for. I put back the package in Preston's hands, and walked in;
my play over.

How well I knew my play was over, when I saw my governess. She
was sitting by my aunt on the sofa. Quite different from what
I had expected, so different that I walked up to her in a
maze, and yet seemed to recognise in that first view all that
was coming after. Probably that is fancy; but it seems to me
now that all I ever knew or felt about Miss Pinshon in the
years that followed, was duly begun and betokened in those.
first five minutes. She was a young-looking lady, younger-
looking than she was. She had a dark, rich complexion, and a
face that I suppose would have been called handsome; it was
never handsome to me. Long black curls on each side of her
face, and large black eyes, were the features that first
struck one; but I immediately decided that Miss Pinshon was
not born a lady. I do not mean that I think blood and breeding
are unseverable; or that half a dozen lady ancestors in a
direct line secure the character to the seventh in descent;
though they _do_ often secure the look of it; nevertheless,
ladies are born who never know all their lives how to make a
curtsey, and curtseys are made with infinite grace by those
who have nothing of a lady beyond the trappings. I never saw
Miss Pinshon do a rude or an awkward thing, that I remember;
nor one which changed my first mind about her. She was
handsomely dressed; but there again I felt the same want. Miss
Pinshon's dresses made me think always of the mercer's counter
and the dressmaker's shop. My mother's robes always seemed
part of her own self; and so in a certain true sense they
were.