t helped her to a sense of security even in the
event of her mother's giving her up. Familiar as she had grown with the
fact of the great alternative to the proper, she felt in her governess
and her father a strong reason for not emulating that detachment. At the
same time she had heard somehow of little girls--of exalted rank, it was
true--whose education was carried on by instructors of the other sex,
and she knew that if she were at school at Brighton it would be thought
an advantage to her to be more or less in the hands of masters. She
turned these things over and remarked to Miss Overmore that if she
should go to her mother perhaps the gentleman might become her tutor.

"The gentleman?" The proposition was complicated enough to make Miss
Overmore stare.

"The one who's with mamma. Mightn't that make it right--as right as your
being my governess makes it for you to be with papa?"

Miss Overmore considered; she coloured a little; then she embraced her
ingenious friend. "You're too sweet! I'm a REAL governess."

"And couldn't he be a real tutor?"

"Of course not. He's ignorant and bad."

"Bad--?" Maisie echoed with wonder.

Her companion gave a queer little laugh at her tone. "He's ever so much
younger--" But that was all.

"Younger than you?"

Miss Overmore laughed again; it was the first time Maisie had seen her
approach so nearly to a giggle.

"Younger than--no matter whom. I don't know anything about him and don't
want to," she rather inconsequently added. "He's not my sort, and I'm
sure, my own darling, he's not yours." And she repeated the free caress
into which her colloquies with Maisie almost always broke and which made
the child feel that HER affection at least was a gage of safety. Parents
had come to seem vague, but governesses were evidently to be trusted.
Maisie's faith in Mrs. Wix for instance had suffered no lapse from the
fact that all communication with her had temporarily dropped. During the
first weeks of their separation Clara Matilda's mamma had repeatedly and
dolefully written to her, and Maisie had answered with an enthusiasm
controlled only by orthographical doubts; but the correspondence had
been duly submitted to Miss Overmore, with the final effect of its not
suiting her. It was this lady's view that Mr. Farange wouldn't care for
it at all, and she ended by confessing--since her pupil pushed her--that
she didn't care for it herself. She was furiously jealous, she said; and
that