This wonderful event made a great change in my life. I began at once, that very day, to live with Mrs Tufnell in the Square. She would not let me go home. She kissed me, and said I was to stay with her now. Mr Durham came twice and asked to see me; but I could not bear to see him. Then Mrs Stephens came with a letter. He said in it that I must dispose of him; that he, was in my hands, and would do whatever I pleased; that he had been startled more than he could say by the sudden sight of one whom he had loved before he knew me; but that if I could forgive him any foolish words he might have said, then he hoped we might be happy. In short, he was very honourable, ready to keep his word; and I felt as if I hated him for his virtue--for treating me “honourably!” Was that what all his love and all my happiness had come to? I sent him a very short little note back, and it was all over. He went abroad soon after, and I have never heard of him any more. And thus my story ended at seventeen. I wonder if there are many lives with one exciting chapter in them, ending at seventeen, and then years upon years of monotonous life. I am twenty-three now. I live with Mrs Tufnell. I am daily governess to one little girl, and I have my forty pounds a-year, the interest of poor papa’s insurance money. I am very well off indeed, and some people think I need not care to take a pupil at all--better off, a great deal, than I was in Southampton Street; but how different! I heard very soon after that Mary had a little boy. It was in the papers, but without any address; and I had one letter from her, saying that we had made a mistake in trying to live together, and that she was sorry. She hoped I would forgive her if she had been mistaken, and she would always think of me and love me. Love me? Is it like love to go away and leave me alone? Two people have said they loved me in my life, and that is what both have done. However, after that letter I could not do anything more. If she thought it was a mistake for us to live together, of course it was a mistake. And I had my pride too. “I always felt it was a doubtful experiment,” Mrs Tufnell said when people wondered, “and it did not answer--that was all.” And this is how it was settled and ended--ended, I suppose, for ever. Mrs Tufnell is very good to me, and as long as she lives I am sure of a home. Perhaps I may tell you her story one of these days; for she has a story, like most people. She tells me I am still very young, and may yet have a life of my own; but in the meantime the most I can do is to take an interest in other people’s lives. CHAPTER VI