surprised those who did not know her; aye, and sometimes those who
did. Energy! nay, it was occasionally a concentration of passion,
which left her for the moment perfectly unconscious of all other cares
but solicitude for that subject which she might then be advocating.

All her friends, including the doctor, had at times been made unhappy
by this vehemence of character; but yet it was to that very vehemence
that she owed it that all her friends loved her. It had once nearly
banished her in early years from the Greshamsbury schoolroom; and yet
it ended in making her claim to remain there so strong, that Lady
Arabella could no longer oppose it, even when she had the wish to do
so.

A new French governess had lately come to Greshamsbury, and was, or was
to be, a great pet with Lady Arabella, having all the great gifts with
which a governess can be endowed, and being also a protege from the
castle. The castle, in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant that of
Courcy. Soon after this a valued little locket belonging to Augusta
Gresham was missing. The French governess had objected to its being
worn in the schoolroom, and it had been sent up to the bedroom by a
young servant-girl, the daughter of a small farmer on the estate. The
locket was missing, and after a while, a considerable noise in the
matter having been made, was found, by the diligence of the governess,
somewhere among the belongings of the English servant. Great was the
anger of Lady Arabella, loud were the protestations of the girl, mute
the woe of her father, piteous the tears of her mother, inexorable the
judgment of the Greshamsbury world. But something occurred, it matters
now not what, to separate Mary Thorne in opinion from that world at
large. Out she then spoke, and to her face accused the governess of
the robbery. For two days Mary was in disgrace almost as deep as that