ulgar nature beset
her: she had forestalled her sources of income; she had contracted debts
for Jasper's sake;--in vain: her purse was emptied, yet his no fuller.
His creditors pressed him; he told her that he must hide. One winter's
day he thus departed; she saw him no more for a year. She heard, a few
days after he left her, of his father's crime and committal. Jasper was
sent abroad by his maternal uncle, at his father's prayer; sent to a
commercial house in France, in which the uncle obtained him a situation.
In fact, the young man had been despatched to France under another name,
in order to save him from the obloquy which his father had brought upon
his own.

Soon came William Losely's trial and sentence. Arabella felt the
disgrace acutely--felt how it would affect the audacious insolent
Jasper; did not wonder that he forbore to write to her. She conceived
him bowed by shame, but she was buoyed up by her conviction that they
should meet again. For good or for ill, she held herself bound to him
for life. But meanwhile the debts she had incurred on his account came
upon her. She was forced to dispose of her house; and at this time Mrs.
Lyndsay, looking out for some first-rate superior governess for Matilda
Darrell, was urged by all means to try and secure for that post Arabella
Fossett. The highest testimonials from the school at which she had been
reared, from the most eminent professional masters, from the families
at which she had recently taught, being all brought to bear upon Mr.
Darrell, he authorised Mrs. Lyndsay to propose such a salary as could
not fail to secure a teacher of such rare qualifications. And thus
Arabella became governess to Miss Darrell.

There is a kind of young lady of whom her nearest relations will say, "I
can't make that girl out." Matilda Darrell was that kind of young lady.
She talked very little; she moved very noiselessly; she seemed to regard
herself as a secret which she had solemnly sworn not to let out. She
had been steeped in slyness from her early infancy by a sly mother.
Mrs. Darrell was a woman who had always something to conceal. There was
always some note to be thrust out of sight; some visit not to be spoken
of; something or other which Matilda was not on any account to mention
to Papa.

When Mrs. Darrell died, Matilda was still a child, but she still
continued to view her father as a person against whom prudence demanded
her to be constantly on her guard. It was not th