Miss

rough and unpolished, and it is that which makes me hesitate about engaging you; considering your youth and inexperience. There was a lady here just now Crook, I think she called herself a highly respectable middle-aged person, of great experience. But I have a prejudice against thin lips; and, besides, her voice was harsh and disagreeable, and I am particularly anxious to improve my children's voices, as well as their accent, which is shockingly broad. I cannot imagine where they picked it up."

As Mrs. Irvine paused in expectation of an answer, Kathleen said, with a faint smile, "If youth is the only objection, that is a fault which time will mend." For in truth she felt that she was growing old as fast as any one could desire.

"That is true; but young people are so apt to be home-sick and discontented, in a quiet country place like ours, and it would be annoying to be at the expense of the journey uselessly. We live on the Ayrshire coast, quite off the line of railway, and we seldom see visitors, except in autumn. And when we are alone, Mr. Irvine likes to have his evenings to himself; so, you see, you must expect a good many lonely hours."

"I shall like to be alone," said Kathleen, confidently; and Mrs. Irvine looked at the fair young face, now tinged with deepening colour, in some surprise.

"You have not yet told me," she said, presently, "why you are leaving Lady Harriet Wilmot."

"Her daughters are grown up," replied Kathleen, "and it was always understood that I should become a governess when we returned to England."

De Cressy.

8

"Has Lady Harriet any sons?" Mrs. Irvine asked; but the little romance, founded on that supposition, was overthrown by a negative reply. After a few unimportant inquiries, she said, suddenly, "By the way, you have never told me what salary you expect."

"I do not know; I am not sure," said Kathleen, with hesitation: for indeed she had not given a thought to the subject.

"Of course, with your connexions and good education, you have a right to expect something considerable, and so I may as well mention, before the negotiation goes farther, that our circumstances do not admit of our giving more than sixty pounds a-year."

With such a sum Kathleen professed herself perfectly satisfied, and she took leave, after naming an hour for the requisite interview with Lady Harriet. It was, she knew, a mere matter of form, for Mrs. Irvine desired her servant to inform any other persons who might come, that she did not think it necessary to see any other persons that morning. Kathleen's destination was fixed, as promptly as she could desire, and she walked home with a dull, heavy sense of indifference to the prospects opening before her.

Lady Harriet, who was making breakfast before her daughters had appeared, greeted Kathleen on her entrance in emphatic tones: "My dear child! so you have actually been walking over the town, when you ought to have been in bed. I sent up to know if you were awake, and I was excessively angry to hear that you had gone out to church, I suppose. But what made you so late?"

"No; I have not been to church," said Kathleen. She paused for a moment to force back the rising tears, and then she went on hurriedly: "Lady Harriet, you will think me foolish and ungrateful for taking such a step without consulting you, yet indeed I am not ungrateful. But I could not make up my mind to speak before, and I wished to have it settled at once. I have been to find a governess's place."

It was the very step which Lady Harriet had desired her to take, and she knew that she ought to rejoice in this confirmation of her suspicion that all was at an end between Kathleen and Lord De Cressy: yet she expressed, as Kathleen had foreseen, indignant surprise at this announcement. She inveighed against the folly of engaging herself in this headlong manner to a person of whom she knew nothing, and for such an inadequate salary. "I know," she said, "of fifty people, my own personal friends, who would have been delighted to have you. And with them you would have been known and cared for." But this assurance did not dispose Kathleen to regret her precipitation; for it was her most earnest desire to cast her lot among those who had no clue to her previous history.

"And to banish yourself to Scotland, too," Lady Harriet concluded, as if this were indeed the climax of folly; "one might as well go to the North Pole at once."

As soon, however, as her first vehemence was exhausted, feelings of pity were excited by Kathleen's submissive gentleness, and she became eager to anticipate her wishes. She promised to arrange everything with Mrs. Irvine, even to the details of the journey to Ayrshire, which should be made as early as it suited that

lady's convenience, since Kathleen so desired it. She would not suffer Kathleen to bear up any longer against the headache which was weighing down her eyelids, and she sent her to her own room to lie down, while she despatched a note to Mrs. Lisle, informing her that her sister was too tired to walk to Audley-street that day.

CHAPTER XI.

Some murmur, when their sky is clear,
And wholly bright to view,

If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.

And some with thankful love are fill'd,
If but one streak of light,

One ray of God's good mercy gild

The darkness of their night.

R. C. TRENCH.

LADY HARRIET's note was delivered to Agnes when she was sitting with Walter, the other children having retreated to the bed-room for a game at romps. Agnes went to the window to read the note, and she remarked, as she gave it to Walter, that Lady Harriet wrote a very illegible hand.

"Do you think so, mamma? I can read it quite easily."

Agnes did not argue the point, but she stood as before, with her back to the light, endeavouring to thread her needle.

"Shall I do it, mamma?" said Walter, and she gave it to him at once, observing,

"You have such deft little fingers."

"Why," said Walter, "the needle is so large in proportion to the thread, that I could almost have done it in the dark."