"Oh, what an engrossing speech that imaginary one of yours must have been!" says Clarissa, with a little distracted shake of her head. "I knew you were in the room, didn't I? No, no, no, you are altogether wrong: this is no letter from maid or laundress, but from Georgie Broughton. (You must remember her name, I have so often mentioned it to you.) She is the dearest little thing in the world,—quite that, and more. And she writes, to tell me she is miserably poor, and wants to go out as a governess."
"Poor girl! Of all unhappy resources, the last."
"Yes; isn't it wretched? But, you see, she is bound to do something, and wearing out one's heart in a dingy school-room seems to be the only course left open to a pretty girl like Georgie."
"Try Mrs. Redmond, then. She is looking out for a governess for the children; and your friend might drop in there without further trouble."
"Oh, papa, but all those children! and Mrs. Redmond herself, too, so fretful and so irritable,—so utterly impossible in every way. Her very 'How d'ye do?' would frighten Georgie to death."
"People don't die of chills of that description; and your poor little friend can scarcely expect to find everything couleur de rose. Besides, 'all those children' you speak of just resolve themselves into two, as the boys are at school, and Cissy calls herself grown up. I should think Cissy would be, in fact, a great comfort to her, and would be amenable to her, and gentle—and that."
At this, Miss Peyton laughs a little, and bites her lip.
"Amenable," she says, slowly. "Do you know, I am afraid my Georgie is even younger than Cissy?"
"Younger!"
"Well, she will certainly look younger; she has such a little, fresh, babyish rose-bud of a face. Do you think"—anxiously—"that would matter much?"