The Girl and her Fortune by L.T. Meade

As long as she lived, Florence Heathcote never forgot that week which she spent with the Arbuthnots. They belonged to that noble race of people who live for others. They were not rich -- indeed, far from that, they were extremely poor. Had any one been told the exact extent of Colonel Arbuthnot's income, that person would have stared and refused to believe it. But then the person would not have known Susie's saving powers, her wonderful capability for making tenpence do the work of a shilling, for never losing a penny's worth in any transaction, and for renovating her old garments so that they looked almost like new. The money she was allowed for clothes she spent, as a rule, on other people. What did it matter if her hat was last year's fashion when poor Mrs Jones and Mary Bryce got their nourishing soup, and when the orphan child of that gallant fellow, William Engelhart, was taught by her to read and write, and she paid the necessary money for his small education? The fact was, fashionable hats, jackets, and skirts would not have become Susie in the very least: she would have looked absolutely out of place in them. No one ever looked at Susie Arbuthnot's clothes: the eye was arrested by the kindliness in the kindly face, by the smile round the good-natured lips, by the strength and firmness of purpose of that hand grip, by the noble soul that radiated from that somewhat homely countenance.

And if Susie was good and could do good, she was but her father's complement. Each seemed to complete the character. There never had been before, nor ever since, a father and daughter so wholly and completely one. They had the same tastes, the same desires. Life with them was a little season to be spent in the school of the Almighty. It was the will of God that they should learn His lessons, and they learned them with submission, with cheerfulness, and without a thought of grumbling. The books they liked best were books that spoke about a future state. Often on Sunday evenings they sat close together, talking of that period when they should lay down for ever this vile body, and put on the celestial body. But they were not morbid in their conversations. They were always simple, and homely and direct. It was their pleasure to do what little good they could. Every one loved them at Langdale, and they were the life and light of the place.