I must see you comfortably settled before I
go."
"Yes, aunt."
"There are not many things you could do."
"No, aunt; very few. But I should make a better housemaid than
most--I do believe that."
"I am glad to find you willing to work; but we shall be able, I
trust, to do a little better for you than that. A situation as
housemaid would reflect little credit on my pains for you--would
hardly correspond to the education you have had."
Mrs. Wardour referred to the fact that Letty was for about a year
a day--boarder at a ladies' school in Testbridge, where no
immortal soul, save that of a genius, which can provide its own
sauce, could have taken the least interest in the chaff and
chopped straw that composed the provender.
"It is true," her aunt went on, "you might have made a good deal
more of it, if you had cared to do your best; but, such as you
are, I trust we shall find you a very tolerable situation as
governess."
At the word, Letty's heart ran half-way up her throat. A more
dreadful proposal she could not have imagined. She felt, and was,
utterly insufficient for--indeed, incapable of such an office.
She felt she knew nothing: how was she to teach anything? Her
heart seemed to grow gray within her. By nature, from lack of
variety of experience, yet more from daily repression of her
natural joyousness, she was exceptionally apprehensive where
anything was required of her.
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