Mrs. Enderby, and saw no reason to
congratulate herself on Phyllis's silence to her mother as to the
quarrel and its cause. But the others judged differently. Miss Davis was
pleased that by her own tact she had been able to arrange matters
without calling in the aid of Mrs. Enderby, who, she was aware, liked a
governess to have judgment and decision sufficient to keep the mistress
of the house out of school-room squabbles. Nell was delighted that
there was to be no more "fuss." Phyllis above all was pleased, for now
she felt no more necessity for questioning her own motives and conduct,
no more danger of being told by her mother that Hetty had in the
beginning been in the right, while she, by opposing her, had brought on
the wrong which had followed.

Falling back upon her own doctrine, that she must be right because her
judgment told her so, Phyllis was coldly amiable to Hetty for the rest
of the evening; while Hetty, having made her act of humility, rather
suffered from a reaction of feeling, and had to struggle hard to keep
the moral vantage-ground she had gained.

CHAPTER XVI.

A TRIAL OF PATIENCE.

Two more years passed over Hetty's head. She had grown tall and looked
old for her age, her large gray eyes were full of serious thought, her
brow was grave, and the expression of her mouth touched with sadness.
The haughtiness and mirth of her childhood were alike gone. Earnest
desire to attain to a difficult end was the one force that moved her,
and this had become visible in her every word and glance. She was
painfully aware that the time was approaching when she must go forth to
battle with the world for herself, and that on her own qualifications
for fighting that battle her position in the world must depend. That she
had not sufficient aptitude for learning out of books, or for
remembering readily all that she gathered from them, she greatly feared.
Her memory gave her back in pictures whatever had engaged her
imagination; but much that was useful and necessary was wont to pass
away out of her grasp. Thorough determination, close application, did
not remove this difficulty, and she was warned by those around her that
unless she could make better use for study of the three years yet before
her than she had made of those that lay behind her, she could never be a
teacher of a very high order. Of all that this failure meant, Hetty
understood more clearly now than when she had wished to live with Mrs.
Kane