name, I have so often mentioned it
to you.) She is the dearest little thing in the world,--quite that,
and more. And she writes, to tell me she is miserably poor, and wants
to go out as a governess."

"Poor girl! Of all unhappy resources, the last."

"Yes; isn't it wretched? But, you see, she is bound to do something,
and wearing out one's heart in a dingy school-room seems to be the
only course left open to a pretty girl like Georgie."

"Try Mrs. Redmond, then. She is looking out for a governess for the
children; and your friend might drop in there without further
trouble."

"Oh, papa, but all those children! and Mrs. Redmond herself, too, so
fretful and so irritable,--so utterly impossible in every way. Her
very 'How d'ye do?' would frighten Georgie to death."

"People don't die of chills of that description; and your poor little
friend can scarcely expect to find everything _couleur de rose_.
Besides, 'all those children' you speak of just resolve themselves
into two, as the boys are at school, and Cissy calls herself grown up.
I should think Cissy would be, in fact, a great comfort to her, and
would be amenable to her, and gentle--and that."

At this, Miss Peyton laughs a little, and bites her lip.

"Amenable," she says, slowly. "Do you know, I am afraid my Georgie is
even younger than Cissy?"

"Younger!"

"Well, she will certainly look younger; she has such a little, fresh,
babyish rose-bud of a face. Do you think"--anxiously--"that would
matter much?"

"It doesn't sound promising; but, if she is a good girl, one might
forgive the great crime of being fresh and young. Dear me, it is very
awkward. If she had been a nice, sensible, ugly, middle-aged person,
now, all would have gone well; but, after all, poor child, of course
she can't help her appearance."

"No, she certainly cannot," says Clarissa, with a sigh,
heart-felt pity in her tone. "And her eyes are the very color of
forget-me-nots,--quite the prettiest I ever saw. It is really too
bad."

"Redmond, himself, would make no difficulty about it. He
prefers to have young people about him, and was always, you know,
rather----rather melancholy when in Miss Prood's society, who was
really a most estimable woman, and one whose moral character one could
not fail to admire, when one forgot her nose, and her----"

"Temper?"

"Well, yes, she was rather excitable. But, as I was saying, Redmond
and your friend would probably pull very well; and then th