You must continue to take an interest in the poor child, dear Phyllis.

I wish she gave as little trouble as you do." Phyllis was one of those girls for whom mothers ought to be more uneasy than for the wilder and naughtier children who cause them perpetual annoyance.

She was so proper in all her ways, and so well-behaved as never to seem in fault.

Her reasons for everything she said and did were so ready and so plausible, that it required a rather clever and far-seeing person to detect the deep-rooted pride and self-complacency that lay beneath them.

To manage all things quietly her own way, to be accounted wise and good, and greatly superior to ordinary girls of her age, was as the breath of life to Phyllis.