But there has come a perceptible change, and they now treat me civilly, if nothing more, while I do believe they are fond of Willie, and would miss him if he were gone." Adah was right in this conjecture; for had it now been optional with the Misses Richards whether Willie should go or stay, they would have kept him there from choice, so cheery and pleasant he made the house.

Adah was still too pretty, too stylish, to suit their ideas of a servant; but when, as time passed on, they found she did not presume at all on her good looks, but meekly kept her place as Anna's maid or companion, they dropped the haughty manner they had at first assumed, and treated her with civility, if not with kindness.
With Anna it was different.

Won by Adah's gentleness and purity, she came at last to love her almost as much as if she had been a younger sister.

Adah was not a servant to her, but a companion, a friend, with whom she daily held familiar converse, learning from her much that was good, and prizing her more and more as the winter weeks went swiftly by.
Since the morning when Adah confided to her a part of her history, she had never alluded to it or intimated a desire to hear more; but she thought much about it, revolving in her mind various expedients for finding and bringing back to his allegiance the recreant lover.
"If I were not bound to secrecy," she thought one day, as she sat waiting for Adah's return from the post office, "if I were not bound to secrecy, I would tell Brother John, and perhaps he might think of something.

Men's wits are sometimes better than women's.