He promised to use
every effort to direct the youth's studies and guide his judgment, to
consider him as his son, and Isabel as his daughter. "She is a worthy
singular girl," said Evellin, "but I have little fear for her; not that
I love her less; but she is one of those safe useful beings whose active
and benevolent character always secures friends, and whose self-controul
and indifference to their own ease make them comfortable in every
situation."
It was determined by the gentlemen that the young people should be kept
in perfect ignorance of Evellin's rank, but since it seemed prudent to
increase the number of living witnesses of his identity, Mrs. Mellicent
was admitted into their counsels. Though a woman, and an old maid, she
belonged to that extraordinary class of people who can keep a secret;
and I must do her the justice to say, that she never directly or
indirectly betrayed her trust. And whenever she reproved the girls for
what she called rompish tricks, which, she insisted, were very
unbecoming in young ladies, she constantly endeavoured to look at
Constantia as expressively as she did at the 'brown bird of the
mountains.
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