Miss Victoria De Jobbyns (she had originally been christened Sarah, but that name was dropped now as vulgar) had from the first felt an emotion of pique that her little sisters' governess should be so lady-like, so perfectly patrician in air and bearing, and, more than all, so uselessly handsome; for, of course, she thought, of what use is beauty to a governess?
Her mother's first idea had been, what a perilous inmate in a house if there had been a grown-up son; but, apart from her being a paid dependant, her very loveliness was an all-sufficient reason for secluding her in the school-room, and never permitting her to be seen by guests or visitors, especially of the male sex.
'You are Scotch?' said the young lady, abruptly and interrogatively, on the occasion of her first visit.
'Yes.'
'And yet you don't look a bit Scotch, or talk like them either.'
Alison smiled as she wondered what the young lady thought the natives of the North were like.
'Where do your people live—in the Highlands?'
'My family are—all dead.'
'I see you are in mourning—all dead—everyone?'
'Yes,' replied Alison, curtly.