“Well?” cried she, laying down her pen, “what for you?”

“I am here by your appointment, madam, made with me a week ago,” said the young lady.  “This is Thursday.”

“What name?” cried Mrs. Moffit sharply, turning over rapidly the leaves of a ledger.

“Miss West.  If you remember, I—­”

“Oh, yes, child, my memory’s good enough,” was the tart interruption.  “But with so many applicants it’s impossible to be at any certainty as to faces.  Registered names we can’t mistake.”

Mrs. Moffit read her notes—­taken down a week ago.  “Miss West.  Educated in first-class school at Richmond; remained in it as teacher.  Very good references from the ladies keeping it.  Father, Colonel in India.”

“But—­”

“You do not wish to go into a school again?” spoke Mrs. Moffit, closing the ledger with a snap, and peremptorily drowning what the applicant was about to say.

“Oh, dear, no, I am only leaving to better myself, as the maids say,” replied the young lady smiling.

“And you wish for a good salary?”

“If I can get it.  One does not care to work hard for next to nothing.”

“Or else I have—­let me see—­two—­three situations on my books.  Very comfortable, I am instructed, but two of them offer ten pounds a-year, the other twelve.”

The young lady drew herself slightly up with an involuntary movement. 
“Quite impossible, madam, that I could take any one of them.”

Mrs. Moffit picked up a letter and consulted it, looking at the young lady from time to time, as if taking stock of her appearance.  “I received a letter this morning from the country—­a family require a well-qualified governess for their one little girl.  Your testimonials as to qualifications might suit—­and you are, I believe, a gentlewoman—­”

“Oh, yes; my father was—­”

“Yes, yes, I remember—­I’ve got it down; don’t worry me,” impatiently spoke the oracle, cutting short the interruption.  “So far you might suit:  but in other respects—­I hardly know what to think.”

“But why?” asked the other timidly, blushing a little under the intent gaze.

“Well, you are very young, for one thing; and they might think you too good-looking.”

The girl’s blush grew red as a rose; she had delicate features and it made her look uncommonly pretty.  A half-smile sat in her soft, dark hazel eyes.

“Surely that could not be an impediment.  I am not so good-looking as all that!”

“That’s as people may think,” was the significant answer.  “Some families will not take a pretty governess—­afraid of their sons, you see.  This family says nothing about looks; for aught I know there may be no sons in it.  ’Thoroughly competent’—­reading from the letter—­’a gentlewoman by birth, of agreeable manners and lady-like.  Salary, first year, to be forty pounds.’”

“And will you not recommend me?” pleaded the young governess, her voice full of soft entreaty.  “Oh, please do!  I know I should be found fully competent, and I promise you that I would do my very best.”