She said sending poor Walter's music back
was making much ado about nothing; musical
people always gave each other music, and she
would have liked to see it herself if it was new.
She never did see it, however; for Walter took
his rebuff seriously, and called no more on Mrs.
Curtis and her daughters. It was after this
incident that Polly mooted her longing for
liberty, and though nobody suggested any
connexion between the two circumstances, they
were connected. If young men had been all
roaring lions and fiery dragons, Mrs. Curtis
could not have more obstinately shut her doors
against them, or preached severer warnings of
the danger of them to Polly in private. Two
results ensued. Polly learnt to think of young
men as vanity and vexation, and of home as dull
and cheerless; and then the idea occurred to
her that if other girls worked, why should not
she? "Why should not she?" echoed her
mother, and after a very little discussion her
idea matured into a positive wish and desire to
go out as a governess. Jane resisted until she
saw that resistance was fruitless; then she gave
in; and while Polly began to prepare her
modest wardrobe for a start in the world, Jane
inquired amongst the parents of her pupils for
a suitable place where she might earn her first
experiences mildly.

"I must have my evenings to improve myself,
and I don't want to be treated as 'one of the
family'—I'd rather not," Polly announced, full
of her coming independence, and contemptuous
of all half measures by which the change might
be made easy to her. Jane bade her not expect
to have everything just as she liked in other
people's houses; she must prepare to conform
to their ways, and not expect them to conform
one tittle to hers.

But Polly would take no discouragement;
she was quite gay and valiant in her fashion of
looking the world in the face, and she felt glad,
absolutely glad, as if some great good fortune
had befallen her, when, just before Christmas,
after a long negotiation on paper and a personal
interview, she was engaged as governess to the
three children of Captain and Mrs. Stapylton,
at a salary of twenty pounds the first year,
rising five the second and third. The stipulation
for evening leisure was agreed to, and Jane
and everybody else allowed that, since she would
go out, it was as nice a beginning as she could
have. Captain Stapylton was a military officer
on half-pay, and warden of the royal forest of
Lanswood; his wife was of a Norminster family,
and if Polly stayed with them three years (not
less than three years), and used her opportunities
as she ought, she would then be equal to
a higher situation and a handsome salary—so,
at least, reasoned Miss Mill, who, having been a
governess and about in the world nearly half a
century, of course knew all about it; and little
Polly, listening to her delighted, felt her responsibility
and assumed grave airs of being about a
hundred years old, which tickled the fancy of
some foolish people so excessively that they
were more than ever inclined to treat her with
affectionate disrespect. Jane said to Miss Mill
that she was not cut out for a governess, and
Miss Mill replied that anybody could see that;
but Polly had a lofty sense of her own dignity,
and not the remotest idea of the temptation she
was to silly kind folks; and thus she started on
her career with clear-eyed, happy-hearted
confidence, brave and safe as Una with the lion, all
the aim of her life being personal independence
and ability to save Jane and help her mother.

CHAPTER II.

POLLY CURTIS was blessed in a dear school
friend, three months her elder in experience of
the world, with whom she kept up a brisk
correspondence, nobody but themselves being able
to imagine what they found to say in their long
and frequent letters. To Margaret Livingstone,
with all appropriate seriousness, she had
confided every step in her progress towards liberty,
and immediately her engagement with Mrs.
Stapylton was concluded, she wrote off to her a
solemn statement of its conditions, winding up
with the expression of a hope that she might be
strengthened to do her duty in the station of
life to which it had pleased providence to call
her, and a brief moral essay thereupon:

"You know, dear Maggie, I am not like you
—a bird of the air, a lily of the field, created
neither to toil nor spin—I am a brown working
bee, and, thank God, I don't care for pomps and
vanities. Rich girls can afford to dream of love
and lovers, but I have pruned the wings of my
fancy, for they are as far from me as the
mountains in the moon. All my ambition is to be a
good governess, and if I can ever work myself
up to a salary of a hundred a year, I shall be
the proudest and happiest of women. Don't
talk to me of marrying; it is not in my way;
my mother never lets a day pass without warning
me of its perils and disappointments. She
prevented Jane marrying, and she would prevent
me, if I wished it ever so; but I shall be safe
from temptation in my schoolroom at the Warden
House. If Lanswood is only eight miles
from your home, could you not ride over and
see me some day when the days are longer? I
am busy getting my things ready, and I go the
first week in February. There is something
inspiriting in the thought that henceforth I shall
be my own mistress, winning the bread I eat,
and depending on no one. But I'll confess it
to you (I would not for the world confess it to
Jane) that now and then suddenly, when I
think of it, my heart gives a spasm as if
it were going to turn coward; but my head is
not afraid, not a bit. We must make the most
of our time in writing before I go, for I do
not expect to have very much leisure when
teaching begins. You will often think of me,
dear Maggie, I know; but don't be sorry and
pitiful over me. I am a tough little subject,
and is not the back made for the burden?
Besides, it is the will of God, &c., &c., &c."

At this point of Polly's letter, Maggie, who
was a big-boned tall creature, with a great