 in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect
which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her
daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young,
handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in
the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual
superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her,
into outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her
youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the
care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as
possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without
good-will. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked
such wonders. She loved every body, was interested in every body's happiness,
quick-sighted to every body's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature,
and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good
neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and
cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a
recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself. She was a great
talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, full of trivial
communications and harmless gossip.
    Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School - not of a seminary, or an
establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined
nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new
principles and new systems - and where young ladies for enormous pay might be
screwed out of health and into vanity - but a real, honest, old-fashioned
Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a
reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way and
scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back
prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute - and very deservedly; for
Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and
garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great
deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands.
It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to
church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her
youth, and now thought herself
