e
splendours of her wardrobe, and feeling descriptions of her umbrellas
and hats; and Miss Jones looks offended and purses up her lips. In
common with most governesses, she has a little dark down on her
upper lip, and the April baby appeared one day at dinner with her
own decorated in faithful imitation, having achieved it after much
struggling, with the aid of a lead pencil and unbounded love. Miss Jones
put her in the corner for impertinence. I wonder why governesses are so
unpleasant. The Man of Wrath says it is because they are not married.
Without venturing to differ entirely from the opinion of experience, I
would add that the strain of continually having to set an example must
surely be very great. It is much easier, and often more pleasant, to be
a warning than an example, and governesses are but women, and women are
sometimes foolish, and when you want to be foolish it must be annoying
to have to be wise.

Minora and Irais arrived yesterday together; or rather, when the
carriage drove up, Irais got out of it alone, and informed me that there
was a strange girl on a bicycle a little way behind. I sent back the
carriage to pick her up, for it was dusk and the roads are terrible.

"But why do you have strange girls here at all?" asked Irais rather
peevishly, taking off her hat in the library before the fire, and
otherwise making herself very much at home; "I don't like them. I'm not
sure that they're not worse than husbands who are out of order. Who is
she? She would bicycle from the station, and is, I am sure, the first
woman who has done it. The little boys threw stones at her."

"Oh, my dear, that only shows the ignorance of the little boys. Never
mind her. Let us have tea in peace before she comes." "But we should be
much happier without her," she grumbled. "Weren't we happy enough in the
summer, Elizabeth--just you and I?"

"Yes, indeed we were," I answered heartily, putting my arms round her.
The flame of my affection for Irais burns very brightly on the day of
her arrival; besides, this time I have prudently provided against her
sinning with the salt-cellars by ordering them to be handed round like
vegetable dishes. We had finished tea and she had gone up to her room to
dress before Minora and her bicycle were got here. I hurried out to meet
her, feeling sorry for her, plunged into a circle of strangers at such a
very personal season as Christmas. But she was not very shy; indeed, she
was less shy than