She would
brighten up greatly at this, taking it for a compliment of the best sort.
And she did not forget it, as the sequel will show. She would choose to sit
with one candle lit when there were two on the table, wasting her eyes to
save the candles. "Which will you have for dinner to-day, papa, roast beef
or boiled?" she asked me once, when her mother was too unwell to attend to
the housekeeping. And when I replied that I would have whichever she liked
best--"The boiled beef lasts longest, I think," she said. Yet she was not
only as liberal and kind as any to the poor, but she was, which is rarer,
and perhaps more important for the final formation of a character,
carefully just to everyone with whom she had any dealings. Her sense of
law was very strong. Law with her was something absolute, and not to be
questioned. In her childhood there was one lady to whom for years she
showed a decided aversion, and we could not understand it, for it was the
most inoffensive Miss Boulderstone. When she was nearly grown up, one of
us happening to allude to the fact, she volunteered an explanation. Miss
Boulderstone had happened to call one day when Wynnie, then between three
and four was in disgrace--_in the corner_, in fact.
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