“I meant, of course, in respect to your children,” said Mr. Rowland dryly. “You may do without your dearest friend by making an effort; but you can’t do without a governess. Excuse me, I am a plain man, and call a spade, a spade.” This brutality of expression reduced Mrs. Stanhope to tears. “I have never treated her like a governess,” she said. “If Evelyn’s good heart made her help me with the children, it was not my asking, it was her own idea. She did it because she liked it. I implored her not to take them out, feeling that you might imagine something of that sort. Men like you, Mr. Rowland, who have made a great deal of money, always, if you will excuse me, impute interested motives. I foresaw as much as that.” “Yes,” he said cheerfully, “we are given to think of the money value of things. Not of friendship, you know, and all that, but of time and work, and so forth. We needn’t enter into that question, for I’m sure we understand each other. And I don’t want to put you to inconvenience. How much time will it take you to fill Miss Ferrars’ place?” Mrs. Stanhope was a clever little woman. She thought for a moment, in natural exasperation, of dismissing him summarily, and refusing to have anything to say to a man who had treated her so; and then she thought she would not do that. He was rich--he might be useful some time or other to the children; it would be foolish to make a breach with a friend who would remember nothing but the best of her (she did Evelyn this justice), and who would be kind to the children when they went home, and invite them for their holidays. So she subdued the natural anger that was almost on her lips, and gave vent to a harsh little laugh instead. “You do always take such a prosaic view, and reduce everything to matter of fact,” she said. “I can’t afford to have any one in Evelyn’s place, if you desire to speak of it so. Evelyn has helped me with the children for love--I must do the best I can for them by myself when you take her away.” “Ah well,” said Mr. Rowland, “then it is a real sacrifice, and you will suffer. I dare say you have a great deal to do. Would not little Molly Price be a help to you? She is a nice little girl, and she has nobody belonging to her, and I don’t know what the poor little thing is to do.” Mrs. Stanhope made a pause before she replied, looking all the time keenly in the engineer’s face as if she would have read his meaning in that way. But he was impassible as a wooden image. “Molly Price is a very nice little girl,” she said slowly, trying all the time to make out what he meant, “and she would be of use, though far different from Evelyn. But how could I take up a girl like that, without any means of providing for her. I had thought of it,” Mrs. Stanhope admitted, “but to take up her time just when she might be doing better for herself, and to give her false expectations as to what I could do for her--when it only can be for a few years, till we send the children home.”