Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

"She is the governess," said Mrs. Pinckney in a sulky tone.

"Now listen, Virginia. I have seen that young girl darning stockings in the school-room and at the same time hearing the children's lessons; I have seen her arrange the dinner-table, with the children clinging to her skirts; I have seen her with the keys, giving out the stores; I know she keeps your accounts; and I can readily comprehend where those clear, well-expressed letters came from, although signed by you, which I have frequently received in my character of guardian and executor."

"You certainly don't think I meant to deceive you as to the letters?"

"Oh no," replied her brother-in-law: "I don't think you in the least deceitful, Virginia;" and in his own mind reflected, "'Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.'"

Nobody likes hypocrisy, to be sure, but Mrs. Pinckney did not take the trouble to veil her peccadilloes. Easy and indolent as she was, being now thoroughly roused by his thinly-veiled contempt, she endeavored to be disagreeable in her turn. With the most innocent air in the world she exclaimed, "I declare, Dick, I believe you're in love with Miss Featherstone, although you like fair women—"

"And she is dark," he interrupted.

"Regular features—"

"And her dear little nose is slightly retroussèe; but you cannot deny, Virginia, that she has a most captivating air."

"I'm fond of her, but I do not think her captivating." Mrs. Pinckney was now thoroughly out of temper. She was not naturally envious, but she could be roused to envy. "And so you're in love with her?" satirically.

"How can I help it?" he returned with a mocking air. "She has magnificent eyes, a bewildering smile: then she has that je ne sais quoi, as our foreign friend would say. There is no defining it, there is no assuming it. To conclude, I consider Miss Featherstone dangerously attractive."

"Just what I told her you were," returned Mrs. Pinckney, who saw he was trying to tease her, and had recovered by this time her equanimity. In spite of his phlegm he looked interested. "You'd better take care and make no reference to the war, for she is furiously loyal, I can tell you," said Mrs. Pinckney, recalling the conversation. "Since when have you been in love with her?"

"From the very first moment I saw her, when she entered the dining-room, her cheeks brilliant from the cold, her lovely eyes, blinded by the light, peering through their long lashes, a little becoming embarrassment in her air as she saw your humble servant—laden down with your bundles, and your children, as usual, clinging to her skirts."

"Dick, how disagreeable you are!" and Mrs. Pinckney began to pout again.

"We are all her lovers," he maliciously continued—"all the men here—Doctor Harris, Mr. Brown and—" he bowed expressively.

"Doctor Harris?" exclaimed his sister-in-law. This defection cut her to the heart.

"The day my namesake and godchild, little Dick, was ill I went to the nursery, as in duty bound: you know how fond I am of that child. There was Miss Featherstone, not the nurse, interested and concerned, sitting by the patient. There was Doctor Harris, interested and absorbed with Miss Featherstone. His looks were unmistakable: I saw it at a glance. And as for Mr. Brown, he raves about this 'dear mees' or 'cette chère mademoiselle' by the hour together. She carried his heart by storm the first time he saw her, as she did mine."

"How far does your admiration lead you? Do you wish any assistance from me?"

"As you please: I am indifferent," he returned, shrugging his shoulders. "Seriously, Virginia—I say this in my character of guardian and adviser-general to the family—I think what you give her is a beggarly pittance in return for all she does, and I suggest that you raise her salary."

Miss Featherstone, although prejudiced at first against Colonel Pinckney, grew by degrees to like him. His manner to her was grave and respectful; he carried off the children, quite conveniently sometimes, when she was almost worn out with fatigue; and the air of friendly interest with which his dark eyes rested upon her was in a manner comforting. Their little interviews, although she was unconscious of it, gave zest to her life.

One cold morning, as she sat before breakfast with little Harry on her lap, warming his hands before the dining-room fire, Colonel Pinckney exclaimed, "Miss Featherstone, did you have the care of that child last night?"

"Yes," as she pressed the fat little hands in hers.

"And dressed him this morning?"

"Why, yes. Colonel Pinckney, excuse me: why shouldn't I?"

"Virginia is the most selfish human being I ever knew in my life," he burst forth. "You, after working like a slave during the day, cannot even have your night's rest undisturbed. I'll speak to her, and insist upon it that this state of things shall not continue any longer."

Miss Featherstone looked annoyed: "Mr. Pinckney"—she never would, if she remembered it, call him "Colonel"—"I beg that you will do nothing of the kind. Mrs. Pinckney is quite ill with a cold: she can scarcely speak above a whisper, and she required Adèle's services during the night. I volunteered—it was my own arrangement—sleeping with the child," eagerly.

"Oh yes," he returned, "you are remarkably well suited to each other—you and Virginia: you give, and she takes," sarcastically. "Listen, Miss Featherstone. I have known that woman twelve years—it is exactly twelve years since my unfortunate brother married her—and in all that time I never knew her consider but one human being, and that was herself."

"Indeed, you're very much mistaken, Colonel—that is, Mr.—Pinckney, as far as I am concerned. Mrs. Pinckney is really very kind to me. I am exceedingly fond of her, but I cannot bear to see things going wrong, and when I can I make them right. Mrs. Pinckney is in delicate health."

"That's all nonsense," he interrupted. "She spends her time studying her sensations. If she were poor she'd have something better to do. I think you are doing wrong morally, Miss Featherstone. You are encouraging her in idleness and selfishness by taking her duties and bearing them on your young shoulders.—Now, Harry, come here," to that small individual, who slowly and unwillingly descended from the governess's lap: "leave Miss Featherstone, my young friend, to pour out the coffee and eat her own breakfast. Adèle is with mamma, is she? Well, Uncle Dick will give Harry his breakfast."

The cold was intense the following day, yet Miss Featherstone, well muffled up, was on her way to the hall-door, where the sleigh was waiting to take her to the station.

"Forgive me," exclaimed Colonel Pinckney, who waylaid her, much to her annoyance, "but what are you going to do for the family now?"

"I am going to New York to get a cook," she replied with a decided air.

"Do you know the state of the thermometer?"

"I don't care anything about it," with some obstinacy, tugging at the button of her glove.

"But I do," he said. "Now, Miss Featherstone, while I'm here I am master of the house, and if it's necessary to go to town it's I that am going—to use Pat's vernacular—and not you. Give me directions, and I'll follow them implicitly."

"So Dick went, did he?" said Mrs. Pinckney. She was propped up in bed with large pillows: Miss Featherstone, still in her bonnet, sat by her side.

"Yes: it was very kind, for I don't know what would have become of the children all day, poor things! and you sick."

Mrs. Pinckney glanced searchingly at her. "Dick is very kind when he pleases, and exceedingly efficient," returned the invalid: "I've no doubt he'll bring back a capital cook."

"I had a great prejudice against Mr. Pinckney," said Miss Featherstone, slowly smoothing out her gloves, "but I confess it has vanished, there is something so straightforward and manly about him; and he certainly is very kind."

"He does not flatter you at all?"

"Oh no; and that is one reason I like him. I detest the gallant, tender manner which many men affect toward women."

"Doctor Harris, for instance?"

"Well, Doctor Harris, for instance," returned Miss Featherstone, smiling, and blushing a little.

"Doctor Harris has certainly made love to her, and Dick as certainly hasn't. I wonder—oh, how I wonder!—whether he was in earnest the other day?" Her large blue eyes were fixed scrutinizingly on the governess, although she thought, not said, these things. "He thinks you do a great deal too much in the house, and was quite abusive to me about it: he actually swore when he discovered the amount of your salary. Now, my dear Miss Featherstone, you may name your own price: I'll give you anything you ask, for no amount of money can represent the comfort you are to me."

"I don't want one cent more than I at present receive," replied the governess, kissing her fondly.

A few days after Colonel Pinckney—a self-constituted committee, apparently, for the prevention of cruelty to governesses—surprised Miss Featherstone in the school-room. She was seated before the fire in a low chair, little Harry, who was fretful from a cold, lying on her lap, the other children clustered around her. As he softly opened the door he heard these words: "'Blondine,' replied the fairy Bienveillante sadly,' no matter what you see or hear, do not lose courage or hope.'" As she told the story in low, drowsy tones she was also mending the heel of a little stocking.

"It is abominable!" the colonel cried: "you are worn out with fatigue: I hear it in your voice. I called you a 'white slave' to Virginia: nothing is truer. You've today given out supplies from the store-room, you were in the kitchen a long time with the new cook, you set the lunch-table—don't deny it, for I saw you—besides taking care of the children and hearing their lessons."

"While Mrs. Pinckney is ill this is absolutely necessary," she returned with decision: "of course it makes some confusion having a new cook—"

"Children," he interrupted, "this séance is to be broken up: scamper off to Adèle to get ready: I'll ask mamma to let you drive to the station in the coupé to meet Mr. Brown: there will certainly be room for such little folks.—And as to you, Miss Featherstone, as head of the house pro tem. I order you to put on your hat and cloak and walk in the garden for a while with me: the paths are quite hard and dry."

"Mamma! mamma! we are to drive to the station: Uncle Dick says so," shrieked the children, breaking up a delicious little doze into which Mrs. Pinckney had fallen while Adèle sat at her sewing in the darkened room.

"Is Uncle Dick going with you?"