er that, Miss Bagshot is to place
me somewhere as a governess.'

'You are going to be a governess always?'

'I suppose so,' I answered. The word 'always' struck me with a
little sharp pain, almost like a wound. Yes, I supposed it would be
always. I was neither pretty nor attractive. What issue could there
be for me out of that dull hackneyed round of daily duties which
makes up the sum of a governess's life?

'I am obliged to do something for my living,' I said; 'my father is
very poor. I hope I may be able to help him a little by and by.'

'And my father is so ridiculously rich. He is a great ironmaster,
and has wharves and warehouses, and goodness knows what, at North
Shields. How hard it seems!'

'What seems hard?' I asked absently.

'That money should be so unequally divided. Do you know, I don't
think I should much mind going out as a governess: it would be a way
of seeing life. One must meet with all sorts of adventures, going
among strangers like that.'

I looked at her as she smiled at me, with a smile that gave an
indescribable brightness to her face, and I fancied that for her
indeed there could be no form of life so dull that would not hold
some triumph, some success. She seemed a creature born to extract
brightness out of the commonest things, a creature to be only
admired and caressed, go where she might.

'You a governess!' I said, a little scornfully; 'you are not of the
clay that makes governesses.'

'Why not?'

'You are much too pretty and too fascinating.'

'O, Mary Crofton, Mary Crofton--may I call you Mary, please? we are
going to be such friends--if you begin by flattering me like that,
how am I ever to trust you and lean upon you? I want some one with a
stronger mind than my own, you know, dear, to lead me right; for I'm
the weakest, vainest creature in the world, I believe. Papa has
spoiled me so.'

'If you are always like what you are to-night, I don't think the
spoiling has done much mischief,' I said.

'O, I am always amiable enough, so long as I have my own way. And
now tell me all about your home.'

I gave her a faithful account of my brothers and my sister, and a
brief description of the dear old-fashioned cottage, with its white-
plaster walls crossed with great black beams, its many gables and
quaint latticed windows. I told her how happy and united we had
always been at home, and how this made my separation from those I
loved so much the harder to bear; to all of which