Mr.and Mrs.Enderby continued to take a friendly interest in everything that concerned her, though strictly following their well-meant plan of not showing her any particular personal affection.

"We must not bring her up in a hothouse," they said, "only to put her out in the cold afterwards." In this they thought themselves exceptionally wise people; and who shall say whether they were or not?
It suited Phyllis admirably to follow in the footsteps of her father and mother; but what was merely prudence on the part of her elder benefactors often appeared something much more unamiable when practised towards Hetty by a girl not many years her senior.

Miss Davis, who was a rigid disciplinarian and trusted as such by her employers, thought chiefly of breaking down the pride and temper of the child, and of bending her character so as to fit her for the hard life that was before her; a life whose difficulties and trials had been bitterly experienced, and not yet all conquered or outlived by the conscientious governess herself.

Nellie, who was Hetty's only comfort in the great and, as it seemed to her, unfriendly house, too often showed her sympathy in a covert way which made Hetty feel she was half ashamed of her affection; and this deprived such tenderness of the value it would otherwise have had.
Hetty, now above eleven years old, was very much grown and altered.

Her once short curly hair was long, and tied back from her face with a plain black ribbon.