Sleeps like a child, while I must wake
The long, dark midnight for her sake."
COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

HAD not been two months at Glen-
Beck, when Kate came, by Mrs. For-

rester's invitation, to spend a day with me. The children had a holiday given them, at Walworth's suggestion; for he professed himself well pleased with their progress in their lessons, and remembered a promise he had made them not long before, to take the three together to the city. Left thus at leisure, I spent with Kate hours of quiet converse I had longed for with a yearning impossible to describe.

The consideration that thus brought Kate and me together, was not an uncommon act of kindness. My position in Mr. Forrester's family could not properly be called that of a teacher, although I received a salary and instructed the children. Owing to Walworth and Mildred, every attention that could have been offered the most favored visitor was mine, and my health was watched over, my tastes studied, and my simplest wish attended to. Understanding from his son, who learned from some incidental allusion of my own that I was fond of riding on horseback, Mr. Forrester placed at my disposal a well-trained and gentle horse, and Mildred and I were in the habit of . cantering for an hour every morning about the pleasant roads in the environs of the city, attended by a servant. The exhilarating exercise proved very beneficial to my health, and it is probable that the welcome relaxation fitted me for duties which I fear might otherwise have been but sluggishly performed. A happy heart would have made my life very pleasant at Glen-Beck, for scarce a day passed that brought no token of the unflagging kindness

104

KATE-ELLIce manverS—JEALOUSY.

of my two particular good spirits, Walworth and Mildred. Never was governess less the jaded, ill-treated creature she has so often been described. My pupils, it is true, had the usual faults of children, and the responsibility which met me on the threshold of. my new life gave me some apprehension at first; but a rational and firm discipline obtained for me power over their childish passions, and a judicious arrangement of the hours of recitation made the time passed in the school-room pleasant to them often; very wearisome, never. After a time, both teacher and pupils considered it anything but irksome to be confined during stated hours to the school-room. Even Frank's arithmetic was no longer a dreaded book to him; and Lillian, who had from the first shown an exceeding dislike to her geographical exercises, became very fond of them, after Walworth one. evening, at my entreaty, traced with her his tour through its different countries on the map of Europe. The only really wearing hour in the day to me was that in which I heard Tommy recite his French lesson. I had taken in vain various means to make it interesting to

him; his aversion to the study remained un-
conquerable. His pronunciation was false
and labored, his comprehension of the rules
difficult, and there seemed little likelihood that
he would ever become even passably ac-
quainted with the language.
But this soon
ceased to give me any annoyance. "What
right had I," I asked myself, “to expect per-
fection in my pupils ?" Surely, my path had
been made wonderfully smooth and even to
unaccustomed feet.

Mildred, with whom Kate became a favorite from the first, left us to spend our holiday together. With a delicate forethought she persuaded her mother to relinquish her intention of asking us into the drawing-room, rightly guessing that many of their gay visitors were summer friends of our own, whom it would under existing circumstances have been unpleasant to meet. So Kate and I spent the day in my own apartment, or in walking about the grounds.

The sight of the well-known furniture in my room caused a burst of tears on Kate's part, but they were soon dried. Possessing a

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106 KATE-ELLICE MANVERS-JEALOUSY.

remarkably happy disposition, she presently became enthusiastic in her admiration of Mildred, who I informed her had planned this pleasure for me.

How short the day seemed. Letters from the West were exchanged and read, and frequent, yet not often, sad reference made to our former home and other days. Kate, occupied and interested by her studies, and anxious to do well for our parents and my sake as well as her own, knew only the pleasant side of a picture that I trusted would never become dark to her. "Bright Katie," my father had named her; and truly, wherever she came a new and grateful light seemed to enter and abide. Gentle Katie, I called her this day; for there was an unusual caressing tenderness in her manner I found it difficult to account for until she said,

"If you were not so pale, Bessie! Are the children troublesome?"

I took some pains to assure her that I could not expect better scholars or kinder treatment. My position at Glen-Beck I affirmed was not that of a teacher, but of a beloved and honored