“The stage is not the place for me,” she said.  “I have no genius to glorify the drudgery, keep me from temptation, and repay me for any sacrifice I make.  Other women can lead this life safely and happily:  I cannot, and I must not go back to it, because, with all my past experience, and in spite of all my present good resolutions, I should do no better, and I might do worse.  I’m not wise enough to keep steady there; I must return to the old ways, dull but safe, and plod along till I find my real place and work.”

Great was the surprise of Lucy and her mother when Christie told her resolution, adding, in a whisper, to the girl, “I leave the field clear for you, dear, and will dance at your wedding with all my heart when St. George asks you to play the ‘Honeymoon’ with him, as I’m sure he will before long.”

Many entreaties from friends, as well as secret longings, tried and tempted Christie sorely, but she withstood them all, carried her point, and renounced the profession she could not follow without self-injury and self-reproach.  The season was nearly over when she was well enough to take her place again, but she refused to return, relinquished her salary, sold her wardrobe, and never crossed the threshold of the theatre after she had said good-bye.

Then she asked, “What next?” and was speedily answered.  An advertisement for a governess met her eye, which seemed to combine the two things she most needed just then,—­employment and change of air.

“Mind you don’t mention that you’ve been an actress or it will be all up with you, me dear,” said Mrs. Black, as Christie prepared to investigate the matter, for since her last effort in that line she had increased her knowledge of music, and learned French enough to venture teaching it to very young pupils.

“I’d rather tell in the beginning, for if you keep any thing back it’s sure to pop out when you least expect or want it.  I don’t believe these people will care as long as I’m respectable and teach well,” returned Christie, wishing she looked stronger and rosier.

“You’ll be sorry if you do tell,” warned Mrs. Black, who knew the ways of the world.

“I shall be sorry if I don’t,” laughed Christie, and so she was, in the end.

“L.  N. Saltonstall” was the name on the door, and L. N. Saltonstall’s servant was so leisurely about answering Christie’s meek solo on the bell, that she had time to pull out her bonnet-strings half-a-dozen times before a very black man in a very white jacket condescended to conduct her to his mistress.

A frail, tea-colored lady appeared, displaying such a small proportion of woman to such a large proportion of purple and fine linen, that she looked as if she was literally as well as figuratively “dressed to death.”

Christie went to the point in a business-like manner that seemed to suit Mrs. Saltonstall, because it saved so much trouble, and she replied, with a languid affability: