Mrs.Hill was very good to me, and scrupulously left her poodle dog on the mat outside the door when she came to visit me; but her vocation was not for waiting in sick-rooms.
Rachel, soft-voiced, light-footed as a sister of mercy, moved about in her pale gray woollen gown, with a few snowdrops in her breast, her face more thoughtful and sad, yet sweeter than I had ever seen it.

She had a work-basket beside her, and a book, while she sat by the head of my bed, but I saw that she occupied herself only with her thoughts, sitting with her hands laced loosely together in her lap, gazing across the room through a distant window at the ragged scratchy outlines of the bare brown wood that hid the chimneys of the farm from the view of the inmates of the Hall.
It needed no witchcraft to divine her thoughts.

She was thinking of John at the farm, and possibly of all that had passed there between him and me.

It saddened her, but I thought she must be very secure in her faith, for there was no angry disturbance in her anxious eyes, no bitterness of jealousy about her soft sweet lips.

I read her behaviour all through like a printed legend; her faithful kindness, her tender care, her thoughtful regret.