verness. They told my father that the next
three years were the most important in my life, and that the best way to
foster my health was to find some judicious person to be my companion.

Aunt Helen was in favor of one who had youth and good spirits, but Aunt
Agnes thought it important that a governess should inspire respect. I
was not consulted, and my father declined to arbitrate between them. In
the end, the favorite of Aunt Agnes was installed, through the chance
discovery that the other applicant had been at one time on the stage.

Miss Jenks was a kind but sober disciplinarian of fifty. I was her pupil
until I was eighteen; and though I was none the less lonely because of
her companionship, I am in her debt to-day for the pains she took to
systematize my heterogeneous acquirements and teach me the evils of
superficiality. Her views of life were autumnal in tint, and her laugh
was never hearty. She rarely conversed with me at length; but if I made
inquiries concerning any matter of knowledge, I was sure to find a book
or pamphlet on my desk the next day, with slips marking the valuable
pages. She kept me so steadily employed during the hours I was not in
bed or in the fresh air that I had no time for novel-reading,--a pastime
I had indulged in formerly to a considerable extent. I thrived
physically under this regimen, but I became silent and grave. Miss Jenks
seemed constantly on her guard against undue enthusiasm, and abetted by
her example I inclined to introspection and over conscientiousness. I
picked up pins, and went out of my way to kick orange-peel from the
sidewalk, on principle.

But apart from, or rather concurrent with, this sobriety of character I
was a dreamer in secret, and delighted to give the rein to fancy. I
liked to picture myself in some of the romantic situations of which
I had read, and to build castles for the future. But all these
imaginations were of a realistic order, as distinguished from ghosts and
fairies and other creations of that class. I was completely free from
superstitions. It was not for luck that I picked up pins, but that they
should not be wasted. In like manner I never hesitated to let a
horse-shoe lie in the road, to walk under a ladder, or be one of
thirteen at table. And yet I was distinctly a dreamer. If it was in the
way of lovers, my thoughts were entirely subjective. I knew no young men
except the boys at dancing-school; and they as a rule avoided me, for I
was shy