But it was not lost either upon Janet or Julia that her hands were for a moment still, that her downcast eyes were fixed not on her work, and her entire frame rigid with intent listening. The attitude relaxed in a moment when the welcome sound of the bell pealed into the silence, a little faint sigh of ease and happiness came from the bottom of her heart, her head regained its easy poise. Whether the mother also saw these indications of supreme suspense and then of delightful relief, even Janet, whom no circumstance escaped, could not tell. Perhaps, like Gussy, she thought that the visitor was of more account than the other bystanders believed him to be. A little of the same enchantment hung over Gussy through all the ordinary affairs of life. There was a liquid softness in her eyes that had not been there before; her want of color, which was her great deficiency, seemed to be half compensated be the faintest rose-flush of feeling and sensibility which had come to her, no one could tell how. Was it a sign of better health, greater vigor, than her tranquil temperament usually enjoyed? Her mother said so, rejoicing over the fact that Gussy was “so well.” “She has quite a color,” the visitors said. “What a good thing you went to Malvern this year; it has quite set Augusta up.” But the governess and her pupil knew it was not Malvern. The piano in the larger drawing-room was always open now, the lights were always prepared, and Gussy practiced her songs in the morning with a devotion for which Janet, a little moved by the _esprit de corps_, and unwilling that a woman should betray herself, blushed sometimes when the unwearying watchfulness of Julia, to whom no such awakening had come, pointed out the performance going on below. “She’s practising again,” Julia would say, in the midst of a lesson. “She knows how necessary it is,” cried quick-witted Janet. “I wish you were half as sensible.” But these little snubs, which were frequent, did not turn aside Julia’s keen perceptions or break the unspoken sympathy of spectatorship that was between the two. Julia, however, made no further demonstration of her dislike to the visitor, and Mrs. Harwood’s satisfaction with the “good influence” which Miss Summerhayes had acquired over the rebellious girl went on increasing. “She looks no more than a girl herself--and so she is, quite young, and never was out before--but her power over that unmanageable child is something wonderful. You know, my dear, what poor Ju was.” “Oh, yes, I know what Ju was!” replied, with fervor, the friend to whom Mrs. Harwood confided her satisfaction. With too much fervor, perhaps; for when the person we blame is our own child, we desire no warmth of conviction, but rather a good-natured deprecation, as who should say, “I never remarked it,” or a warmer assertion, “She was always very nice to me.” But the mother’s confidant was not enlightened in this case. She acknowledged her perfect consciousness of the demerits of Ju.