And then I was deceived by false representations into engaging a widow lady, who had seen better days. She was recommended to me as an experienced teacher, having held situations in high families before her marriage; and I naturally supposed that one who had been a mother herself would be a safer guide for a young girl than one who had not. But words cannot describe what a wretch that woman was. There is something about widows--I don't know what it is--something that seems almost improper--especially those that are by way of being young and pretty, like Mrs. Underwood, though she was all forty, if she was a day, in spite of her baby airs and graces and her butter-yellow hair. She had the audacity to try and flirt with Tom, under cover of her pathetic stories of her lost husband and children, and those better days that were a pure invention; and he was too idiotically stupid--that is, too innocent and simple-minded--to see what was so glaringly transparent to everybody else. He used to think her an ill-used woman and pity her, and think me hard and unfeeling because I didn't. Oh, never will I have a widow about my house again! She entirely destroyed our domestic peace. Things came to such a pass, indeed, that Tom even threatened--seriously, and not in a joke--to get out his captain's certificate and return to sea, because his home, that had always been so happy, had become unbearable. She went at last, and then I felt that I had had enough of governesses. Determined that I would never undergo such misery again, and at the same time strongly objecting to boarding-schools for girls, there was nothing for it but to superintend Lily's general studies myself, and take her into town for special lessons. I did not like the job, and found her very tiresome and disheartening; she seemed to mope, all alone, and would not interest herself in anything. A girl in these days is never satisfied with her mother for a companion, and after a time, when the Jukes were settled in their Melbourne house, I was glad to let her go on long visits to her sister. There she found plenty to occupy and amuse her, while I sat solitary at home, working for them both. For I had no children left when she was away. The difficulty of the governess was not the only trouble that resulted from Emily's desertion of me. Harry also forsook the nest. He said it was inconvenient to live so far from his office, though he had never thought of that while she was with us, and that it would be better for business reasons to have a lodging in town. I did not attempt to thwart him. And so, as soon as he was strong enough to return to regular work--so valued was he by the shipping firm which employed him that they had kept his situation open during his illness--he took himself and a new bicycle to a stuffy Melbourne suburb, where he would be in the way of meeting his beloved frequently at the houses of her friends.