"'Or the moon or the clouds,' Fanny added. 'She asked me the other day who lived in the moon, and whether dead people went there.'
"It is very clear, from the conversation between Mrs. Harris and Fanny, that Evelyn passed for a dull child, and had very little to say, because she had not found anyone since she had left The Grove who would talk to her in her own way and draw out her young ideas, and encourage her to tell her thoughts. Her father had encouraged her to talk to him in her own way whilst he was spared to her; and her nurse had been the kindest, best of foster-mothers. Though, to be sure, she did speak broad Berkshire, and though she was what learned people would call an ignorant woman, nurse had the strongest desire to do right, for she had been made to feel that God was the friend of His creatures. She felt sure that He would help those who behaved well; and she did what she could to teach what she knew to her little girl. She told her that she must be good, and not proud, or she would never go to the happy world where angels are. She told her also, that though her mother was gone into another world, she knew and was sorry when she was naughty.
"Nurse was a particularly generous woman, and was always teaching the little lady to give things away; and she took great pains to make her civil to everybody, whether high or low.
"Nurse had loved to be much out of doors, and Evelyn loved it as much; and the two together used to ramble all about the place, into the fields and yards where animals were kept, and into the groves and gardens to watch the birds and butterflies, and to talk to the gardeners and the old women who weeded the walks. Nurse was always reminding Evelyn to take something out with her to give away; if it was nothing else than a roll or a few lumps of sugar from breakfast; for Evelyn's mother, just before her death, had said to her nurse:
"'My child may be very rich, teach her to think of the wants of the poor, and to give away.'
"But the more happy Evelyn had been with her nurse, the more sad she was with Harris. There was not anything which Harris talked of that the little girl cared for, and the consequence was that she passed for being very dull; because when Harris was talking of one set of things, she was thinking of something very different.
"When Harris wanted her to admire herself in her new frocks, when she was dressed to go down to tea, or at any other time, she was wishing to have her pinafore on, or that she might run down to her lamb, which fed in a square yard covered with grass, where the maids dried the clothes.
"Mr. Vaughan had died somewhat suddenly in the spring; the lamb was then only six weeks old. Evelyn came to live with her aunts immediately after the funeral; and the summer passed away without anything very particular happening.
"It was Harris's plan to indulge Evelyn as much as she possibly could, though she did not like the child; and therefore, when she asked to go out, which, by her goodwill, would have been every hour of the day, she went with her. When she went to take anything to her lamb,
and to stroke it, or to hang flowers about its neck, Harris stood by her. But if Harris did not like Evelyn, she hated her pet still more; she pointed out to Evelyn that there were young horns budding on its brow; that it was getting big and coarse, and, like other sheep, dirty; and said that it would soon be too big for a pretty young lady like Miss Vaughan to stroke and kiss.