rl with a sickly
knowledge of everything, and very sickly ideas of her own merits and
place and work in the world: she wanted a girl of natural sagacity,
who from her cradle had known that she came into the world to do
something, and had learned how to do it.

Miss Adamson, the normal-school young lady recommended, wrote thus to
Lady Arthur:

"MADAM: I am very much tempted to take the situation you offer
me. If I were teacher of a village school, as I had intended,
when my work in the school was over I should have had my time
to myself; and I wish to stipulate that when the hours of
teaching Miss Garscube are over I may have the same privilege.
If you engage me, I think, so far as I know myself, you will
not be disappointed.

"I am," etc. etc.

To which Lady Arthur:

"So far as I can judge, you are the very thing I want. Come,
and we shall not disagree about terms," etc. etc.

Thus it came about that Miss Garscube was unusually lucky in the
matter of her education and Miss Adamson in her engagement. Although
eccentric to the pitch of getting credit for being daft, Lady Arthur
had a strong vein of masculine sense, which in all essential things
kept her in the right path. Miss Adamson and she suited each other
thoroughly, and the education of the two ladies and the child may be
said to have gone on simultaneously. Miss Adamson had an absorbing
pursuit: she was an embryo artist, and she roused a kindred taste in
her pupil; so that, instead of carrying on her work in solitude, as
she had expected to do, she had the intense pleasure of sympathy
and companionship. Lady Arthur often paid them long visits in their
studio; she herself sketched a little, but she had never excelled in
any single pursuit except horsemanship, and that she had given up at
her husband's death, as she had given up keeping much company or going
often into society.

In this quiet, unexciting, regular life Lady Arthur's antiquarian
tastes grew on her, and she went on writing poetry, the quantity of
which was more remarkable than the quality, although here and there in
the mass of ore there was an occasional sparkle from fine gold (there
are few voluminous writers in which this accident does not occur). She
superintended excavations, and made prizes of old dust and stones
and coins and jewelry (or what was called ancient jewelry: it looked
ancient enough, but more like rusty iron to the untrained eye than