"Try Mrs. Redmond, then. She is looking out for a governess for the children; and your friend might drop in there without further trouble." "Oh, papa, but all those children! and Mrs. Redmond herself, too, so fretful and so irritable,--so utterly impossible in every way. Her very 'How d'ye do?' would frighten Georgie to death." "People don't die of chills of that description; and your poor little friend can scarcely expect to find everything _couleur de rose_. Besides, 'all those children' you speak of just resolve themselves into two, as the boys are at school, and Cissy calls herself grown up. I should think Cissy would be, in fact, a great comfort to her, and would be amenable to her, and gentle--and that." At this, Miss Peyton laughs a little, and bites her lip. "Amenable," she says, slowly. "Do you know, I am afraid my Georgie is even younger than Cissy?" "Younger!" "Well, she will certainly look younger; she has such a little, fresh, babyish rose-bud of a face. Do you think"--anxiously--"that would matter much?" "It doesn't sound promising; but, if she is a good girl, one might forgive the great crime of being fresh and young. Dear me, it is very awkward. If she had been a nice, sensible, ugly, middle-aged person, now, all would have gone well; but, after all, poor child, of course she can't help her appearance." "No, she certainly cannot," says Clarissa, with a sigh, heart-felt pity in her tone. "And her eyes are the very color of forget-me-nots,--quite the prettiest I ever saw. It is really too bad." "Redmond, himself, would make no difficulty about it. He prefers to have young people about him, and was always, you know, rather----rather melancholy when in Miss Prood's society, who was really a most estimable woman, and one whose moral character one could not fail to admire, when one forgot her nose, and her----" "Temper?" "Well, yes, she was rather excitable. But, as I was saying, Redmond and your friend would probably pull very well; and then there's the curate. Why,"--brilliantly,--"she might marry the curate!" "Mr. Hastings?" says Clarissa, with animation, brightening visibly. "Why, really, so she might. Such a good-looking man, too, and clever. It is only a day or two ago since somebody said to me, 'He has the very sort of face they make bishops of nowadays.'" "What a very disinterested girl you are!" says her father, with a smile, faint but amused: "without a moment's hesitation you surrender every hope of making this embryo bishop your own. Can devotion farther go? Well, take my advice; and, as your heart is set upon this thing, go down to the vicarage to-day; tell Mrs. Redmond you have secured a governess for her; do not discuss the subject,--simply state the fact; and I think you will find her deeply grateful, in that you have put an end to her difficulties, without compelling her brain to bear upon the matter."