The Governess

by Julie M. Lippmann

One day Nan asked Miss Severance as much, but Aunt Isabel had shaken her head gravely and said:

"No, Nan, she never did. And don't think of that part of the story, my dear. It was no more than I ought to have done. You must not make a piece of heroism of it. I only told it to you because unless I had, it would have been difficult to explain why I left her and went so far away."

"Aunt Isabel," Nan said, "won't you tell me just what it was you gave up?" But Miss Severance shook her head.

What the girl could not at all comprehend was the fact of any one's being "not at peace" with Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel, who never was unjust nor unkind, nor anything but generous and good to every one. She thought if she could have spoken to her father she could have convinced him that he was mistaken about Aunt Isabel. But that was impossible now. Her father—again the hot tears came surging up, and her breast began to heave.

Suddenly she started. What was that? She jumped to her feet. Somebody was turning the knob of the street door and fitting a key in the lock. At first it was her impulse to cry out, but she mastered herself and ran quickly through the parlor and stood bravely on the threshold waiting for the door to open and admit the intruder. Her heart beat like a trip-hammer in her side, and the pulses in her wrists and temples throbbed painfully. She saw the door move inward, she felt the rush of cold outer air upon her face, and then—

In a moment she was locked in two strong arms, her head was pressed against a dear, broad chest, and she was crying "Father! Father!" in a perfect ecstasy of rapture and a tempest of tears.

For a few moments neither of them said a single word. They just clung to each other and wept—the strong man as well as the slender girl.

They seemed to lose all other thought in the joy of the meeting. Then somehow they found themselves in the library, and Nan, still sobbing for very happiness, was listening to her father as he told her how, for many months, he had been ill, but had tried to fight it off and overcome it, because he was so anxious to get home, and he could not bear to think he might be prevented. Then, just before his ship sailed, and after he had enrolled himself among the list of passengers, and bidden good-bye to those he knew, he was stricken down and for weeks lay unconscious, between life and death, as utterly unbefriended as though he had been in the midst of a wilderness. How he came to recover he never knew, but it seemed as though his great longing for home gave him strength to battle through the dreadful fever. Then, almost too feeble to stand, he was taken to the ship and borne to England, his body weak from suffering, but his heart strong with hope.

The voyage was a severe one, and before he reached London he had a relapse, so that when they entered port he had to be carried ashore, and, too ill to know or care what happened to him, was taken to a lodging-house and nursed back to health once more by the keeper herself, whose son was the steward of the ship on which he had crossed.

"You can fancy, Nannie, that I had only one thought all that time—to get back to you. The first move I was able to make was to the ship, and I sailed without having seen or spoken to a soul I knew in London. Then on board I met a friend, who told me of the report of my death, and I knew that you must have heard it. The people at the bank would communicate with Turner, I felt sure. Ah, what days those were! It seemed as though we should never reach land. But we got in to-day, and you can imagine that I have not lost one moment in coming to you, sweetheart. But how my girl has changed. Grown so tall and womanly. I'm afraid I've lost my little Wildfire. But the girl I've found in her stead is a hundred times dearer."