I suggested to Mrs. Paler that she should get help for part of the music lessons, but she would not hear of it; so I had to go on doing my best; but to do that best overtaxed my strength sadly. Mrs. Paler might have had more consideration: she saw that I rarely went out; one hurried walk in the week, perhaps, and the drive to church on Sunday. My pupils walked out every day, taken by one or other of the servants; but they did not go together: two or three stayed with me while the rest went, and when they came back to me these went. Mrs. Paler insisted upon my giving an hour of music to each child daily, which made five hours a day for music alone. The confinement and the hard work, perhaps the broken spirits, began to tell upon me; nervous headaches came on, and I wrote to the Miss Barlieus, asking what I should do. I wrote the letter on a Sunday, I am sorry to say, failing time on a week day. None of us went abroad on a Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Paler protested that nothing but sin and gallivanting was to be seen out of doors on a French Sunday; and once home from church we were shut up for the rest of the day. She did not go out herself, or suffer anybody else to go; Mr. Paler excepted. He took the reins into his own hands. The Miss Barlieus answered me sensibly; it was Miss Annette who wrote. "Put up with it to the close of your year from the time of entrance," she said. "It is never well for a governess to leave her situation before the year is up, if it can be avoided; and were you to do so, some ladies might urge it as an objection to making another engagement with you. You are but young still. Give Mrs. Paler ample notice, three months, we believe, is the English usage—and endeavour to part with her amicably. She must see that her situation is beyond your strength." I took the advice, and in June gave Mrs. Paler warning to leave, having entered her house in September. She was angry, and affected to believe I would not go. I respectfully asked her to put herself in idea in my place, and candidly say whether or not the work was too hard. She muttered something about "over-conscientiousness;" that I should get along better without it. Nothing more was said; nothing satisfactory decided, and the time went on again to the approach of September. I wondered how I must set about looking out for another asylum; I had no time to look out, no opportunity to go abroad. Mr. Paler was in England. "Miss Hereford, mamma told me to say that we shall be expected in the drawing-room to-night; you, and I, and Harriet," observed Kate Paler to me one hot summer's day. "The Gordons are coming and the De Mellissies." "What De Mellissies are those?" I inquired, the name striking upon my ear with a thrill of remembrance. "What De Mellissies are those? why, the De Mellissies," returned Kate, girl-fashion. "She is young and very pretty; I saw her when I was out with mamma in the carriage the other day." "Is she English or French?"