friends, except of course the members
of her family, whose views regarding her
were naturally extremely circumscribed,
noticed in the girl an exceedingly great
desire for the acquisition of knowledge, a
power of industry and application quite
unusual, an extraordinary devotion to anything
she undertook, which suffered itself
to be turned away by no temptation, to be
wearied by no fatigue. Always eager to
help in any scheme, always bright-eyed and
clear-headed and keen-witted, never unduly
asserting herself, but always having her
own way while persuading her interlocutors
that she was following their dictates, the
odd shy child grew up into a girl less shy
indeed, but scarcely less odd. And certainly
not loveable; those who fought her
battles most strongly—and even in that
secluded village there were social and domestic
battles, strong internecine warfare,
carried on with as much rancour as in the
great city itself—were compelled to admit
there was "a something" in her which
they disliked, and which occasionally was
eminently repulsive.

This something had developed itself
strongly in the character of the child, before
she emerged into girlhood, and though
it remained vague as to definition, while
distinct as to impression in the minds of
others, Marian herself understood it perfectly,
and could have told any one, had
she chosen, what it was that made her unlike
the other children, apart from her
being brighter and smarter than they, a
difference which she also perfectly understood.
She would have said, "I am very
fond of money, and the others are not;
they are content to have food and clothes,
but I like to see the money that is paid for
them, and to have some of it, all for myself,
and to heap it up and look at it, and I am
not satisfied as they are, when they have
what they want—I want better things,
nicer food, and smarter clothes, and more
than them, the money. I don't say so, because
I know papa hasn't got it, and so he
cannot give it to me, but I wish he could.
There is no use talking and grumbling
about things we cannot have; people laugh
at you, and are glad you are so foolish
when you do that, so I say nothing about
it, but I wish I was rich."

Marian would have made some such answer
to any one who should have endeavoured
to get at her mind to find out what
that was lurking there, never clearly seen,
but always plainly felt, which made her
"old fashioned," in other than the pathetic
and interesting sense in which that expression
has come to be used with reference
to children, before she had entered upon
her teens.

A clever mother would have found out
this grave and ominous component of the
child's character—would have interpreted
the absence of the thoughtless extravagance,
so charming, if sometimes so trying,
of childhood—would have been quick to
have noticed that Marian asked, "What
will it cost?" and gravely entered into
mental calculation on occasions when other
children would have demanded the purchase
of a coveted article clamorously, and
shrieked if it were refused. But Mrs.
Ashurst was not a clever mother, she was
only a loving, indulgent, rather helpless
one, and the little Marian's careful ways
were such a practical comfort to her, while
the child was young, that it never occurred
to her to investigate their origin, to ask
whether such a very desirable and fortunate
effect could by possibility have a reprehensible,
dangerous, insidious cause. Marian
never wasted her pennies, Marian never
spoiled her frocks, Marian never lost or
broke anything; all these exceptional
virtues Mrs. Ashurst carefully noted and
treasured in the storehouse of her memory.
What she did not notice was, that Marian
never gave anything away, never voluntarily
shared any of her little possessions
with her playfellows, and, when directed to
do so, complied with a reluctance which all
her pride, all her brave dread of the appearance
of being coerced, hardly enabled
her to subdue, and suffered afterwards in
an unchildlike way. What she did not
observe was, that Marian was not to be
taken in by glitter and show; that she
preferred, from the early days in which
her power of exhibiting her preference
was limited by the extent of the choice
which the toy-merchant—who combined
hardbake and hair dressing with ministering
to the pleasures of infancy—afforded
within the sum of sixpence. If Marian
took any one into her confidence, or asked
advice on such solemn occasions—generally
ensuing on a protracted hoarding of the
coin in question—it would not be by the
questions, "Is it the prettiest?" "Is it the
nicest?" but, "Do you think it is worth
sixpence?" and the child would look from
the toy to the money, held closely in the
shut palm of her chubby hand, with a perturbed
countenance, in which the pleasure
of the acquisition was almost neutralised
by the pain of the payment—a countenance