me now, he would believe in me,' thought she to
herself, as she daily went to the cathedral. She took classes at school,
helped to train the St. Jude's choir, played Handel for Dr. Prendergast,
and felt absolutely without heart or inclination to show that
self-satisfied young curate that a governess was not a subject for such
distant perplexed courtesy. Sad at heart, and glad to distract her mind
by what was new yet innocent, she took up the duties of her vocation
zealously; and quickly found that all her zeal was needed. Her pupil was
a girl of considerable abilities--intellectual, thoughtful, and well
taught; and she herself had been always so unwilling a learner, so
willing a forgetter, that she needed all the advantages of her grown-up
mind and rapidity of perception to keep her sufficiently beforehand with
Sarah, whenever subjects went deep or far. If she pronounced like a
native, and knew what was idiomatic, Sarah, with her clumsy
pronunciation, had further insight into grammar, and asked perplexing
questions; if she played admirably and with facility, Sarah could puzzle
her with the science of music; if her drawing were ever so effective and
graceful, Sarah's less sightly productions had correct details that put
hers to shame, and, for mere honesty's sake, and to keep up her dignity,
she was obliged to work hard, and recur to the good grounding that
against her will she had received at Hiltonbury. 'Had her education been
as superficial as that of her cousins,' she wrote to her brother, 'Sarah
would have put her to shame long ago; indeed, nobody but the Fennimore
could be thoroughly up to that girl.'

Perhaps all her endeavours would not have impressed Sarah, had not the
damsel been thoroughly imposed on by her own enthusiasm for Miss
Sandbrook's grace, facility, alertness, and beauty. The power of doing
prettily and rapidly whatever she took up dazzled the large and
deliberate young person, to whom the right beginning and steady
thoroughness were essential, and she regarded her governess as a sort of
fairy--toiling after her in admiring hopelessness, and delighted at any
small success.

Fully aware of her own plainness, Sarah adored Miss Sandbrook's beauty,
took all admiration of it as personally as if it been paid to her
bullfinch, and was never so charmed as when people addressed themselves
to the governess as the daughter of the house. Lucilla, however, shrank
into the background. She was really treat