d its ebb and flow, its time of spasmodic outburst, and
its time of deceitful repose; but, active or passive, it was always in
her. It had injured innocent servants, and insulted blameless strangers.
It had brought the first tears of shame and sorrow into her daughter's
eyes, and had set the deepest lines that scored it in her husband's
face. It had made the secret misery of the little household for years;
and it was now to pass beyond the family limits, and to influence coming
events at Thorpe Ambrose, in which the future interests of Allan and
Allan's friend were vitally concerned.

A moment's glance at the posture of domestic affairs in the cottage,
prior to the engagement of the new governess, is necessary to the due
appreciation of the serious consequences that followed Miss Gwilt's
appearance on the scene.

On the marriage of the governess who had lived in his service for many
years (a woman of an age and an appearance to set even Mrs. Milroy's
jealousy at defiance), the major had considered the question of sending
his daughter away from home far more seriously than his wife supposed.
He was conscious that scenes took place in the house at which no young
girl should be present; but he felt an invincible reluctance to apply
the one efficient remedy--the keeping his daughter away from home in
school time and holiday time alike. The struggle thus raised in his mind
once set at rest, by the resolution to advertise for a new governess,
Major Milroy's natural tendency to avoid trouble rather than to meet
it had declared itself in its customary manner. He had closed his eyes
again on his home anxieties as quietly as usual, and had gone back, as
he had gone back on hundreds of previous occasions, to the consoling
society of his old friend the clock.

It was far otherwise with the major's wife. The chance which her husband
had entirely overlooked, that the new governess who was to come might
be a younger and a more attractive woman than the old governess who had
gone, was the first chance that presented itself as possible to Mrs.
Milroy's mind. She had said nothing. Secretly waiting, and secretly
nursing her inveterate distrust, she had encouraged her husband and her
daughter to leave her on the occasion of the picnic, with the express
purpose of making an opportunity for seeing the new governess alone. The
governess had shown herself; and the smoldering fire of Mrs. Milroy's
jealousy had burst into flame in the moment w