fitted to be a governess; she was thirty years old and as strong as a
pony, she said, and she had friends in New England who could find her a
situation. He should see her whenever it was possible, she added, but
there was no other way.

Now it is not easy to find a thoroughly respectable married governess
of unexceptionably good manners, who comes of a good stock and is able
to teach young ladies. Such a person is a treasure to rich people who
need somebody to take charge of their girls while they fly round and
round the world in automobiles, seeking whom they may destroy. Therefore
Mrs. Overholt obtained a very good place before long, and when the
family in which she taught had its next attack of European fever and it
was decided that the girls must stay in Munich to improve their German
and their music, Mrs. Overholt was offered an increase of salary if she
would take them there and see to it, while their parents quartered
Germany, France, Spain, and Austria at the rate of forty miles an hour,
or even fifty and sixty where the roads were good. If the parents broke
their necks, Mrs. Overholt would take the children home; but this was
rather in the understanding than in the agreement.

Such was the position when John Henry sat down upon the lid of Pandora's
box in a sunny corner of the Central Park and reflected on Mr.
Burnside's remark that "there was plenty of hope about." The inventor
thought that there was not much, but such as it was, he did not mean to
part with it on the ground that the man of business had called it
"cheap."

He resolved his feelings into factors and simplified the form of each;
and this little mathematical operation showed that he was miserable for
three reasons.