?" asked Miss Hastings, calmly.

"My independence, my freedom of action and thought, my liberty of
speech."

"Do you seriously value these more highly than all that Sir Oswald could
leave you?"

"I do--a thousand times more highly," she replied.

Miss Hastings was silent for some few minutes, and then said:

"We must do our best; suppose we make a compromise? I will give you all
the liberty that I honestly can, in every way, and you shall give your
attention to the studies I propose. I will make your task as easy as I
can for you. Darrell Court is worth a struggle."

"Yes," was the half-reluctant reply, "it is worth a struggle, and I will
make it."

But there was not much hope in the heart of the governess when she
commenced her task.

CHAPTER V.

PAULINE'S GOOD POINTS.

How often Sir Oswald's simile of the untrained, unpruned, uncultivated
vine returned to the mind of Miss Hastings! Pauline Darrell was by
nature a genius, a girl of magnificent intellect, a grand, noble,
generous being all untrained. She had in her capabilities of the
greatest kind--she could be either the very empress of wickedness or
angelic. She was gloriously endowed, but it was impossible to tell how
she would develop; there was no moderation in her, she acted always from
impulse, and her impulses were quick, warm, and irresistible. If she had
been an actress, she would surely have been the very queen of the stage.
Her faults were like her virtues, all grand ones. There was nothing
trivial, nothing mean, nothing ungenerous about her. She was of a nature
likely to be led to the highest criminality or the highest virtue; there
could be no medium of mediocre virtue for her. She was full of
character, charming even in her willfulness, but utterly devoid of all
small affectations. There was in her the making of a magnificent woman,
a great heroine; but nothing could have brought her to the level of
commonplace people. Her character was almost a terrible one in view of
the responsibilities attached to it.

Grand, daring, original, Pauline was all force, all fire, all passion.
Whatever she loved, she loved with an intensity almost terrible to
witness. There was also no "middle way" in her dislikes--she hated with
a fury of hate. She had little patience, little toleration; one of her
greatest delights consisted in ruthlessly tearing away the social vail
which most people loved to wear. There were times when her grand, pale,
passionat