This distinct summary of the amount of her affection for the household amused Katie, who was half afraid of a governess-complaint against her employers.
“Do you like to be so far from home?” she said.
“Like!” Desirée became suddenly vehement. “I should like to live with mamma—but,” cried the girl, “how could you ask me?—do not you know?”
“I have no mother,” said Katie, very quietly; “boys are always eager to leave home—girls might sometimes wish it too. Do you know Cosmo Livingstone, whom you saw in Edinburgh, has gone abroad for no reason at all that I know—and his brothers have both gone to work, and make their fortunes if they can—and my little brothers speak already of what they are going to do when they grow men—they will all go away.”
“In this country, people always talk of making fortunes. I should like to make a fortune too,” said Desirée, “but I do not know what to do.”
“Girls never make fortunes,” said Katie, with a smile.
“Why?” cried the little governess, “but I wish it—yes, very much—though I do not know how to do it; here I have just twenty pounds a year. What should you do if you had no papa, and had to work for yourself.”
Katie rose from her chair in trouble and excitement.
“Don’t speak so—you frighten me!” she cried, with an involuntary pang. “I have all the children. You do not understand it—you must not speak of that.”
“Of what?” asked Desirée, with a little astonishment. But she changed the subject with ready tact when she saw the painful color on Katie’s face. “I should like mamma to see you,” she said in a vein of perfectly natural and sincere flattery. “When I tell her what kind of people I live among, I do not speak of mademoiselle at Melmar, or even of Joanna—I tell her of you, and then she is happy—she thinks poor little Desirée is very well where she is with such as these.”