And now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose
portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became naturally
Rebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to her
benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her power.
Who can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected orphan;
and, if there entered some degree of selfishness into her calculations,
who can say but that her prudence was perfectly justifiable?
"I am alone in the world," said the friendless girl. "I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little
pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds
and an establishment secure, poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better
than hers) has only herself and her own wits to trust to. Well, let us
see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable maintenance, and if
some day or the other I cannot show Miss Amelia my real superiority
over her. Not that I dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a
harmless, good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when I can
take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I not?"
Thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the
future for herself--nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles
in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of what else have
young ladies to think, but husbands? Of what else do their dear mammas
think? "I must be my own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling
consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little misadventure
with Jos Sedley.
So she wisely determined to render her position with the Queen's
Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end resolved to make
friends of every one around her who could at all interfere with her
comfort.
As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and a woman,
moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the least
consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all
necessary to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it.
She used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and, though
she treated that lady with every demonstration of cool respect, it was
to the rest of the family that she wisely directed the chief part of
her attentions.
With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly gained, her method
was pretty simple. She did not pester their young brains with too much
learning, but, on the contrary, let them have their own way in regard
to educating themselves; for what instruction is more effectual than
self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond of books, and as there was
in the old library at Queen's Crawley a considerable provision of works
of light literature of the last century, both in the French and English
languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary of the Tape and
Sealing Wax Office at the period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever
troubled the bookshelves but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably,
and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction to
Miss Rose Crawley.