II


It was unfortunate that there was so little precedent on both sides.
Miss Jones had never been a governess before and the children had
never had one. Of course, many mistakes were made. Miss Jones had
had a true admiration for what she used to call "her brother's
indomitable spirit," her name for his selfishness and bad temper.
She was herself neither selfish nor bad-tempered, but she was
ignorant, nervous, over-anxious, and desperately afraid of losing
her situation. She had during so many years lived without affection
that the wells of it had dried up within her, and now, without being
at all a bad old lady, she was simply preoccupied with the business
of managing her neuralgia, living on nothing a week, and building to
her deceased brother's memory a monument, of heroic character and
self-sacrifice. She was short-sighted and had a perpetual cold; she
was forgetful and careless. She had, nevertheless, a real knowledge
of many things, a warm heart somewhere could she be encouraged to
look for it again, and a sense of humour buried deep beneath her
cares and preoccupations. There were many worse persons in the world
than Miss Jones. But, most unfortunately, her love for her brother's
memory led her to resolve on what she called "firmness." Mrs. Cole
had told her that Jeremy was "getting too much" for his nurse; she
approached Jeremy with exactly the tremors and quaking boldness that
she would have summoned to her aid before a bull loose in a field.
She really did look frightening with her large spectacles on the end
of her large nose, her mouth firmly set, and a ruler in her hand. "I
insist on absolute obedience," was her motto. Jeremy looked at her
but said no word. It was made clear to them all that the new regime
was to be far other than the earlier nursery one. There were to be