Polly Pretend's governess, after she could not be received at Olympia, was Miss Principia Crow. She had more than three miles of testimonials, if all had been written out in a line in text hand and measured.
The only curious thing was that the dates of all these were old, and Miss Principia was still fairly young. Also, she admitted having changed her name "for family reasons."
But she seemed just the sort of person for Polly Pretend. She did not know much arithmetic—just enough to cheat at tennis. She had certificates that reached as far as "trig"—the wonderful science which makes the boys stamp and throw their books about the room when they have to study it.
Now Pa and Ma Pretend had taken a great deal of trouble in providing a suitable companion for Polly, and in a way they had managed all right. Miss Crow pretended to teach, and Polly pretended to learn, and one knew as much about the matter as the other.
Miss Crow passed the time in telling Polly how many people had been in love with her, and the hopes she had of as many more. Polly begged the loan of a pier-glass from her mother, and thought, as she pretended before it, smiling at herself and sweeping imaginary trains, how soon her turn would come to have scores of lovers all willing and anxious to drown themselves for her sake, like Miss Principia Crow.
Fragments of conversation were sometimes caught by Mamma Pretend, and she thought to herself, "What strange authors they do set young people to study now-a-days! When I was a girl we had Magnall's Questions and Little Arthur's History of England!"
It was Miss Crow's voice, however. No mistake about that.
"Yes, and he said to me, 'I adore you with all the fervor of a free and untrammeled genius, with the noble indignation of a spirit on fire against wrong and oppression. It is true that in the meantime, though of an exalted race, I am poor, receiving only twelve shillings a week in one of the institutions of trust vulgarly called a pawn-broker's. But next year and every succeeding year I shall have my salary raised by the sum of two shillings—per fortnight. Oh, Principia, my Principia——'"
At this moment, overcome by her own pardonable curiosity, Mrs. Pretend entered hurriedly to see what they were doing.
She found them busily employed, with head bent over an exercise in dictation.... "From Milton's Essay on Macaulay!" Miss Polly Pretend explained in answer to her mother's question.