him much alone. Shirley made him her pet; and he made Shirley his playmate.
In the midst of this family-circle—or rather outside it—moved the tutor—the satellite.
Yes: Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson: connected, yet apart; ever attendant—ever distant. Each member of that correct family treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil, sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They were learned: so was he—but not for them. They were accomplished: he had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour.
I should have said, nothing could have equalled it; but I remembered a fact which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was—to discover that her cousin had absolutely no sympathizing friend at Fieldhead: that to Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.
What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never
