She delivered a very nice speech, which had been many times rehearsed in her bedchamber, and on the pavement as she trudged to and from the house of Mr. Jones, which, as a daily governess, she was in the habit of traversing, and at other times and places. Gratitude was a word that thickly interlarded her periods. She said that she did not know how to accept the proposal he made her, and, after a skilful pause or two, having come to the conclusion that there was no danger in a little delay (and, aside with the reader let me add, become convinced that there was no prospect of his withdrawing the offer), she craved time to consider his most noble proposal--not on her own account, because, if she was a selfish thing, he would see that she must at once say yes--but because she scarcely felt equal to the position, and because the prospect of such an elevation dazzled and bewildered her little brain. This was the sum and substance of Miss Thomson's speech. The reader has already been informed that Mr. Green and Miss Thomson were married, and his imagination will supply the links in the narrative between the last interview and the realisation of that event. During the almost monotonous life Mr. and Mrs. Green lived, there would of course occasionally arise small vexations. Not that they quarrelled. Nothing of that sort marred their happiness. The vexations I speak of were of the most simple and ordinary kind. A friend promised to come and dine with them, and did not keep that promise. The tradesmen were not punctual in the delivery of their goods. The wine-merchant occasionally deceived Mr. Green, which caused him annoyance. The dressmaker or the milliner was not so exact as he or she ought perhaps to have been in executing Mrs. Green's orders. And those sort of things annoyed the one or the other of them. Another annoyance in this house arose from--what Mr. Henry Mayhew has entitled the greatest plague in life--a bad servant. They had one or two bad servants, and on several occasions Mrs. Green made the observation, not, I think, quite unique--a sort of remark, on the other hand, which had been made by other ladies, and I believe will be again--that it was impossible to get a good servant. However, one good servant was at last obtained. She was a young woman about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. She was, to say the least about her merits, somewhat pretty. I have heard her described as beautiful. When I last saw her, I thought her exceedingly beautiful. She was, moreover, by no means an illiterate girl. She had received a fair amount of education--a much better education than girls in her station usually receive.