But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think
more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar
dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious
period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite
still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself
how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit.
Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long
attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young
woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first
discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day
for her defense.
Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a
glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a
secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her
insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she
saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was
actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart
of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half
affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.
She made a motion with her hand inviting Lady Bassett to listen, and
stepped into Sir Charles's room.
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