 chance of relief - to have neglected to avail herself of this
happy change: a turn was thereby given to her thoughts; a new channel was opened
for them, which, diverting a few of them at least from the one direction in
which all had hitherto tended, abated the impetuosity of their rush, and
lessened the force of their pressure on one worn-down point.
    Soon she was content to spend whole days at Fieldhead, doing by turns
whatever Shirley or Mrs. Pryor wished her to do: and now one would claim her,
now the other. Nothing could be less demonstrative than the friendship of the
elder lady; but also nothing could be more vigilant, assiduous, untiring. I have
intimated that she was a peculiar personage; and in nothing was her peculiarity
more shown than in the nature of the interest she evinced for Caroline. She
watched all her movements: she seemed as if she would have guarded all her
steps: it gave her pleasure to be applied to by Miss Helstone for advice and
assistance; she yielded her aid, when asked, with such quiet yet obvious
enjoyment, that Caroline erelong took delight in depending on her.
    Shirley Keeldar's complete docility with Mrs. Pryor had at first surprised
Miss Helstone, and not less the fact of the reserved ex-governess being so much
at home and at ease in the residence of her young pupil, where she filled with
such quiet independency a very dependent post; but she soon found that it needed
but to know both ladies to comprehend fully the enigma. Every one, it seemed to
her, must like, must love, must prize Mrs. Pryor when they knew her. No matter
that she perseveringly wore old-fashioned gowns; that her speech was formal, and
her manner cool; that she had twenty little ways such as nobody else had - she
was still such a stay, such a counsellor, so truthful, so kind in her way, that,
in Caroline's idea, none once accustomed to her presence could easily afford to
dispense with it.
    As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it in her intercourse
with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor? The heiress was rich - very rich -
compared with her new friend: one possessed a clear thousand a-year - the other
not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense of equality experienced in her
society, never known in that of the ordinary Briarfield and Whinbury gentry.
    The reason was, Shirley's head ran on other things than money and position.
She was glad to be independent as
