Mary Ross was the greatest friend that the Miss Edmonstones possessed,
though, she being five-and-twenty, they had not arrived at perceiving
that they were on the equal terms of youngladyhood.

She had lost her mother early, and had owed a great deal to the
kindness of Mrs. Edmonstone, as she grew up among her numerous elder
brothers. She had no girlhood; she was a boy till fourteen, and then a
woman, and she was scarcely altered since the epoch of that transition,
the same in likings, tastes, and duties. 'Papa' was all the world to
her, and pleasing him had much the same meaning now as then; her
brothers were like playfellows; her delights were still a lesson in
Greek from papa, a school-children's feast, a game at play, a new book.
It was only a pity other people did not stand still too. 'Papa,'
indeed, had never grown sensibly older since the year of her mother's
death: but her brothers were whiskered men, with all the cares of the
world, and no holidays; the school-girls went out to service, and were
as a last year's brood to an old hen; the very children she had fondled
were young ladies, as old, to all intents and purposes, as herself, and
here were even Laura and Amy Edmonstone fallen into that bad habit of
growing up! though little Amy had still much of the kitten in her
composition, and could play as well as Charlotte or Mary herself, when
they had the garden to themselves.

Mary took great pains to amuse Charles, always walking to see him in
the worst weather, when she thought other visitors likely to fall, and
chatting with him as if she was the idlest person in the world, though
the quantity she did at home and in the parish would be too amazing to
be recorded. Spirited and decided, without superfluous fears and
fineries, she had a firm, robust figure, and a rosy, good-natured face,
with a manner that, though perfectly feminine, had in it an air of