healthy woman in that condition,--a woman with no husband, or children, or duties, to distract her from her work,--I pray that my readers may never know.
The Lady Margaretta was her mother's favourite, and she was like her mother in all things,--except that her mother had been a beauty.

The world called her proud, disdainful, and even insolent; but the world was not aware that in all that she did she was acting in accordance with a principle which had called for much self-abnegation.

She had considered it her duty to be a de Courcy and an earl's daughter at all times; and consequently she had sacrificed to her idea of duty all popularity, adulation, and such admiration as would have been awarded to her as a well-dressed, tall, fashionable, and by no means stupid young woman.

To be at all times in something higher than they who were manifestly below her in rank,--that was the effort that she was ever making.