And are ye sad or gay?
And is your heart with your liege lord, lady,
Or is it far away?_

_"The lady raised her calm, proud head,
Though her tears fell one by one:
'Life counts not hours by joys or pangs,
But just by duties done._

_"And when I lie in the green kirk-yard,
With the mould upon my breast,
Say not that "She did well or ill,"
Only, "She did her best."'"_


A day or two after this, Christian, returning from her daily walk, which
was now brief enough, and never beyond the college precincts, met a
strange face at the Lodge door--that is, a face not exactly strange; she
seemed to have seen it before, but could not recollect how or where.
Then she recalled it as that of a young daily governess, her predecessor
at the Fergusons', who had left them "to better herself," as she said--and
decidedly to the bettering of her pupils.

Miss Susan Bennett--as Christian had soon discovered, both pupils and
parents being very loquacious on the subject--was one of those
governesses whom one meets in hopeless numbers among the middle-
class families--girls, daughters of clerks or petty shopkeepers, above
domestic service, and ashamed or afraid of any other occupation,
which, indeed, is only too difficult to be found, whereby half-educated
or not particularly clever young women may earn their bread. They