the prison and the reformatory followed
the lead of the law. The matron's opinion of
Rosanna was (in spite of what she had done)
that the girl was one in a thousand, and that
she only wanted a chance to prove herself
worthy of any Christian woman's interest in
her. My lady (being a Christian woman, if
ever there was one yet) said to the matron,
upon that, " Rosanna Spearman shall have her
chance, in my service." In a week afterwards,
Rosanna Spearman entered this establishment
as our second housemaid.

Not a soul was told the girl's story,
excepting Miss Rachel and me. My lady, doing
me the honour to consult me about most things,
consulted me about Rosanna. Having fallen
a good deal latterly into the late Sir John's
way of always agreeing with my lady, I
agreed with her heartily about Rosanna Spearman.

A fairer chance no girl could have had than
was given to this poor girl of ours. None of
the servants could cast her past life in her
teeth, for none of the servants knew what it
had been. She had her wages and her
privileges, like the rest of them; and every now
and then a friendly word from my lady, in
private, to encourage her. In return, she
showed herself, I am bound to say, well worthy
of the kind treatment bestowed upon her.
Though far from strong, and troubled
occasionally with those fainting-fits already
mentioned, she went about her work modestly and
uncomplainingly, doing it carefully, and doing
it well. But, somehow, she failed to make
friends among the other women-servants,
excepting my daughter Penelope, who was
always kind to Rosanna, though never intimate
with her.

I hardly know what the girl did to offend
them. There was certainly no beauty about
her to make the others envious; she was the
plainest woman in the house, with the additional
misfortune of having one shoulder bigger than
the other. What the servants chiefly resented,
I think, was her silent tongue and her solitary
ways. She read or worked in leisure hours,
when the rest gossiped. And, when it came
to her turn to go out, nine times out of ten she
quietly put on her bonnet, and had her turn by
herself. She never quarrelled, she never took
offence; she only kept a certain distance,
obstinately and civilly, between the rest of them and
herself. Add to this that, plain as she was,
there was just a dash of something that wasn't
like a housemaid, and that was like a lady,
about her. It might have been in her voice, or
it might have been in her face. All I can say
is, that the other women pounced on it like
lightning the first day she came into the house;
and said (which was most unjust) that Rosanna
Spearman gave herself airs.

Having now told the story of Rosanna, I
have only to notice one out of the many queer
ways of this strange girl, to get on next to the
story of the sands.

Our house is high up on the Yorkshire coast,
and close by the sea. We have got beautiful
walks all round us, in every direction but one.
That one I acknowledge to be a horrid walk.
It leads, for a quarter of a mile, through a
melancholy plantation of firs, and brings you
out between low cliffs on the loneliest and
ugliest little bay on all our coast.

The sand-hills here run down to the sea, and
end in two spits of rock jutting out opposite
each other, till you lose sight of them in the
water. One is called the North Spit, and one
the South. Between the two, shifting
backwards and forwards at certain seasons of the
year, lies the most horrible quicksand on the
shores of Yorkshire. At the turn of the tide,
something goes on in the unknown deeps
below, which sets the whole face of the quicksand
quivering and trembling in a manner most
remarkable to see, and which has given to it,
among the people in our parts, the name of The
Shivering Sand. A great bank, half a mile out,
nigh the mouth of the bay, breaks the force
of the main ocean coming in from the offing.
Winter and summer, when the tide flows over
the quicksand, the sea seems to leave the waves
behind it on the bank, and rolls its waters in
smoothly with a heave, and covers the sand in
silence. A lonesome and a horrid retreat, I
can tell you! No boat ever ventures into this
bay. No children from our fishing-village,
called Cobb's Hole, ever come here to play.
The very birds of the air, as it seems to me,
give the Shivering Sand a wide berth. That a
young woman, with dozens of nice walks to
choose from, and company to go with her, if
she only said, " Come!" should prefer this
place, and should sit and work or read in it,
all alone, when it's her turn out, I grant you,
passes belief. It's true, nevertheless, account
for it as you may, that this was Rosanna Spearman`s
favourite walk, except when she went
once or twice to Cobb's Hole, to see the only
friend she had in our neighbourhood— of whom
more anon. It's also true that I was now
setting out for this same place, to fetch the
girl in to dinner, which brings us round happily
to our former point, and starts us fair again on
our way to the sands.

I saw no sign of the girl in the plantation.
When I got out, through the sand-hills, on to
the beach, there she was, in her little straw
bonnet, and her plain grey cloak that she always
wore to hide her deformed shoulder as much
as might be—there she was, all alone, looking
out on the quicksand and the sea.

She started when I came up with her, and
turned her head away from me. Not looking
me in the face being another of the proceedings
which, as head of the servants, I never
allow, on principle, to pass without inquiry—I
turned her round my way, and saw that she
was crying. My bandanna handkerchief—one
of six beauties given to me by my lady—was
handy in my pocket. I took it out, and I said
to Rosanna, " Come and sit down, my dear, on
the slope of the beach along with me. I'll
dry your eyes for you first, and then I'll make