So did some other people.  John Mortimer’s troubles on that head began very soon after the sending of his first invitation to Mrs. Melcombe, when the excellent elderly lady who taught the little Mortimers (and in a great measure kept his house) let him know that she could no longer do justice to them.  They got on so fast, they had such spirits, they were so active and so big, that she felt she could not cope with them.  Moreover, the three eldest were exceptionally clever, and the noise made by the whole tribe fatigued her.

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 own great love for children, and on the charms of his children in particular.

Peter was excessively happy.  His mother’s happiness in the visit was soon over.  She shortly found out that an elderly Scotch lady, one Miss Christie Grant, an aunt of the late Mrs. Daniel Mortimer, was to come in a few days and pay a long visit, and she shrewdly suspected that the attractive widower being afraid to remain alone in his own house, made arrangements to have female visitors to protect him, and hence the invitation to her.  But she had to leave Peter at the end of the week, and which of the two ladies when they parted hated the other most it might be difficult to determine.