my room, she would speedily come trotting after me, and opening the door and peeping in, say, with her little peremptory accent,—
"Come down. Why do you sit here by yourself? You must come into the parlour."
In the same spirit she urged me now—
"Leave the Rue Fossette," she said, "and come and live with us. Papa would give you far more than Madame Beck gives you."
Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum—thrice my present salary—if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts, and starved.
I was no bright lady's shadow—not Miss de
