All Is Not Gold That Glitters by Ann Maria Hall

"It's a decent match enough," said old Mrs. Myles to the rector when two years had elapsed, and she had become reconciled to it. "Of course Rose never could have taken the same stand as Helen, who has been a lady now more than a year; though she's a good, grateful girl, and Edward very attentive -- very attentive indeed -- and I must say more so than I expected. Helen, I mean my lady, you know, has, as she says in her last letter, a great deal to do with her money -- of course she must have; and so, sir, pray do not let any one in Abbeyweld know that the little annuity is not continued -- regularly, I mean," she added, while a certain twitching of her features evinced how much she felt, though she did not at the moment confess it, the neglect of one she so dearly loved.

Like most talkative people, she frequently talked away her sorrows; and, thinking she would be better if she opened her heart, she recommenced, after wiping away a few natural tears: "You see, sir, Helen -- I mean her ladyship -- said she would make it up by-and-bye to me, and so she ought, poor dear thing; for I sacrificed both myself and her cousin Rose for her advancement; and really I cannot tell how the money goes with those great folk. Only think," proceeded the old lady, bringing her face close to Mr. Stokes, and whispering -- "only think, she says she never has five pounds she can call her own. Now, as I told Rose, this is very odd, because my lord is so very rich since the death of his brother, ten times as rich as he was at first, and yet Rose says they are poor now to what they used to be -- is not that very strange?