Mistress Margery Wimpole was a poor, dull creature, having no wilful harm in her, but endowed with neither dignity nor wit.

She lived in fear of Sir Jeoffry, and in fear of the servants, who knew full well that she was an humble dependant, and treated her as one.

She hid away with her pupils' in the bare school-room in the west wing, and taught them to spell and write and work samplers.

She herself knew no more.
The child who had cost her mother her life had no happier prospect than her sisters.

Her father felt her more an intruder than they had been, he being of the mind that to house and feed and clothe, howsoever poorly, these three burdens on him was a drain scarcely to be borne.