to whom Julia goes to school, and who gives me, and
Eliza lessons in music; Miss Willoughby," here she stopped; she did
not even add the gentleman's name. "I am sorry Miss Willoughby," said
she "I cannot take my lesson to-day, and therefore need not detain
you."

Helen colored, and bowing left the room, the stranger rose, opened the
door for her, and accompanied her to the street door, when he again
bowed his head respectfully.

When he returned to the room, Miss Falkner rallied him on his
politeness, to the village governess, as she contemptuously, styled
Helen.

"Village queen! I think," said he, "for she certainly has a most
dignified, and ladylike bearing, and is very good looking too."

"Well, I do declare Mr. Mortimer, you have quite lost your heart."

"By no means my dear Miss Falkner, it is not quite so vulnerable. A
lovely face and graceful form alone, will never win it: even with the
addition of such a syren's voice as Miss Willoughby possesses; she
sings, not only sweetly, but scientifically."

"Of course," said she, "if people are to get their living by their
talents, they ought to be well cultivated."

So little accustomed, since the death of her mother, to kindness from
the world in general, and made to feel, so keenly, her dependant
situation, Helen fully appreciated the respectful deference accorded
to her by the stranger.

Her pupils increased so, that in a short time, she had twelve, besides
several for accomplishments but the Misses Falkner, for reasons best
known to themselves, declined her future instructions, and just as she
was preparing to go to them a day or two after being, so cavalierly
dismissed, Mrs. Falkner was announced at the cottage. She came, she
said, to pay the bill, and say her daughters would discontinue their
lessons:

"Of course," she said, "you will only charge for the time you actually
came to them."

Helen quietly replied, "that she should certainly expect the quarter
they had commenced, to be paid for." She knew they could afford it,
and she felt it due to those she laboured for, not to throw away one
penny.

"Well," said Mrs. Falkner, "this comes of patronizing nobody knows
who, it is just what one might expect."

"Madam," said Helen, her colour rising as she spoke, "had you thought
proper to have done so, you might have known who I was."

"I think," said the unfeeling woman, "as Julia's quarter is up, I
shall keep her at home too, for the present."

"As