“This is precisely what I think,” said Miss Davis, “and I am glad you take such a sensible view of the matter.  However, we need not speak of this for a year to come.”

And so the conversation ended.  Hetty longed to put her arms round Miss Davis’s neck and thank her warmly for her kindness, but she felt instinctively that the governess would rather she abstained from all such demonstrations.  It was only when she went up to bed that she allowed her thoughts to go back to the beautiful moment when she had fancied Miss Davis might have been thinking of making her an artist; and then she cried sadly as she thought of how foolish she had been in imagining even for a second that such a wild improbability had come true.

However, Hetty awakened next morning with a wholesome feeling of satisfaction in her mind which she could not at first account for.  In a few moments the conversation with Miss Davis rushed back upon her memory, and she knew that her contentment was due to the prospect of independence that had been put before her as so real and so near.  Once installed under Miss Davis’s roof, teaching in school and earning the bread she ate, neither servants nor companions could taunt her with being a charity girl any more, Mr. Enderby’s fears for her would then be laid to rest, and the dread of disappointing him would be lifted off her mind.  In Miss Davis’s school she could live and work until she had acquired all that learning which to her was so hard to attain.

With a sweet and brave, if not a glad, look on her face, Hetty came into the school-room that morning and found Phyllis and Nell chatting more gaily than usual at the fire.

“Oh, Hetty,” cried Nell, “you must hear our news!  We are going to have such a delightful visitor in the house.”

“How you rush to conclusions, Nell!” said her sister.  “You have not seen her yet, and you pronounce her delightful.”

“I know from what mamma told us,” cried Nell.  “She is pretty, amiable, clever—­and ever so rich.  Only think, Hetty—­to be an heiress at twenty-one without anyone to keep you from doing just as you please!  She has a country house in France, and a house in London, with a good old lady to take care of her, who does exactly what she bids her.”

“Mother did not say all that,” said Phyllis.

“Oh! but I gathered it all from what she did say.”

“Is she an orphan then?” asked Hetty.

“She has neither father, nor mother, nor brother, nor sister.  Now, Hetty, don’t look as if that was a misfortune.  It is natural for you to feel it, of course.  But if you had houses, and horses, and carriages, and money, you would not think it so bad to be able to do what you liked.”

“Nell, I am shocked at you,” said Miss Davis.  “Would you give up your parents for such selfish advantages as you describe?”

“Oh dear no!” cried Nell.  “But if I never had had them, like Reine Gaythorne, and did not know anything about them, I daresay I could manage to amuse myself in the world.”