years of service worth money, yet it was chipped by kicks from iron-shod
boots, which had also worn the dingy carpet bare. There was an absence of
the nick-nacks that strew the rooms of people in 'Society.' There was not
even a bell-handle to pull; if you wanted the maid of all work, you must
open the door and call to her. These little things, trifles as they may
be, repelled her. It was a bitter cup to her to come 'home.'

Mr. S---- was a farmer of fair means, and, compared with many of his
neighbours, well-to-do, and well connected. But he was still a yeoman
only, and personally made pretensions to nothing more. Though he himself
had received little or no education, he quite saw the value of it, and was
determined that his children should be abreast of the times. Accordingly,
so soon as Georgie grew old enough, a governess with high recommendations,
and who asked what the farmer then thought a high price (he knows more
about such things now!) was had down from London. Of course the
rudimentary A B C of learning could just as well have been imparted by an
ordinary person, but Mr. and Mrs. S---- had a feeling which they could not
perhaps have expressed in words, that it was not so much the actual
reading and writing, and French and music, and so on, as a social
influence that was needed to gradually train the little country girl into
a young lady fit to move in higher society.

The governess did her work thoroughly. Georgie was not allowed to walk in
the wet grass, to climb up the ladder on to the half-completed hayrick,
and romp under the rick-cloth, to paddle with naked feet in the shallow
brook, or any other of the things that country children have done from
time immemorial. Such things she was taught were not ladylike, and, above
all, she was kept away from the cottage people. She was not permitted to
enter their doors, to converse with the women, or to watch the carter with
his horses. Such vulgar folk and their vulgar dialect were to be carefully