John sent his eldest boy to school, promised her masters to help her,
and an assistant governess, but she would not stay, and with her went
for a time much of the comfort of that house.

Mr. Mortimer easily got another governess--a very pretty young lady who
did not, after a little while, take much interest in the children, but
certainly did take an interest in him. She was always contriving to
meet him--in the hall, on the stairs, in the garden. Then she looked at
him at church, and put him so out of countenance and enraged him, and
made him feel so ridiculous, that one day he took himself off to the
Continent, and kept away till she was gone.

Having managed that business, he got another governess, and she let him
alone, and the children too, for they completely got the better of her;
used to make her romp with them, and sometimes went so far as to lock
her into the schoolroom. It was not till this lady had taken her leave
and another had been found that Mr. John Mortimer repeated his
invitation to little Peter Melcombe. His mother brought him, and
according to the programme she had laid down, got herself invited to
stay a few days.

She had no trouble about it. Mr. John Mortimer no sooner saw Mrs.
Melcombe than he expressed a hospitable, almost a fervent hope, that she
could stay a week with him.

Of course Mrs. Melcombe accepted the invitation, and he was very
sociable and pleasant; but she thought the governess (a very grand lady
indeed) took upon herself more than beseemed her, and smiled at her very
scornfully when she ventured to say sweet things to John Mortimer on her