Miss Jones, buried during the last twenty years in the green depths of a Glebeshire valley, found herself now, at the age of fifty, without friends, without money, without relations. She thought that she would be a governess.
The Dean recommended her, Mrs. Cole approved of her birth, education and sobriety, Mr. Cole liked the severity of her countenance when she came to call, and she was engaged.
“Jeremy needs a tight hand,” said Mr. Cole. “It's no use having a young girl.”
“Miss Jones easily escapes that charge,” said Uncle Samuel, who had met her in the hall.
The children were prepared to be good. Jeremy felt that it was time to take life seriously. He put away his toy village, scolded Hamlet for eating Mary's pincushion, and dragged out his dirty exercise-book in which he did sums.
“I do hate sums!” he said, with a sigh, regarding the hideous smudges of thumbs and tears that scored the page. “I shall never understand anything about them.”
“I'll help you,” said Mary, who was greatly excited at the thought of a governess. “We'll do them together.”
“No we won't,” said Jeremy, who hated to be dependent.
“I'll learn it myself--if only the paper didn't get dirty so quickly.”
“Mother says,” remarked Helen, “that she's had a very hard life, and no one's ever been kind to her. 'She wants affection,' Mother says.”
“I'll give her my napkin-ring that you gave me last Christmas, Mary,” said Jeremy. “You don't mind, do you? It's all dirty now. I hope Hamlet won't bark at her.”
Hamlet was worrying Mary's pincushion at the moment, holding it between his paws, his body stretched out in quivering excitement, his short, “snappy” tail, as Uncle Samuel called it, standing up straight in air. He stopped for an instant when he heard his name, and shook one ear.
“Mother says,” continued Helen, “that she lived with a brother who never gave her enough to eat.”
Jeremy opened his eyes. This seemed to him a horrible thing.
“She shall have my porridge, if she likes,” he said; “I don't like it very much. And I'll give her that chocolate that Mr. Jellybrand sent us. There's still some, although it's rather damp now, I expect.”
“How silly you are!” said Helen scornfully. “Of course, Mother will give her anything she wants.”