“I hope she will not be obliged to accept it. Her father’s death has caused a complete change in her feelings with regard to the dramatic profession. The poor old man’s companionship seems to have supported and sustained her in all her petty trials--and now he has gone, she shrinks from encountering the difficulties of such a life. So, with my advice and such assistance as I can give her, she is trying to qualify herself for the position of governess. Her reading is more extensive than that of most girls, and she is working hard to supply the deficiencies of her education.” “I am very glad to hear that,” Laurence answered, heartily; “I consider such a life much better suited to her than the uncertainties of a provincial theatre.” And then he remembered that in the existence of a governess there were also uncertainties, trials, temptations, loneliness; and it seemed to him as if Lucy Alford’s destiny must be a care and a perplexity to him to the end of time. “I shall keep Lucy with me for some weeks to come,” said Mrs. Jerningham; “for I find her a most devoted little companion, and she is exercising her powers as my reader and amanuensis, in order to prepare herself for the caprices of some valetudinarian dowager in the future.” “You are very good, Emily.” “Yes, because I am of some use to your Miss Alford;--that is my virtue in your eyes, Laurence.” “If you are going to talk in that manner, I shall try to catch the next train.” “It is very absurd, is it not?” cried Mrs. Jerningham, with a light laugh; “but you see it is natural to a woman to be jealous; and a woman who lives in such a place as this has nothing to do but cherish jealous fancies.” “Let us understand each other once and for ever,” said Laurence, gravely. “To me Lucy Alford seems little more than a child: the time in which I used to see her frisking about with a hideous Scotch terrier, and dressed in a brown-holland pinafore, is not so very remote, you know. I found her in the most bitter need of a friend; and so far as I could befriend her, I did so, honestly, biding the time in which I could enlist a good woman’s sympathy in her behalf. Having done that, I have done all, and I wash my hands of the whole affair. If there is the least hazard of jealousy where Miss Alford is concerned, I will not re-enter this house while she inhabits it.” “That would be to punish me for my philanthropy. No, Laurence, I am not jealous of this poor child, any more than I am jealous of every other woman to whom you speak. Jealousy is a chronic disease, you see, a kind of slow fever, and it has taken possession of me.” “Emily!” “I think it is only another name for nerves. Do not look at me with such consternation. What is it Mr. Kingsley says?--‘Men must work, and women must weep.’ They _must_, you see! It is the primary necessity of their existence; and if they have no real miseries, no husbands drifting over the harbour-bar to death, they invent sorrows, and weep over them.”