“I don’t want the old lady,” said Harry.
“Your leave will not be asked, my dear boy.”
“Then,” said Harry, in as determined a voice as he could command, “I shall hate her, and beat her, and bite her.”
“I’m afraid,” said Mr Milvaine, turning to his wife, “that you spoil that child.”
“I’m afraid,” returned Mrs Milvaine mildly, “I have received assistance from you.”
Harry’s governess came in a week. It was surely a sad look-out for her, if she was to be hated and beaten and bitten.
She was not a prim, angular, starchy, “tawsey”-looking old maid by any means. At most she had seen but nineteen summers; fresh in face, blue-eyed, dimpled, and with beautiful hair.
Harry soon took to her.
“I sha’n’t beat you,” he said, “as long as you’re good.”
The attic was cleared of cobwebs and rubbish, and turned into a schoolroom, and studies at regular hours of the day commenced forthwith.