ell you far better and more interesting stories than I know. Come
and hear Miss Wade!' How could I engage their attentions, when my heart
was burning against these ignorant designs? How could I wonder, when I
saw their innocent faces shrinking away, and their arms twining round
her neck, instead of mine? Then she would look up at me, shaking their
curls from her face, and say, 'They'll come round soon, Miss Wade;
they're very simple and loving, ma'am; don't be at all cast down about
it, ma'am'--exulting over me!

There was another thing the woman did. At times, when she saw that she
had safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding by these means,
she would call the attention of the children to it, and would show them
the difference between herself and me. 'Hush! Poor Miss Wade is not
well. Don't make a noise, my dears, her head aches. Come and comfort
her. Come and ask her if she is better; come and ask her to lie down. I
hope you have nothing on your mind, ma'am. Don't take on, ma'am, and be
sorry!'

It became intolerable. Her ladyship, my Mistress, coming in one day when
I was alone, and at the height of feeling that I could support it no
longer, I told her I must go. I could not bear the presence of that
woman Dawes.

'Miss Wade! Poor Dawes is devoted to you; would do anything for you!'

I knew beforehand she would say so; I was quite prepared for it; I only
answered, it was not for me to contradict my Mistress; I must go.

'I hope, Miss Wade,' she returned, instantly assuming the tone of
superiority she had always so thinly concealed, 'that nothing I have
ever said or done since we have been together, has justified your use of
that disagreeable word, "Mistress." It must have been wholly inadvertent
on my part. Pray tell me what it is.'

I replied that I had no complaint to make, either of my Mistress or to
my Mistress; but I must go.

She hesitated a moment, and then sat down beside me, and laid her hand
on mine. As if that honour would obliterate any remembrance!

'Miss Wade, I fear you are unhappy, through causes over which I have no
influence.'

I smiled, thinking of the experience the word awakened, and said, 'I
have an unhappy temper, I suppose.' 'I did not say that.'

'It is an easy way of accounting for anything,' said I.

'It may be; but I did not say so. What I wish to approach is something
very different. My husband and I have exchanged some remarks upon the
subject, when we have observe