"I beg yours," said Miss Balquidder--not without a certain dignity--"for asking questions of a stranger. But I was once a stranger here myself, and had a 'sair fecht,' as we say in Scotland, before I could earn even my daily bread. Though I wasn't a governess, still I know pretty well what the sort of life is, and if I had daughters who must work for their bread, the one thing I would urge upon them should be--'Never become a governess.' " "Indeed. For what reason?" "I'll not tell you now, my dear, standing with all your wet clothes on; but as I said, if you will do me the favor to call." "Thank you!" said Hilary, not sufficiently initiated in London caution to dread making a new acquaintance. Besides, she liked the rough hewn, good natured face; and the Scotch accent was sweet to her ear. Yet when she reached home she was half shy of telling her sisters the engagement she had made. Selina was extremely shocked, and considered it quite necessary that the London Directory, the nearest clergyman, or, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, who living in the parish, must know--should be consulted as to Miss Balquidder's respectability. "She has much more reason to question ours," recollected Hilary, with some amusement; for I never told her my name or address. She does not know a single thing about me. Which fact, arguing the matter energetic ally two days after, the young lady might not have been so sure of, could she have penetrated the ceiling overhead. In truth, Miss Balquidder, a prudent person, who never did things by halves, and, like most truly generous people, was cautious even in her extremist fits of generosity, at that very moment was sitting in Mrs. Jones's first floor, deliberately discovering every single thing possible to be learned about the Leaf family. Nevertheless, owing to Selina's indignant pertinacity, Hilary's own hesitation, and a dim hope of a pupil which rose up and faded like the rest, the possible acquaintance lay dormant for two or three weeks; till, alas! the fabulous wolf actually came to the door; and the sisters, after paying their week's rent, looked aghast at one another, not knowing where in the wide world the next week's rent was to come from. "Thank God, we don't owe any thing: not a penny!" gasped Hilary. "No; there is comfort in that," said Johanna. And the expression of her folded hands and upward face was not despairing, even though that of the poor widow, when her barrel of meal was gone, and her cruse of oil spent, would hardly have been sadder. "I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody;--surely God will help us." "I know He will, my child." And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one another, cried a little, and then sat down to consider what was to be done.