“Oh, then, you are thinking of some very accomplished woman, or some highly intellectual graduate of William and Mary, who, though not exactly an ordinary governess or tutor, may be induced to come and take charge of our little girl for a very liberal salary?”
General Garnet waved his hand impatiently.
“Hear me out, if you please, Mrs. Garnet. I have told you that I dislike private tutors and governesses! I dislike the idea of a stranger domesticated in the house very much. I said, besides, that there was no boarding-school in the country to which I could care to trust our daughter. I intend to send Elsie to England.”
“To England!” murmured Alice, in an inaudible voice, growing very pale and sinking back in her chair.
“Yes, to England. My friend, General A—— is going out there as minister. He takes all his family, of course. He expects to remain abroad many years. In talking over with me his prospects, among other things for which he congratulated himself was the opportunity that his residence abroad would afford giving his daughters a very superior education. While we conversed, I spoke of Alice, regretting the limited means of female education afforded by our country. Well, he proposed that I should commit my daughter to his charge, to go to England, and be put to school with his own. He pressed this favor very earnestly upon me. The opportunity was one not likely to occur again, and therefore not to be lightly thrown away. Finally I accepted his offer. It was all arranged between us. The embassy sails from Baltimore in two weeks, and before that time Elsie must be ready to join the family.”
In the course of the month their departure took place from the neighborhood.
Elsie Garnet, with many tears, left for her English school under the protection of the American minister to the Court of St. James.
Lionel Hardcastle sailed as midshipman aboard the United States ship Falcon.
And Magnus Hardcastle, taking a most affectionate leave of his beautiful friend, Alice, and promising many letters, left for Baltimore to enter upon the study of medical science in the office of a distinguished physician.