"Hasn't Miss Randall got lovely melancholy black eyes?"
"Oh, bother her melancholy black eyes!" said Miss Felice, impatiently. "What a time you do make about people, Mag. And she only a governess, too. I should think you would be ashamed."
"Well, I ain't ashamed—not the least," said Maggie; "and no matter whether she's a governess or not, she looks like a lady. I'm sure she's very clever, too. I wonder who she's in black for."
"Ask her," said Miss Felice, shortly, as she picked up a French novel, and, placing her feet on the fender, sat down to read.
Miss Felice was blessed with a temper much shorter than sweet, and Miss Maggie, who was rather good-natured, took her curt replies as a matter of course, and, going over to Georgia, said pleasantly:
"Miss Randall, if you wish to go up to your room, I will be your cicerone for the occasion. Perhaps you would like to brush your hair before tea."
"Thank you," said Georgia, rising languidly, and following Miss Maggie from the room.
"This is to be your sanctum sanctorum, Miss Randall," said Maggie, opening the door of a small and plainly but neatly furnished bedroom, rendered cheerful by red drapery and a redder fire. "It's not very gorgeous, you perceive; but it's the one the governess always uses here. Our last one—Miss Fitzgerald, an Irish young lady—went and precipitated herself into the awful gulf of——"
"What?" said Georgia, with a slight start, caused by Miss Maggie's awe-struck manner.
"Matrimony!" said Miss Maggie, in a thrilling whisper. "Ain't it dreadful? Governesses, and ministers, and curates, and all sorts of poor people generally will persist in such atrocities, on the principle that what won't keep one, I suppose, will keep two. Don't you ever get married, Miss Randall. I never mean to—— Why, my goodness, what's the matter now?"