Was she also to be vanquished by life, to become gradually embittered and resentful?
There seemed to be nothing in her lot to make her so.

What was it, what could it be that was casting a blight over Fay's life?
How to help her, how to release her from the self-imposed fetters in which her mother had lived and--died.
Just as some persons have the power of making something new out of refuse--paper out of rags--so Magdalen seemed to have the power of cherishing and transforming the weaker, meaner elements of the characters with which she came in contact.

Certain qualities in those we are inclined to love daunt us.

Insincerity, callousness, selfishness, treachery in its more refined aspects, these are apt to arouse at first incredulity and at last scorn in us.

But they aroused neither in Magdalen.