Mrs Fendie arranged her work; she was copying a French lithograph like Maggie Irving, but she was copying it with the needle and not with the pencil, and cleared her voice oratorically. Lilias Maxwell with some apparent timidity took the chair pointed to her, and sat down to listen, the great tears gathering under her eyelids. Hope placed herself very near the new governess, in instinctive sympathy. She was not so “pretty-looking” as Adelaide had predicted. She was singularly pale, and had very dark hair, and large deep-blue eyes--blue eyes so dark that Hope, to whom blue eyes always suggested the slumbrous orbs of Adelaide Fendie, gave Miss Maxwell’s credit for being black. The dark mass of hair and the mourning dress made the young orphan look still more ethereal and shadowy. She was not like Hope’s model, Helen Buchanan; she was not nearly so life-like, and seemed to want altogether the nervous impulsive strength of Helen. Sudden flushes indeed did sometimes pass over her colourless cheek for a moment--flushes painfully deep and vivid; but there was nothing on this face like the constantly varying colour, which wavered on Helen’s cheek like the coming and going of breath. Nevertheless, there was a similarity in the age, and perhaps in the circumstances, which made Hope associate the stranger with her friend. “You will understand, Miss Maxwell,” said Mrs Fendie, “that I consider it a very important charge which I, as a mother, give into your hands, when I delegate to you the care of these children. Such wonderful interests at stake! such extraordinary effects your humble teachings may help to produce! When I look at that boy,” and Mrs Fendie cast a sentimental glance at the dyspeptic Fred, “it quite overwhelms me. Oh, Fred! you wicked child, what have you been doing!” Mrs Fendie had chosen an unfavourable moment for her sentimental glance, the young gentleman being busily employed opening the eyes of a scriptural personage in one of the aforesaid patterns for embroidery, by thrusting a pencil through them. On being thus pathetically appealed to Master Fred threw down the paper, and exclaimed,--“It’s not me, it’s Vic.” Mrs Fendie restrained Victoria’s self-defence, by a majestic wave of her hand, and resumed,--“In the first place, concerning Miss Fendie--hold up your head, Adelaide.” Adelaide fixed her eyes upon the wall, awkwardly conscious of being looked at, and blushed, a dull, gradual blush,--“you will need rather to direct the young lady’s studies than to enter on the drudgery of teaching--and I am sure to a well-regulated mind nothing could be more delightful. I shall expect you to read with Miss Fendie, to direct her to those subjects which most call for a lady’s attention; to attend to her deportment and carriage, to superintend her work, to see that her wardrobe is kept in proper order, and that she does not get slovenly in her dress; besides--”