There was certainly no
beauty about her to make the others envious; she was the plainest woman
in the house, with the additional misfortune of having one shoulder
bigger than the other. What the servants chiefly resented, I think, was
her silent tongue and her solitary ways. She read or worked in leisure
hours when the rest gossiped. And when it came to her turn to go out,
nine times out of ten she quietly put on her bonnet, and had her turn by
herself. She never quarrelled, she never took offence; she only kept a
certain distance, obstinately and civilly, between the rest of them and
herself. Add to this that, plain as she was, there was just a dash of
something that wasn't like a housemaid, and that WAS like a lady, about
her. It might have been in her voice, or it might have been in her face.
All I can say is, that the other women pounced on it like lightning the
first day she came into the house, and said (which was most unjust) that
Rosanna Spearman gave herself airs.
Having now told the story of Rosanna, I have only to notice one of the
many queer ways of this strange girl to get on next to the story of the
sands.
Our house is high up on the Yorkshire coast, and close by the sea.
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