Falkner by Mary Shelley

Three more years passed thus over the head of the young Elizabeth; when, during the warm summer months, the wanderers established themselves for a season at Baden. They had hitherto lived in great seclusion -- and Falkner continued to do so; but he was not sorry to find his adopted child noticed and courted by various noble ladies, who were charmed by the pure complexion -- the golden hair, and spirited, though gentle, manners of the young English girl.

Elizabeth's characteristic was an enthusiastic affectionateness -- every little act of kindness that she received excited her gratitude: she felt as if she never could -- though she would constantly endeavour -- repay the vast debt she owed her benefactor. She loved to repass in her mind those sad days when, under the care of the sordid Mrs. Baker, she ran every hazard of incurring the worst evils of poverty; ignorance and blunted sensibility. She had preserved her little well-worn shoes, full of holes, and slipping from her feet, as a sort of record of her neglected situation. She remembered how her hours had been spent loitering on the beach -- sometimes with her little book, from which her mother had taught her -- oftener in constructing sand castles, decorated with pebbles and broken shells. She recollected how she had thus built an imitation of the church and churchyard, with its shady corner and single stone marking two graves: she remembered the vulgar, loud voice that called her from her employment with, "Come, Missy, come to your dinner! The Lord help me! I wonder when anybody else will give you a dinner. " She called to mind the boasts of Mrs. Baker's children, contrasting their Sunday frock with hers -- the smallest portion of cake given to her last, and with a taunt that made her little heart swell and her throat feel choked, so that she could not eat it, but scattered it to the birds -- on which she was beat for being wasteful; all this was contrasted with the vigilance, the tenderness, the respect of her protector. She brooded over these thoughts till he became sacred in her eyes; and, young as she was, her heart yearned and sickened for an occasion to demonstrate the deep and unutterable thankfulness that possessed her soul.