g, and blushing a little.

"Doctor Harris has certainly made love to her, and Dick as certainly
hasn't. I wonder--oh, how I wonder!--whether he was in earnest the
other day?" Her large blue eyes were fixed scrutinizingly on the
governess, although she thought, not said, these things. "He thinks you
do a great deal too much in the house, and was quite abusive to me
about it: he actually swore when he discovered the amount of your
salary. Now, my dear Miss Featherstone, you may name your own price:
I'll give you anything you ask, for no amount of money can represent
the comfort you are to me."

"I don't want one cent more than I at present receive," replied the
governess, kissing her fondly.

A few days after Colonel Pinckney--a self-constituted committee,
apparently, for the prevention of cruelty to governesses--surprised
Miss Featherstone in the school-room. She was seated before the fire in
a low chair, little Harry, who was fretful from a cold, lying on her
lap, the other children clustered around her. As he softly opened the
door he heard these words: "'Blondine,' replied the fairy Bienveillante
sadly,' no matter what you see or hear, do not lose courage or hope.'"
As she told the story in low, drowsy tones she was also mending the
heel of a little stocking.

"It is abominable!" the colonel cried: "you are worn out with fatigue:
I hear it in your voice. I called you a 'white slave' to Virginia:
nothing is truer. You've today given out supplies from the store-room,
you were in the kitchen a long time with the new cook, you set the
lunch-table--don't deny it, for I saw you--besides taking care of the
children and hearing their lessons."

"While Mrs. Pinckney is ill this is absolutely necessary," she returned
with decision: "of course it makes some confusion having a new cook--"

"Children," he interrupted, "this seance is to be broken up: scamper
off to Adele to get ready: I'll ask mamma to let you drive to the
station in the coupe to meet Mr. Brown: there will certainly be room
for such little folks.--And as to you, Miss Featherstone, as head of
the house _pro tem_. I order you to put on your hat and cloak and walk
in the garden for a while with me: the paths are quite hard and dry."

"Mamma! mamma! we are to drive to the station: Uncle Dick says so,"
shrieked the children, breaking up a delicious little doze into which
Mrs. Pinckney had fallen while Adele sat at her sewing in the darkened
room.

"Is Uncle D