The next change that set in at Leet Hall concerned Miss Kate Dancox. That wilful young pickle, somewhat sobered by the death of Hubert in the summer, soon grew unbearable again. She had completely got the upper hand of her morning governess, Miss Hume--who walked all the way from Church Dykely and back again--and of nearly everyone else; and Captain Monk gave forth his decision one day when all was turbulence--a resident governess. Mrs. Carradyne could have danced a reel for joy, and wrote to a governess agency in London. One morning about this time (which was already glowing with the tints of autumn) a young lady got out of an omnibus in Oxford Street, which had brought her from a western suburb of London, paid the conductor, and then looked about her. "There!" she exclaimed in a quaint tone of vexation, "I have to cross the street! and how am I to do it?" Evidently she was not used to the bustle of London streets or to crossing them alone. She did it, however, after a few false starts, and so turned down a quiet side street and rang the bell of a house in it. A slatternly girl answered the ring. "Governess-agent--Mrs. Moffit? Oh, yes; first-floor front," said she crustily, and disappeared. The young lady found her way upstairs alone. Mrs. Moffit sat in state in a big arm-chair, before a large table and desk, whence she daily dispensed joy or despair to her applicants. Several opened letters and copies of the daily journals lay on the table. "Well?" cried she, laying down her pen, "what for you?" "I am here by your appointment, made with me a week ago," said the young lady. "This is Thursday." "What name?" cried Mrs. Moffit sharply, turning over rapidly the leaves of a ledger. "Miss West. If you remember, I----" "Oh, yes, child, my memory's good enough," was the tart interruption. "But with so many applicants it's impossible to be certain as to faces. Registered names we can't mistake." Mrs. Moffit read her notes--taken down a week ago. "Miss West. Educated in first-class school at Richmond; remained in it as teacher. Very good references from the ladies keeping it. Father, Colonel in India." "But----" "You do not wish to go into a school again?" spoke Mrs. Moffit, closing the ledger with a snap, and peremptorily drowning what the applicant was about to say. "Oh, dear, no, I am only leaving to better myself, as the maids say," replied the young lady, smiling. "And you wish for a good salary?" "If I can get it. One does not care to work hard for next to nothing." "Or else I have--let me see--two--three situations on my books. Very comfortable, I am instructed, but two of them offer ten pounds a-year, the other twelve." The young lady drew herself slightly up with an involuntary movement. "Quite impossible, madam, that I could take any one of them."