was difficult enough to conceal the gratitude Charlotte's conduct and manners had inspired in me, without attempting the rôle of exacting mistress. I own my weakness, and tremble under the scorn of the upright, but I wasn't brought up in England, and I never possessed ability in the histrionic line. To veil my emotions under a calm exterior, and not fall down and worship Charlotte was the most I could expect of myself. We are the product of our past and mine has been harrowing and humbling.
But now that my paragon was beginning to show the frailties of ordinary housemaid nature, and I was face to face with the penalties of my own laxness, the situation began to look serious. Charlotte's consciousness of virtue had been impregnable from the beginning, and her application of it so superior to anything I had ever experienced before, that I was glad enough to let her follow her own sweet and sufficient way. But it left me nothing to take hold of in the present predicament. How should one set about reproaching the irreproachable? Besides, was it fair after so long a course of uprightness, to bear down upon her with the first appearance of falling
