Chapter Thirteen.
May an apt Scholar.
On Miss Pemberton’s return to Downside, while seated at their tea-table, Miss Mary gave her a description of her young visitor of the morning, and told her of the proposal she was anxious to make about her.
“I should just like to see the little girl,” said Miss Pemberton. “If she is really as the dame supposes, of gentle birth, it would be undoubtedly right to try and give her some of the advantages of which she has been deprived. At the same time we should be cautious—perhaps the dame may have been mistaken, and it will be unnecessary, if not imprudent, to try and raise her above the position in which she was born, unless she possesses qualities calculated to make her happier and better in a higher station.”
“Well, Jane, I could only form an opinion from her sweet voice and from what she said. Adam Halliburt and his wife are devotedly fond of her, and do you not think that we may help them by judicious training.”
“Well, Mary, I see that you are determined to think highly of the child, and unless we find that you are mistaken, I shall be very glad to see her as often as her worthy protectors will allow her to come,” said Miss Pemberton.
“I trust that it will be found that I am right in my opinion of the sweet little girl,” said Miss Mary, nodding her head and smiling. “I can always judge best of people by their voices, and I detected in her’s that true tone which can only proceed from a true heart.”
“Well, well, we shall see, and I hope that my opinion will agree with your’s, Mary,” observed Miss Pemberton.
Next morning Mistress Halliburt arrived with Maiden May. The little girl was scrupulously clean and neatly dressed, though her garments were befitting a fisherman’s daughter of plain and somewhat coarse materials, except that she wore the unusual addition of shoes and stockings.