is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We
never quarrel--I don't call him harsh--he never scolds me. Sometimes I
wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I
particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a
child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the
servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to
us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. It is my uncle's way not
to care for women and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in
company. He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter, as
far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy and frighten me
were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it
is scarcely _living_ to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours
pass, and I get them over somehow, but I do not _live_. I endure
existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have
been--I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused.

"How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?"

"Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully
circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this
place, and to forget it."

"You told me before you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you
remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself
great part of my life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself
most fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition have
rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married,
my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a---- I should not
like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of
considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the
members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual
endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were
regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state of discipline. I was
early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could
not expect 'to have their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me
that I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The gentlemen, I
found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' to whom 'they were interdicted
from granting the usual privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed
them by frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made