She was a most singular looking creature; her height not exceeding five feet, if that, and as broad as she was long. Neck she had none. Her huge misshapen head was stuck between her shoulders, and so out of proportion to the rest of the body, that at the first glance she appeared strangely deformed. She had a flat, broad, audacious face, with a short pert nose in the centre of it, which was hardly elevated enough to give her a profile at all. Her eyes were small, wide apart, and perfectly round, and she had a fashion of fixing them on any one's face, with a stare of such unblushing effrontery, that she literally looked them down. Insolent to the poor and unfortunate, she was the most submissive sneak to those whom she found it her interest to flatter and cajole. She had in this manner got the length of her young mistress's foot, as the common saying has it, and by worming herself into her confidence, had been the recipient of so many important secrets, that Mrs. Gilbert, afraid that she might betray her, let her have her own way, and do as she pleased; consequently, she had to put up with her insolence and contradiction, in a manner that would have been perfectly humiliating to a person more sensitive. This creature was made up of vanity and self-conceit. She would talk to others of her splendid head--her beautiful high forehead--her pretty hands and feet. It was hardly possible to think her in earnest; and for a long while Dorothy imagined this self-adulation arose out of the intense contradiction in her character, her mind being as ill-assorted as her body. But no, it was a sober fact. Her audacity gave her an appearance of frankness and candour she did not possess, but which often imposed upon others; for a more cunning, mischief-loving, malicious creature never entered a house to sow dissension and hatred among its inhabitants. Clever she was--but it was in the ways of evil--and those who, from the insignificance of her person, looked upon her as perfectly harmless, often awoke too late to escape the effects of her malignity. She had watched with keen attention the meeting between the Rushmeres, while she stood apparently as indifferent as a block to the whole scene, with the white poodle hanging over her arms. She guessed, by the sad expression that passed over the sick mother's face, when introduced to her mistress, that she read that lady's character, and was disappointed in her son's wife. The girl was perfectly aware how weak and arrogant her mistress was, and she laughed in her sleeve at the quarrels she saw looming in the future.