"Right you are! I'll come this afternoon."
And she did. When school began again, at three o'clock, Millicent led the way, with her hair down and her dress up, and in her hands the largest slate she could find; and on her face a kind of determined docility, exquisitely humorous to the expectant young eyes behind the desks. But Millicent had reckoned without her brains, and that in more senses than one. She was an exceedingly backward young person; she had never been properly taught, and no one knew this better than the little governess. First in one simple subject, then in another, the ignorance of the girl was mercilessly exposed; first by one child, then by another, she was corrected and enlightened on some elementary point; and finally, when they all stood up and took places, Miss Millicent sank to the bottom of the class in five minutes. The absurd figure that she cut there, however, with the next child no higher than her waist, quite failed to appeal to her usually ready sense of humour; seeing which, Miss Winfrey incontinently dismissed the class; but Millicent remained behind.
"I give you best," said she, holding out a large hand with a rather laboured smile. "Let's be friends."
"I have always wanted to," said the victor, with a suspicious catch in her voice. Next moment she burst into a flood of tears. And that war was won.
Millicent had long needed such a friend; but this new influence was a better thing for her than any one ever knew. She happened to be fond of somebody who was very fond of her; and having one of those impulsive natures which fly from one extreme to the other, she told Miss Winfrey that very night all about it. And Miss Winfrey advised. And on the next monthly visitation of a certain rabbit inspector to Greenbush Station the light-hearted Millicent succeeded in reconciling her sporting spirit to what she termed the "dry-hash" of a serious engagement.
But not for long. As the more solemn side of the matter came home to her, the light heart grew heavy with vague alarms, and so bitterly did the young girl resent her entirely natural apprehensions, that cause and effect became confounded in her soul, now calling, as she thought, for its surrendered freedom. Her depression was terrible, and yet more terrible her disappointment in herself. She could not be in love, or, if she were, then love was not what it was painted by all the poets whose works the sympathetic Miss Winfrey now put into her hands. Thus the first month passed. Then the man came again, and in his presence her doubt lay low in her heart; but when he was gone it rose up blacker than before, and the girl went near to madness with keeping it to herself. It was only the agony of an ignorant young egoism in the twilight state of the betrothed, looking backward with regret for yesterday's freedom, instead of forward faithfully to a larger life. But this never struck her until she brought her broodings to her friend Miss Winfrey, when one flesh could endure them no longer.
Miss Winfrey was surprised. She had not suspected so much soul in such a setting. She was also sorry, for she liked the man. He had kind eyes and simple ways, and yet some unmistakable signs of the sort of strength which appealed to the governess and would be good for Milly. And lastly, Miss Winfrey was strangely touched: for here was her own case over again.
The girl said that she could never marry him, that there was no love in her for any man, that she must break off the engagement instantly and for all time; the governess had said the same thing at her age, and had repented it ever since. The governess turned down the lamp, for it was late at night in the schoolroom, and she told the girl her own story. This had more weight than a hundred arguments. Half-way through, Millicent took Miss Winfrey's hand and held it to the end; at the very end she kissed the governess and made her a promise.
"Thank you, dear," said Miss Winfrey, kissing Milly. "That was all I wanted you to say. Only try for a time to think less of yourself and more of him! Then all will be well; and you may forget my contemptible little story. You're the first to whom I've ever told it as it really was."
"And you never saw him again?"