"DEAR LADY THETFORD--I have been fairly besieged with applications for the past week--all widows, and all professing to be thoroughly competent. Clergyman's widows, doctors' widows, officers' widows--all sorts of widows. I never before thought so many could apply for one situation. I have chosen one in sheer desperation--the widow of a country gentleman in distressed circumstances, who, I think, will suit. She is eminently respectable in appearance, quiet and lady-like in manner, with five years' experience in the nursery-governess line, and the highest recommendation from her late employers. She has lost a child, she tells me, and from her looks and manner altogether, I should judge she was a person conversant with misfortune. She will return with me early next week--her name is Mrs. Weymore." Lady Thetford read this letter with a little sigh of relief--some one else would have the temper and outbreaks of little May to contend with now. She wrote to Captain Everard that same day, to announce his daughter's well-being, and inform him that she had found a suitable governess to take charge of her. The second day of the ensuing week the rector and the new governess arrived. A fly from the railway brought her and her luggage to Thetford Towers late in the afternoon, and she was taken at once to the room that had been prepared for her, whilst the servant went to inform Lady Thetford of her arrival. "Fetch her here at once," said her ladyship, who was alone, as usual, in the long drawing-room with the children, "I wish to see her." Ten minutes after the drawing-room door was flung open, and "Mrs. Weymore, my lady," announced the footman. Lady Thetford arose to receive her new dependent, who bowed and stood before her with a somewhat fluttered and embarrassed air. She was quite young, not older than my lady herself, and eminently good-looking. The tall, slender figure, clad in widow's weeds, was as symmetrical as Lady Thetford's own, and the full black dress set off the pearly fairness of the blonde skin, and the rich abundance of fair hair. Lady Thetford's brows contracted a little; her fair, subdued, gentle-looking, girlish young woman, was hardly the strong-minded, middle-aged matron she had expected to take the nonsense out of obstreperous May Everard. "Mrs. Weymore, I believe," said Lady Thetford, resuming her _fauteuil_, "pray be seated. I wished to see you at once, because I am going out this evening. You have had five years' experience as a nursery-governess, Mr. Knight tells me." "Yes, my lady." There was a little tremor in Mrs. Weymore's low voice, and her blue eyes shifted and fell under Lady Thetford's steady and somewhat haughty gaze. "Yet you look young--much younger than I imagined, or wished." "I am twenty-seven years old, my lady." That was my lady's own age precisely, but she looked half a dozen years the elder of the two.