She was a little, thin, quick, graceful creature, whom it was impossible that you should see without wishing to have near you.

A most unselfish little creature she was, but one who had a well-formed idea of her own identity.

She was quite resolved to be somebody among her fellow-creatures,--not somebody in the way of marrying a lord or a rich man, or somebody in the way of being a beauty, or somebody as a wit; but somebody as having a purpose and a use in life.

She was the humblest little thing in the world in regard to any possible putting of herself forward or needful putting of herself back; and yet, to herself, nobody was her superior.

What she had was her own, whether it was the old grey silk dress which she had bought with the money she had earned, or the wit which nature had given her.