hable in that she wore her Sunday silks and a heavy black
bonnet with shiny rattling globes of some dark metal that nodded and
becked and bowed like live things. Hamlet, who had, of course, always
hated the Jampot, barked at this bonnet furiously, and would have bitten
at it had it been within his reach. She had meant to leave them all with
little sentences about life and morals; but the noise of the dog, the
indifference of the children, and the general air of impatience for her
departure strangled her aphorisms. Poor Jampot! She was departing to a
married sister who did not want her, and would often tell her so;
her prospects in life were not bright, and it is sad to think that no
inhabitant of the Orange Street house felt any sorrow at the sight of
the last gesticulating wave of her black bonnet as she stepped into the
old mouldy Polchester cab.

"The King is dead--long live the King!" The Jampot as a power in the
Cole family has ceased to be.

The day following the Jampot's departure offered up the news that, for
the first time in the history of the Coles, there was to be a governess.
The word "governess" had an awful sound, and the children trembled with
a mixture of delight and terror. Jeremy pretended indifference.

"It's only another woman," he said. "She'll be like the Jampot--only, a
lady, so she won't be able to punish us as the Jampot could."

I expect that Mr. and Mrs. Cole had great difficulty in finding anyone
who would do. Thirty years ago governesses were an incapable race, and
belonged too closely either to the Becky Sharp or the Amelia type to be
very satisfactory. It was then that the New Woman was bursting upon the
scene, but she was not to be found amongst the governesses. No one in
Polchester had learnt yet to cycle in rational costume, it was several
years before the publication of "The Heavenly Twins," and Mr. Trollope's
Lilys and Lucys were still considered the ideal of England's maidenhood.
Mrs. Cole, therefore, had to choose between idiotic young women and
crabbed old maids, and she finally chose an old maid. I don't think that
Miss Jones was the very best choice that she could have made, but time
was short. Jeremy, aided by Hamlet, was growing terribly independent,
and Mr. Cole had neither the humour nor the courage to deal with him.
No, Miss Jones was not ideal, but the Dean had strongly recommended her.
It is true that the Dean had never seen her, but her brother, with whom
she had live