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Miss Monro was selected--a plain, intelligent, quiet woman of forty--
and it was difficult to decide whether she or Mr. Wilkins took the
most pains to avoid each other, acting with regard to Ellinor, pretty
much like the famous Adam and Eve in the weather-glass: when the one
came out the other went in. Miss Monro had been tossed about and
overworked quite enough in her life not to value the privilege and
indulgence of her evenings to herself, her comfortable schoolroom,
her quiet cozy teas, her book, or her letter-writing afterwards. By
mutual agreement she did not interfere with Ellinor and her ways and
occupations on the evenings when the girl had not her father for
companion; and these occasions became more and more frequent as years
passed on, and the deep shadow was lightened which the sudden death
that had visited his household had cast over him. As I have said
before, he was always a popular man at dinner-parties. His amount of
intelligence and accomplishment was rare in --shire, and if it
required more wine than formerly to bring his conversation up to the
desired point of range and brilliancy, wine was not an article spared
or grudged at the county dinner-tables. Occasionally his business
took him up to London. Hurried as these journeys might be, he never
returned without a new game, a new toy of some kind, to "make home
pleasant to his little maid," as he expressed himself.
He liked, too, to see what was doing in art, or in literature; and as
he gave pretty extensive orders for anything he admired, he was
almost sure to be followed down to Hamley by one or two packages or
parcels, the arrival and opening of which began soon to form the
pleasant epochs in Ellinor's grave though happy life.
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