After my hard day's work I was not always disposed for Jill's lively chatter, and yet her bright face was a very pleasant sight for tired eyes.
I used to question her sometimes about her visits to Gladwyn, and she was always ready to talk of what had passed in the day.

She and Lady Betty had struck up quite a friendship: this rather surprised me, as they were utterly dissimilar, and had different tastes and pursuits.

Jill was far superior in intelligence and intellectual power; she had wider sympathies, too; and though Lady Betty had a fund of originality, and was fresh and _naive_; I could hardly understand Jill's fancy for her, until Jill said one day, 'I do like that dear Lady Betty, she is such a crisp little piece of human goods; no one has properly unfolded her, or tested her good qualities; she is quite new and fresh, a novelty in girls.

One never knows what she will say or do next: it is that that fascinates me, I believe; because,' went on Jill, and her great eyes grew bright and puzzled, 'it is not that she is clever; one gets to the bottom of her at once; there is not enough depth to drown you.' Jill did not take so readily to Gladys; she admired her, even liked her, but frankly owned that she found her depressing.

'If I talk to her long, I get a sort of ache over me,' she observed, in her graphic way.