ly. She is going out to California next spring,
and will have to look out for a governess to go with her, as, of course,
she is taking the children. Would you like to go, or do you prefer
school-work?"

"I--I don't know," stammered Margaret, who totally unprepared for such
a proposition, did not know what answer to make. "I should have to ask
El----(my friend, I mean) what she thought of it. Ask her advice, I
mean."

"Quite so, quite so," Mrs. Danvers said. "But that's all in the future,
of course. The first thing you have to do is to make the acquaintance of
the children, and, as I said, Hannah has evidently carefully kept them up
in the nursery this morning. She is devoted to them, and can't bear the
idea of having to share her charge of them with a governess. So I am
afraid you may have a little unpleasantness to put up with at first. But
she is a good creature, and if you exercise a little tact you will soon
be able to smooth her down."

"Yes," said Margaret even more feebly than before. But Mrs. Danvers was
not an observant woman, and she was so far from suspecting the hidden
dismay with which her new holiday governess listened to her, that later
in the day she gave it as her opinion that underneath her exceedingly
quiet manner Miss Carson concealed an iron will, and that the reign of
stern discipline she was about to inaugurate would have an excellent
effect on her grandchildren. And she was genuinely astonished at the
derision with which her own children received this prophecy.

CHAPTER X

ELEANOR AT WINDY GAP

To her mingled relief and surprise, Margaret found her small pupils far
less troublesome to manage than the tales she had heard about them would
have led her to suppose. Daisy and David were a quaint, small couple; but
though self-willed and alarmingly high spirited they were affectionate,
warm-hearted children and easily ruled by love. They took an instant
fancy to Margaret. Perhaps her quiet manner and prim way of speaking
appealed to them after the noisy ways of their young aunts, who
alternately petted and bullied them; at any rate they showed themselves
gratifyingly ready to obey her lightest word.

"We think you a perfect dear," Daisy said at the end of the first
morning, winding two fat little arms tightly round Margaret's neck, "and
we like you, and we will be good to you, won't we, David?"

"Sure," said David, who had picked up a few Americanisms from his
father's New York chauff