When Mrs. Redmond, next morning, is made aware of Georgie's engagement to Dorian Branscombe, her curiosity and excitement know no bounds. For once she is literally struck dumb with amazement. That Dorian, who is heir to an earldom, should have fixed his affections upon _her_ governess, seems to Mrs. Redmond like a gay continuation of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." When she recovers her breath, after the first great shock to her nervous system, she lays down the inevitable sock she is mending, and says as follows: "My dear Georgina, are you quite sure he meant it? Young men, nowadays, say so many things without exactly knowing why,--more especially after a dance, as I have been told." "I am quite sure," says Georgie, flushing hotly. She has sufficient self-love to render this doubt very unpalatable. Something that is not altogether remote from envy creeps into Mrs. Redmond's heart. Being a mother, she can hardly help contrasting her Cissy's future with the brilliant one carved out for her governess. Presently, however, being a thoroughly good soul, she conquers these unworthy thoughts, and when next she speaks her tone is full of heartiness and honest congratulation. Indeed, she is sincerely pleased. The fact that the future Lady Sartoris is at present an inmate of her house is a thought full of joy to her. "You are a very happy and a very fortunate girl," she says, gravely. "Indeed yes, I think so," returns Georgie, in a low tone, but with perfect calmness. There is none of the blushing happiness about her that should of right belong to a young girl betrothed freshly to the lover of her heart. "Of course you do," says Mrs. Redmond, missing something in her voice, though she hardly knows what. "And what we are to do without you, I can't conceive; no one to sing to us in the evening, and we have got so accustomed to that." "I can still come and sing to you sometimes," says Georgie, with tears in her eyes and voice. "Ah, yes,--sometimes. That is just the bad part of it; when one has known an 'always,' one does not take kindly to a 'sometimes.' And now here come all my governess troubles back upon my shoulders once more. Don't think me selfish, my dear, to think of that just now in the very morning of your new happiness, but really I can't help it. I have been so content with you, it never occurred to me others might want you too." "I will ask Clarissa to get you some one else nicer than me," says Georgie, soothingly. "Will you? Yes, do, my dear: she will do anything for you. And, Georgina,"--from the beginning she has called her thus,--nothing on earth would induce Mrs. Redmond to call her anything more frivolous,--"tell her I should prefer somebody old and ugly, if at all bearable, because then she may stay with me. Dear, dear! how Cissy will miss you! And what will the vicar say?"