Fan acted more from general good principles, and, perhaps, in some measure, unconsciously from policy, than from a purely benevolent temper. Yet at the most unexpected seasons, and in circumstances which were not so much out of the common as to warrant an exception to the rule, Fan Constable would suddenly amaze and overcome her coadjutors by a burst of womanly tenderness, deep, wistful and self-accusing, perfectly irresistible in such a woman. It was by dint of her early strength of will, and of something sterling in her earnestness even when the game did not seem worth the candle, quite as much as on account of her father’s purse and a credulous faith in her brother’s genius—with the future honour which it might reflect on Friarton, that Fan had been lifted over the heads of her compeers and promoted to a somewhat difficult footing, for which it is needless to say that she had to bear much obloquy, in a rank of society considerably above what was the original sphere of the owners of Friarton Mill. Fan could not work on the eve of what she was firmly persuaded must be one of the great crises of her life. Oliver was coming home crowned with the only laurels he could have gathered; and Fan had the entire sympathy with the gathering which belonged to the consciousness that she too was capable of enterprise and application, though not in securing such triumphs as Oliver had won. Fan knew perfectly that she was not clever in one sense; she was even slow where book-learning was concerned. Of course, she had by perseverance mastered the obstacles which had lain in the way of her becoming a fairly well-educated girl, after her father had been induced to send her to good schools both at home and abroad; and she had striven hard to cultivate her mind and taste still farther, so as to become a tolerable companion for Oliver—one of whom he need not be ashamed when educated men and refined women were his daily associates.