"Warm and tired! Now do not speak in that measured way, so exactly like Isabella, when I was as red as this," and she pointed to the scarlet feather in her hat, "and as for tired, I was panting for breath like that dreadful old pet dog of hers. Well, I am glad I have made you laugh; but do not, please, Miss Neville, if we are to be friends, speak so like Isabella again. I hate it, and that's the truth."
"I will not, if I know it, but will say yes or no, if you like it best, and wish it."
"And I do wish it, and that was not said a bit like Isabella, so I will forgive you, and we will make up and be friends, as the children say," and she gave her hand to Amy. "And now tell me, Miss Neville, by way of changing the subject, where, when, and how you became acquainted with my cousin."
"I am governess to her children," replied Amy, quietly.
Julia stopped suddenly, and looked at her in surprise.
"And are you really the governess of whom Edith and Fanny have talked to me so much? Why, you cannot be much older than I."
"Do you not consider yourself old enough to be a governess?"
"Well, yes, of course I do; but you are so different to what I always pictured to myself a governess ought to be. They should be ugly, cross old maids, odious creatures, in fact I know mine was."
"Oh, she did a hundred disagreeable things. All people have manias for something, so there is, perhaps, nothing surprising in her being fond of _bags_. She had bags for everything; for her boots and shoes, thimble and scissors, brushes and combs, thread, buttons,--even to her india-rubber. A small piece of coloured calico made me literally sick, for it was sure to be converted into a bag, and a broken needle into a pin, with a piece of sealing-wax as the head."
"She was not wasteful," said Amy, who could not forbear laughing at the picture drawn.
"Wasteful! Truly not. It was 'waste not, want not,' with her; she had it printed and pasted on a board, and hung up in the school-room, and well she acted up to the motto."
"But I dare say she did you some good, notwithstanding her peculiarities."
"Well! 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating,' another of her wise sayings; and it is early days to ask you what you think of me, so I shall wait until we are better acquainted, which I hope will be soon. How glad I was to get rid of her! I actually pulled down one of the bells in ringing her out of the house, and would have had a large bonfire of all the backboards and stocks, if I had dared. I could not bear her, but I am sure I shall like you, and we will be friends, shall we not? do not say no."