Shelley and John were quite content that she should do so, as he was not
her father, though Fairy persisted in calling his wife mother, to Mrs.
Shelley's secret joy. They were both greatly attached to their
foster-daughter; as for the shepherd, he never contradicted her in
anything, and though over-strict as his wife thought with his own boys,
he never seemed to think Fairy could do wrong, and had never been heard
even to rebuke her in the mildest way since he found her; and when Mrs.
Shelley remonstrated with him, as she sometimes did, he excused himself
by saying she was not his own child, so he did not feel the same
responsibility about her.
Luckily for Fairy, Mrs. Shelley did not humour her and look upon her
with the same excessive admiration the shepherd and the boys did; they
regarded her as a superior being, and thought her way of queening it
over them perfectly right and natural. Mrs. Shelley loved the child she
had been a mother to tenderly, and was proud of her beauty and
cleverness, and yet, while she constantly impressed on her boys that
Fairy was a lady by birth and therefore in a very different position to
any of them, and, moreover, might any day be claimed by her own parents
and taken into her own sphere, she insisted on the same obedience from
her as she expected from her own children.
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