chatelaine, as young women who are not governesses
may do; indeed, she has no business to
have either waist or chatelaine. A good stiff
flat shape, like a back-board, and a silver
warmingpan-watch depending from her apron-belt,
are appropriate belongings; and if she have
a due sense of propriety, she will obtain them
at whatever sacrifice. Though a governess
may be a well-informed woman, as many
governesses are, if anybody beneficently
treats her to conversation, she ought only to
generalise on the charms of her office, the
delightful dispositions of pupils, and, if
encouraged so far, on educational books and
systems. Literature is not her topic, and
never let her be professional out of her
school-room: if anyone blunders or appeals
to her for information, let her memory fail,
but never, never let her know more than
her superiors— it is a delusion and a snare.
It is my belief that when Mr. Snob asked
Miss Wirt that question about Dante
Alghieri, she coincided with him as to the
origin of the sirname, that she might not
pique him by a correction. Any judicious
governess would, to a strange man, be equally
jesuitical. What business had he to
endeavour to test her knowledge? I don't
approve of such gratuitous examinations;
and, if Mr. Snob had asked me the question
he propounded to Miss Wirt, I should have
returned the same answer as she did. I dare
not contemplate the consequences of a
governess in a well-regulated family knowing
what an honoured guest appears not to
know. Mr. Snob never was a governess, or
else he would be aware of the treacherous
danger of such an assumption.

Suppose, again, that a teacher is
gentle-spirited and of a loving disposition; the
first soon dwindles into a feeble non-resistance
of injuries, and the last hungers and
thirsts often until it perishes of inanition.
I know it is a shocking thing to say, but
children are mostly selfish; so long as you
are administering to their amusement or
comfort, they will love you, but the moment it
becomes necessary to thwart a whim or control
a passion, you are altogether hateful; and they
hate you, for the time being, very cordially.
I have been loved and hated myself a dozen
times a-week; and I know a little damsel
now who, when her temper is crossed, tells
her governess that she hates her pet cat, and
is not above giving the innocent pussy a sly
blow or kick as proxy for its much-enduring
mistress. I do not choose to talk much
about wounded feelings in connection with
our position. I think it is never well to
expect more than a courteous civility— and
that, except from bears and bearesses, we get
now-a-days almost as regularly as our
salaries— but what I do complain of is the
wretched pay. People demand everything
for pay that is next to nothing— about
twopence-halfpenny per accomplishment per
quarter! A governess who is six professors
rolled into one gets from fifty to a hundred
guineas (lucky woman), but a governess
who is under that status gets twenty, twenty-five,
or thirty pounds, and is thankful, poor
soul!

Miss Green belongs to the latter class.
When I consider what lies before my old
friend I do not wonder at her strictures. She
began to teach at seventeen, and she will
continue to teach till seventy, perhaps, and
then she will retire into a little room and
exist, poorly enough, on the scrapings of her
salaries and two meals a-day, as the
superannuated sisterhood is in the habit of doing.

I have lately discharged a commission for
a friend— namely, in examining the register
at one of the many institutions for
providing governesses with situations and
employers with governesses. I and my
cousin, who accompanied me, were admitted
by an unhealthy buttony boy, who was
regaling on a pottle of strawberries, into a
large room with a long table and a row of
ladies, who were studying the registers. All
the books being engaged, we were refreshed
by the interrogatories of a person who
appeared to be the superintendent. She spoke
in a hard sharp voice, as if to— use a Yorkshire
phrase— we were dirt under her feet.
It was the mistress-voice, to which many
poor hearts will get accustomed in the
servitude they go to seek. I thought to myself,
Day after day come here aching, hoping,
weary women, and you give them a foretaste
of what life will probably be to them.
Would it not be as easy to speak with a
friendly kindness, to encourage them, instead
of patronising so severely? Woman, if you
have been a governess yourself, you ought to
know how refreshing a word, a look even, of
sympathy, is to an anxious creature! They
come to your institution, not when they are
well placed, but when they are homeless,
these poor teachers, and you speak to some
of them as I would not speak to a
well-conditioned dog. For shame! You may
be— probably you are— an excellent woman,
but you are too angular in manner, and I
have not the slightest hesitation in saying
that if Miss Green had been in my place,
she would have gone away discouraged, and
probably crying under her veil. Speaking
daily to poor women, to dependants, may
have something to do with your uncourteousness,
but I should like to see you receive the
Duchess of Powderpuff, now on the books as
wanting a governess.

I had time to make these reflections before
I was bid to "Look over with that lady," in a
curt, impatient tone; I sat down, all obedience,
and read the entries of page after page,
selecting here and there a curiosity. One lady
demanded a first-rate governess for thirty
pounds; another, wished for a widow; a third,
for a good-tempered person who did not wear
spectacles; a fourth, offered a situation to any
lady who, possessing large acquirements,