This was not only wrong in tone but she had failed to say the thing Pearl wanted her to say, namely, that Mrs. Conway would be delighted if the new governess brought her pet cat with her. Pearl explained that Alfred was really no trouble in the house--he slept all day and caught mice at night--except one night he did tumble all the way downstairs on account of his paw. "And you'd be surprised, Gussie," said Pearl, her whole generous face lighting up with admiration; "that cat--that little creature made a noise like an elephant falling, he's so solid." But Augusta, who was not so easily moved to admiration as Pearl, was not at all moved now. "I can't see," she observed coldly, "what it is you see in Alfred that makes you love him so." Pearl, who had really a nice nature, wasn't angry. "It isn't exactly that I love him so much," she answered. "But I feel so sorry for him; and when I feel sorry for anyone they to a certain extent own me. I feel as if I could never make up to them for the way life has treated them. I feel that way to Alfred--about his paw, you know." "You didn't feel that way to the man who cried in the Encyclopedia." "I should say not," answered Pearl. "No, I can't pity him. He was such a poor sport about it. Men are poor sports where women are concerned--even Horace. If you had asked him to break his word because you had had a brain storm he'd have been shocked." "He'd have been immensely flattered," said Augusta reflectively. "But he thinks it's absolutely all right for him to break up all your business arrangements because he goes off halfcocked with a fantastic idea that you've fallen in love with a man you merely want to work for." Augusta thought a minute and then she said, "It wasn't quite so fantastic as you think, Pearl. I was attracted by Mr. Wood. I might have fallen in love with him if I had been brought into contact with him much more. Oh, Pearl, haven't you ever felt a sudden charm like that?" Pearl shook her head: She could not say,--perhaps she did not really herself understand why such emotions were forbidden to her, but the true reason was that if her speaking countenance had ever turned upon a man with that thought in mind the next instant her lovely nose would have been buried in a tweed lapel or grating against a stiff collar. "You know," Augusta went on, "that I really love Horace; and Mr. Wood took no interest in me, except as a governess for his nieces; but have you never said to yourself, 'There is the type of man whom I could have loved madly if only things had been different'?" Again Pearl's head wagged. Then she said, "Describe my employer to me." "Well," Augusta began solemnly, "he has a smooth brown face out of which look two bright-blue eyes like a Chinaman." Pearl scowled. "But Chinamen don't have blue eyes," she objected.