phies, and well-inked copy - lines. There also lies a light cane, once a potent sceptre in the firm hand of Charlotte; and beside this table, pale, and somewhat agitated, Miss Francis sits restlessly, trembling with uncertainty and confusion, looking upon all these childish faces, which are full of resistance, wondering to see how unlovely they are; nervous and afraid of speaking to them, ready to cry with vexation, with wistful eagerness and shame. Yes, it is very true. The poor young girlish governess is not only afraid of Minnie, but of the very youngest and smallest of Minnie's brothers and sisters, and has not the faintest idea how she must begin with them, nor plan for managing the small unruly population given to her care.

And Nurse, coming and going silently, shakes her head, and makes signs to Zaidee, warning her to begin; then, sitting down close by her, touches her now and then with her elbow. Finding all this insufficient, Nurse at last opens her lips and whispers, "Miss! sure you'll never get the better of them, if you never try. Why can't you begin, honey? They're waiting, every soul of them: say they're to come and get their lessons. Sure I'd try."

Thus admonished, Zaidee, turning very white and very red, gathers up her courage. It is strange how unsympathetic, how full of hard and pitiless opposition, these little faces are, as the distressed girl looks round upon them. They have no compassion for her utter solitude, her terror of themselves. These children are all set against her, each after its own fashion; the instincts of the childish heart are not touched in gentleness for her. She is only their natural enemy, the new governess, and these little tyrants would crush her if they could.

"Will you come and read? Mrs Disbrowe said you should," said Zaidee, addressing Rosie and Lettie. Neither Rosie nor Lettie were discomposed; but the breath of the questioner came quick, and her voice was timid and hurried. Poor Zaidee, at fourteen, in the fright and novelty and desolateness of her new position, could by no means look authoritative or dignified.

“Õh, please, we have some work

to do for mamma," said Rosie, whose heart smote her a little, as she looked up at Zaidee's face. "Mamma never said we were to get our lessons to you. I am sure you cannot teach us," said the less amiable Lettie. From this unpromising commencement Zaidee shrank, making no answer. Her natural candour was almost too much for her at this conjuncture. It was quite possible, after all, that this solemn us, the twins of Bedford Place, were already too learned to be instructed by her.

"Why, then, and the young lady has nothing to do but ask your mamma?" cried Nurse, the sole support of the stranger. "Oh, children, is that all the memory you have for what I told you?"

But even with Nurse's support Zaidee did not venture to return to the charge. She was no match for these precocious little women. The little boys might possibly be more propitious. This trembling representative of instruction turned to them.

"Will you come, then?" said Zaidee, who had not courage to call Jack and Harry by their names; "you have only to read and say your lessons, and I am sure it does not matter who hears you."

"Doesn't it, though?" cried Harry phlegmatic Jack meanwhile sucking his finger, and saying nothing, as he stands apart in the invincible might of passive resistance; "it matters to me! I won't say my lessons to a woman; not if you were twice as big, and twice as old. I won't have a girl ordering me, now Charlotte's married. I'll go to school. I won't say my lessons to you!"

Then she turned round very swiftly and suddenly, and stooped to the younger members of the family, who sat on the floor behind. "Little children, will you let me teach you?" said Zaidee; you should be good, you are such little ones. Will you come to me?"

Sissy Disbrowe tossed her small head with infantine disdain. "Miss Francis means Tommy; it is not me," said Sissy; while Tommy roared manfully, "I won't say any lessons to anybody; no! no! no!"

The poor little governess stood alone, facing this amiable family,

every member of which, stimulated and encouraged by the example of the others, faced her with the triumph of successful sedition. Zaidee ceased trembling, after a moment, and became very upright and very pale.

"This is what Mrs Disbrowe keeps me for," said Zaidee; "she does not want me for anything else; I have no right to stay with her. I am here only because I am to teach you. I know very little-it is all quite true; but I am to hear you your lessons. That is what I am here for; and I am obliged to do it, or I must go away. I have no friends. I cannot go away unless Mrs Disbrowe sends me. It is not that I love to teach, or that I am very good for it; but I must-do you hear me?-I must; because I am here for no other thing."

When Zaidee had said her speech, she remained still looking round upon them all, her dark face lighted up with resolve and decision. The children still confronted her, all of them rebellious and unmoved. What was she to do, to express in purpose what she had said in words?

Poor ignorant child! she was bewildered and stunned to the heart. She could not do anything; not an idea came to Zaidee of how she could reduce into subordination this little contumacious company. Her words came back to her with a dreary echoshe must do it; but the children were all quite fearless and indifferent to her, while she trembled before them. She would not shed tears in their sight; but the tears, notwithstanding, blinded her eyes. She stood in the centre of the room, sick at heart. What should she do?

But the door opened at the moment, and with a sudden start the countenances changed before her. Mamma had come herself to superintend the first day's teaching. How it was, Zaidee could not tell; but before half an hour was over, two gentle little pupils, being no other than Rosie and Lettie, whilom leaders of the insurrection, stood before her, meekly reading their lessons. To defy the governess was easy enough, but it was quite a different matter to defy

mamma.

"A little pack of plagues-no better. Miss, darlin', do you hear me? Sure it's you will have your hands full of them."

"Did you speak to me, Nurse?" asked Zaidee.

"Was it speak to you? I was mourning for you, poor soul, and you so young," said Nurse, compassionately; "it isn't the like of this you've been used with, I can see, for all so little as you say."

But Zaidee was unresponsive, and did not understand the pity bestowed upon her. She looked up for an instant with one of her wistful looks, half vacant, half inquiring, and then returned silently to her work, which was "plain-sewing "-sewing of the very plainest, such as there was considerable need for in Mrs Disbrowe's well-populated house.

"I wouldn't lay myself out for more trades nor one, I wouldn't," continued Nurse. "I'd not be slaving all the night if I had to fight with them little bothers all the day. I'd

be one thing or another, and not let nobody take the advantage of me. The lady is none so great a friend to you."

The girl looked up once more with her half-awakened eyes, but Zaidee could not be persuaded to pity herself on this score. From a long, long distance off the summit and elevation of her own thoughts, she looked upon Nurse, who pitied the poor young governess. All the while Mrs Disbrowe's plain-sewing went on unconsciously, and on the table between the windows you could see the schoolbooks and copy-books gathered in a little heap. Zaidee was wearied with a real day's work, but the sensation was pleasant to her. True, she had been blinded with tears of vexation and embarrassment more than once to-day; but her thoughts were so very far removed from making a grievance of this, or of anything else in the lot she had chosen, that the simplehearted child did not even apprehend the idea when it was presented to

her; for Zaidee not only did Mrs Disbrowe's plain-sewing willingly, but with devotion, and had a secret satisfaction in doing it, while with infinite care she regulated her even line of stitches, thinking to please Aunt Vivian in the homely work which Aunt Vivian should never

see.

"Bless the child!" said Nurse, impatiently. "Don't you know what I mean, then; or are you afeared to speak your mind for me telling on you? Never a one needs be afeared of me."

"I am not afraid," said Zaidee. "Then, why don't you answer me frank, when I am sorry for you?" said the perplexed Nurse.

It was very bad policy to be silent; for nothing could have irritated Nurse so much as this quiet upward look, wistful, and something startled; but Zaidee was unused to emergencies, and, quite puzzled, could find nothing to say.

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"O, then, and it's you would try a saint!" said the provoked sympathiser. "You are as well off as you want to be, are you, and don't want no kindness from the likes of me?"

"Yes, Nurse," said simple Zaidee. "I am well off, am I not? But I like to see your face look kindly-I have no one else to look kind upon me now."

"Well, then, wasn't that what I said?" cried Nurse; "and why do you be tasing decent people out of their patience?-wasn't I mourning for you, all by yourself, and making a lament for such a young child cast upon the world, and giving you a word of advice and you to turn the cold shoulder on me like this!"

But to Nurse's infinite astonishment this pathetic appeal produced neither apology nor justification, nor so much as a passing notice; for when Zaidee spoke again, it was to ask a question, striking sharp off from this personal discussion.

"Is it long, Nurse, since you came from home?

"From home!" The heart of the elderly woman was surprised back again for a moment into childhood. "Lord bless you, honey, what's the meaning of the word to me? I went among strangers when I was ten

years old, and ever since hither and thither I've gone to earn my bread; this one's kitchen and the other one's nursery,-that's all the home there's been to me in this world for five-andthirty years. Sure is the word that says service is no heritage. Ay, did the child say home? There was a cabin oncet, and an ould lone woman in it-well, well, we'll spake o' that no more."

"Was that your mother, Nurse?" said Zaidee, looking up with her awed and earnest eyes, and with the simple interest and curiosity of a child.

“Hush, darlin'; sure it's many a year ago-the saints make her bedthe heavens be her rest," said Nurse, turning her head aside with devout mutterings, which Zaidee did not understand; for Nurse, whom fortune and Mrs Disbrowe compelled to keep very quiet in respect to her faith, was an orthodox Catholic at heart. "I'm alone woman now myself, Miss," continued Nurse, wiping from the corner of her eye the ghost of a tear. "There's neither child nor kin to make a moan for me-girl and woman, I've lived with strangers. O, then, but it's a weary time since I came away from home!"

"And why did you come-did they send you away?" asked Zaidee, anxiously.

"Them that was round the board was more nor aiqual to what was on it," said Nurse, solemnly. "Many a one's been drove like me by the hunger and the poverty. Boys and girls we were eleven of us, and life is sweet. We were scattered from the door like the thistle-down, and one fell here, and one fell there, and this boy listed for a souldhier, and that boy went to sea. Brother and sister, father and mother, every one's dead and gone but me; and for all so many times I've thought my heart was clean broke, yet sure, Miss, you see me here."

"Did you ever wish your heart would break?" asked Zaidee with great earnestness. Her simple mind was already comparing its own experiences with the experiences of this long-lived woman. The sincere and unenlightened child could see no difference between her own fourteen and Nurse's five-and-forty years; nor be

tween the child of an Irish cabin and the favourite of the Grange. The widest catholicity was in Zaidee's simple heart; in the broad estimate she formed of nature and its primitive emotions, distinctions of sphere or station were unknown.

"Ever and always I had to earn my bread," said Nurse, slowly. "I've been a hard-working woman, lone, and poor, with never another to mind but only meself from one year's end to another; but life is sweet. My heart was broke entirely in my young days with trouble and sorrow, but I never brought them by wishing. No, honey, grief's sore, but life's precious -I'll wait my Maker's time."

"Do you think it is a sin to wish to die?" asked Zaidee, looking up once more with her wistful eyes.

"O, then, isn't it a sin to cross the Lord's will any way?" said Nurse, with a shudder. Spite of all her loneliness and hardship, this poor woman felt that truly the light was sweet, and it was a pleasant thing to behold the sun.

"I would not wish it, all for my own sake," said Zaidee very rapidly, and under her breath. "But if it would be good for some one else, what would you do then?"

"Heart alive! Do you take me for a haithen, child?" said the offended Nurse. "Never man nor woman all my days was the worse of me."

Zaidee, who was looking up at her with earnest inquiry, suddenly dropped her anxious eyes, to which the tears came in a momentary flood. She could not see her needle nor her line of even stitches for the momentshe could only see the dreary fortune which had made her dearest friends so much "the worse" for her. When the blindness cleared away, the poor

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child went on eagerly with her plainsewing, and with a deep unspoken thankfulness looked round upon the bare walls of Mrs Disbrowe's nursery. It was but a cold ungracious dwelling-place for one who had been nursed in such a home of love and kindness, and an approaching din of sound made the young governess shrink aside to a corner of the fireplace, that she might not shut out these noisy happy children from the hearth which belonged to them. Yet not a murmur of repining was in Zaidee's mind. Her first "trouble" was great enough to swallow up all smaller ones. lip's supplanter, the legal but most unwilling heiress of the Grange, had no room in her unsophisticated thoughts for the little personal injuries of her new lot, she was so very thankful to be here out of Philip's way, and separated from the home where she could never again be only Zaidee, the dependent and spoiled child. Poor homely Irish Nurse! she could by no means understand this strange young companion of hers,-they conversed together in common language, but in understanding had a world between them, though neither was aware of it; and Nurse was Zaidee's sole companion through these long evenings. Books were not to be had, nor, had they been attainable, would she have cared for reading now; for Zaidee's mind had taken a stride far away from the world of fiction and fancy, and she was busy with her own mystery for long hours, which, in other circumstances, she would have spent over the innocent mysteries of storytelling. Zaidee's literature had come to be as contracted as her cousin Elizabeth's,-her father's Bible and that advertisement in the Times. She read nothing else, but these she read every day.

"I don't see why I should mind other people's children-though they are my brothers and sisters," says a young lady in a very light-coloured silk dress, with gay waving ribbons, and an unusual profusion of ornament. "But I suppose it's no good quarrelling with mamma, especially

when one thinks of that horrid old Mrs Lancaster. Here, Rosie and Lettie, let's see what you've been about."

But for a mystical circle of gold upon the third finger of her left hand, and the light colour of her dress, which on this November day

needs some excuse, you would fancy this to be Miss Charlotte Disbrowe; but when you perceive how mamma has permitted her, without a word of reproof, to take off her bonnet here, and leave it on the drawing-room table, and how there is no explanation asked of the undertone in which these last remarks are delivered, you will see at once that this is Mrs Edward Lancaster, whose card-case lies on the table under her bonnet, and whom mamma has just requested to see what progress the children are making under their new governess. Mrs Edward thrusts up her bracelets on her arms, very much as Mary down-stairs thrusts up her sleeves when she goes to her daily labours, and, seating herself on the settee, calls before her once more the former subjects of her maiden reign.

"Do you hear, you little ones? What are you doing all day long? That last frill you hemmed for me was shamefully done-shamefully! not much credit to Miss Francis teaching you."

"Oh, please, Charlotte, we don't let her teach us," cried the frank and indiscreet Rosie.

"She can't!" said Lettie, with a frown."We were always good with Charlotte-you know we were; but we won't be taught by Miss Francis. She doesn't know so much as I do, nor even as Rosie does-she cannot teach us."

"Upon my word!" cried Mrs Edward Lancaster. "I should like to know, then, what is the good of having her here?"

"O, please, Charlotte, will you speak to mamma?-we don't want to have her here," cried Lettie-" she is not good enough for our governess, and we want so much to go to school!" "Well, I confess I shall think mamma behaved very shabbily to me if she lets you go to school," said Mrs Edward, "you are saucy little things. How should you know about Miss Francis-have you got no lessons to learn? She is not half strict enough with you."

"Please, Lettie told me not to learn any lessons," confessed again Rosie the indiscreet.

"You are sweet children-it is quite a pleasure teaching you," said

the married sister, administering to small sour Lettie a sharp tap on the cheek. "I'll tell mamma you are two grumbling little creatures, and ought to be whipt. There, get awayI'll have Tommy and Sissy now."

But while the twins stole off-one of them humble and tearful, the other sulky and full of wrath-Sissy, being interrogated, confessed that she too was rebellious to the rule of Miss Francis, and explained, that "p'ease, I like best to play;" while Tommy, a stout little recusant, snapped his plump thumb and forefinger, and echoed his elder brother's defiance of womankind, all and sundry. “She s'ant teach me!-she's only a woman!" cried the valiant Master Tom; whereupon the ready hand of Mrs Edward visited Tommy's shoulders with another stroke.

"Upon my word! I could never have believed I was so blinded to them before I was married!" cried Mrs Edward. "Such little rude grumbling things!—such tempers for children! Why, mamma, what do you keep that girl for?—they're not learning anything!"

"They got their lessons so irregularly, Charlotte, for some time before your marriage," said Mrs Disbrowe with dignity, "it is not wonderful that they should be a little out of discipline."

"Well, I declare, mamma, that is very unkind of you," said Mrs Edward Lancaster, who, a matron and married lady in her own right, vailed her bonnet to no one under the sun, "when you know what a slave I was among them, and what trouble I had, and how actually Edward had to be put off again and again, till you had got a governess. You will never treat Minnie or any of the rest as you have treated me. You made me the governess. I am sure you know it is quite true."

"You got a very good education, Charlotte-better than I can afford to give Minnie," said Mrs Disbrowe, quietly. Mrs Edward's reddening cheeks cooled down-it was not quite dignified, after all, to grumble, or to give any one occasion to say she was not the most prosperous woman in the world.

"Yes, indeed; mamma does not