"Well, my darling, she is really so different to what I had expected, I can hardly form a judgment. I thought to see a crude kind of girl. Miss Reinhart is a very beautiful woman of the world, as graceful, well-bred and self-possessed as a duchess." "She is not half so beautiful as mamma," I cried. "No, little faithful heart; not one-half," said Sir Roland. "I must say that she seems to me far more like a fine lady visitor than a governess," said my mother. "You will find her all right," said Sir Roland, brightly. "She seems to understand her duties and to be quite competent for them. I fancy you will like her Beatrice, darling; after all, it will be some thing to have some one to amuse us. How well she tells a story! with what brilliancy and verve!" "I want no more amusement than I find with you and Laura," said my mother. "You are all-sufficient to me. Still, as you say, dear, it is well to have a pleasant companion." Then, as my mother was tired, her maid came, and Sir Roland said, "Good-night." I remember how we both felt sad and lonely, though we could not quite tell why; and that my beautiful mother fell fast asleep, holding my hand in hers; and that they would not take me away, lest they should awake her. "And my lady has so little sleep," they said, pityingly, "we never awake her." I wish, my darling, that for both of us it had been the long, sweet sleep from which there is no awaking. CHAPTER VI. The first three days following Miss Reinhart's arrival were a holiday. My father himself showed her over the house, took her through the picture galleries, told her all the legends of the place. She walked out in the grounds and had learned to make herself quite at home. Sir Roland told her that she must do so, that her duties and responsibilities would be great. She must therefore take care of herself. I was with them in the picture gallery, and Sir Roland never stopped to think that it would perhaps be better not to discuss such things before me. "I hope," he said, "to interest you in the whole place. I cannot tell you how different things are when the mistress of the house is ill and helpless." "I am sure it must be so," she said, in that sweet voice, which I felt to be false and hated. "At any time," he said, "if you see things going wrong I should be grateful for a little management on your part." "I will always do my very best for you, Sir Roland," she said, earnestly, and I could feel in some vague way that she was sympathizing with him and pitying him in a way that was against my mother's interests. I could hardly tell how. "Have you a good housekeeper?" she asked, and my father answered: "Mrs. Eastwood has been here over fifty years, I believe."