I am sure I should be your best friend.

I feel much indebted to you for the attention and the affection you have shown me, and I am grieved to see you so despondent.

Make a friend of me.
There--think it over, and talk to me again to-morrow." Mary Wells took the true servant's view of Lady Bassett's kindness.

She looked at it as a trap; not, indeed, set with malice prepense, but still a trap.

She saw that Lady Bassett meant kindly at present; but, for all that, she was sure that if she told the truth, her mistress would turn against her, and say, "Oh! I had no idea your trouble arose out of your own imprudence.