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WANTED A GOVERNESS.

BY MRS. WHITE.

WANTED A GOVERNESS, to take the entire management of

five little boys. She must be accustomed to Tuition, of agreeable manners, industrious habits, cheerful disposition, and have no objection to make herself generally useful. Apply by letter, post paid, to, &c.

SUCH were the terms of an advertisement that met my inquiring glance, as I turned over the closely-printed columns of that inventory of human wants, the Times. I read it aloud; and then looked round to observe its effect. I had been months out of a situation-the result

of my own imprudence.

Women, brought up with the sentiments natural to the privacy and refinement of home, when circumstances occur to force them over its threshold, would do well to throw heart overboard-it is an incumbrance that must be got rid of, if the helpless bark would ride easily on the strange and bitter waters she must henceforth navigate.

As I was saying, I looked round to perceive its effect. There were four of us girls at home, dependent on our father's limited income, and I was the eldest. Poverty, of that most painful description, that, retaining the delicacy of past affluence, maintains a decent exterior at the expense of privations and trials, which the world knows not of, was already affecting the hearts, and narrowing the affections of our little household; and as my eyes turned from one to another, no deprecatory remark followed.

"There appears to be nothing difficult in that," one observed. "You are accustomed to tuition; and the children must be too young to be very troublesome."

"At all events, even if you do not succeed, there can be no harm in trying," rejoined my mother.

Well, I read over the advertisement again-" five little boys." That in itself, though probably a trifle to the uninitiated, was a consideration to "give us pause;" but the recollection of my self-induced dependence, of the additional burden I made at home, and the sight, at the moment, of a very attenuated-looking half sovereign, the last bit of gold in my possession, peeping out of an exceedingly-elongated purse, decided me.

Instantly possessing myself of pen and paper, I wrote a reply. It was despatched without any particular hope of success. I had written fifty such, during the few months I had been at home, to as many advertisements, without having elicited a single answer; and at this time, the penny postage was not so much as "dreamt of in our philosophy," though, according to poor Power, this only made it the greater luxury to write. When, therefore, two days afterwards, I received the following reply, I was almost surprised at the fortunate termination it appeared to promise me. The note read thus:

"Mrs. Roberts will be glad to see Miss Browne, on the subject of her (Mrs. R.'s) advertisement, to-morrow, at half past four o'clock. No., Park Crescent, Regent's Park."

The morrow was, of course, the day on which I received it; for our village was on the Essex coast, some sixteen miles from London, with a cross-country post, and only one delivery per day. But this was all the better-there was no time to fret myself with speculations on the issue of my undertaking. One thing only was unsatisfactory: Mrs. Roberts knew my distance from town, yet she had named an hour for our interview, that would preclude the possibility of my returning home the same night, for it was winter, and "The last Gravesend steamer leaves London Bridge Wharf at four o'clock P.M." was duly notified on wall-side placards and the daily papers.

At another time, perhaps, I might not have so easily discovered the want of consideration evidenced in this arrangement, but I was suffering from a soreness of mind that made me keenly alive to the action of trifles; and it gave me a misgiving of Mrs. Roberts' thoughtfulness and unselfishness of character that did not add to the cheerfulness of disposition just then so necessary to me. My mother, however, in the unschooled simplicity of her Mrs. Primrose-like conceptions, drew a favourable augury therefrom, and assured me it was in itself a proof that I was already the predetermined governess of the "five little boys."

My journey to town was as uninteresting, and as rapidly performed as journeys by the Gravesend packets usually are; and very painful and subduing were my sensations, as I found myself for the first time in the crowded streets of the metropolis, without the protection or support of either my father or brother's arm. It is a lonely thing to make one in a crowd; and there was a degree of helplessness in my own case that made my situation appear exceedingly forlorn. It was, beside, my first attempt at seeking a situation, for my previous engagements had, in both instances, been forced on me-the first, with a kind delicacy that, compassionating my situation, took this means of alleviating it, without humiliating me, and the other, with an affectation of the same principle-loud in condolence, and coarse in expressing it, in order to exhibit how poor gentility must succumb to vulgar wealth. I was, also, very young-very timid, with quantities of poetry, but not an atom of practical worldly sense in my composition. Need I say I felt myself making a very sorry figure in the staring, elbowing, bustling throng, whose contrary currents one moment accelerated my onward movement, and the next drove me a pace or two backwards in their anxious pursuit after business or pleasure.

Unhappily ignorant of the etiquette observed in walking in London, I had taken the wrong side of the street a circumstance that I have since discovered accounted for all the crushing and collision that beset me, and which I really mistook for intentional rudeness; and as I felt my face flushing, and my little close bonnet assuming an indescribable shape, I had great difficulty to keep myself from crying. I, however, put an end to my pedestrianism and its unpleasantness, by getting into an omnibus.

I was set down opposite the iron gates that lead into Park Crescent, and in a few minutes found myself at No with scarcely nerve enough to raise the massive knocker of the important-looking portal. Two or three footmen, in handsome liveries, were in attendance in the hall; and on giving my card, I was ushered

into a small apartment, that, from the quantity of priceless antiquities and classic treasures collected there, looked like a nook of Strawberry Hill-a something between a museum and a picture-gallery. Minutes -half an hour passed anxiously away, and no Mrs. Roberts made her appearance, so that I had abundance of time to notice the luxurious splendour that surrounded me.

Accustomed as I was to the elegance of wealthy refinement, I was surprised by the profusion of gorgeous ornament scattered, rather than arranged, that everywhere presented itself. The room looked small, more from its immense loftiness than from a want of dimension; and from the ceiling to the floor, the walls were hung with paintings of the most valuable description, many of them originals of the old masters, with names attached, that gave them a currency for thousands; exquisite specimens of rare sculpture threw the cold light of their chiselled beauty on frowning bronzes and recumbent armour; then there were tables covered in the same rich profusion, with scarce, and hardly to be purchased articles of virtù; grotesque and time-stained carvings in ivory, rare bits of bronze, old missals, curious medallions, specimens of superb Sévres porcelain, Indian jars, Etruscan vases-in short, innumerable and priceless gems of art everywhere met the bewildered but delighted gaze; and at either end of the room, magnificent mirrors reflected in each other the pictures, sculpture, and collected bijouterie with fairy-land effect.

But amidst all this gorgeous display, my prevailing sensation was one of unmitigated cold-there was no fire in the low, elaboratelyornamented grate-so that though my feet sank into the softest Persian carpet, and the lounge on which I had bestowed myself was most luxuriously cushioned, I was chilled to my very heart.

How I puzzled myself to think what sort of person the feminine shareholder in all these treasures could be! And what a mocking commentary seemed all the riches that surrounded me, on my own situation, just separated from absolute necessity! I felt tears gathering in my eyes, not of envy, but of ridiculous, useless sensibility, that forced me to contrast my position and circumstances with those of this favoured individual, whoever she might be, and to recur, regretfully enough, to the prospects of my early years, as they opposed themselves to those by which I was surrounded.

I was roused from these reflections by the opening of the door, and an elderly person, whose proprietous grey silk dress, and look of mild humility, conveyed the idea of a distant relative-an inmate on sufferance rather than an established upper servant, requested me to follow her. She led the way into another apartment, where, in a superb fauteuil, beside a glowing fire, sat Mrs. Roberts. She was apparently dressed for dinner, in a robe of the darkest green velvet, her arms and throat encircled with gold ornaments, massive enough for the dowry of an Eastern princess. She made some motion to me as I entered, but did not rise; neither did she ask me to sit down; but with all the state of a queen, kept her seat, and proceeded to question me.

For a moment, the blood rose to my cheek; but I remembered my poverty, and her abounding wealth, and quelled the unsafe thoughts and feelings that were struggling within me. Besides, I began to be

rather amused, for there is a lurking comedy in my nature that will sometimes pervade my feelings, however melancholy they may be, and give piquancy to the bitterest draughts. I had left lovely pictures in the other room, but amongst them all, none that appeared to me so beautiful as the living face before me. She was dark as an Andalusian, with that remarkably clear, smooth, olive complexion so seldom met with but in the sunny regions of the South, with a warm, rich colour in her cheeks, and small, handsome features, lit up by large, black, luminous eyes, that made me forget, in my admiration of them, the petty state she was affecting, and the half hour's trial by cold to which I had been subjected; such a silkiness, such picture-like perfection there was about her piquant-looking features and rich apparel.

"Let me see," she said, looking over some dozen notes, in as many different handwritings that lay on the table beside her. “Oh, you are the young person from Essex. I am sorry to have detained you so long; but I have had to see so many persons. I had no idea, when I advertised, of the number of applicants I should have. These," she said, pointing to the heap of caligraphie specimens, " are only the answers I reserved to choose from amongst."

Alas! for my mother's theory, and my own reasoning from the surface of things-for having stated in my note every particular relative to age, qualifications, &c.—I really thought I had nothing to do but to make the final arrangement relative to salary, produce my credentials, and enter on the duties of my new situation; fancy, then, finding myself paraded for the satisfaction of this wilful piece of prettiness, and brought sixteen miles from home, to make one at the levée of unhappy expectants she had brought to her abode, doubtless, with as much indifference for their personal inconvenience as she had exhibited for mine. But where was I?

"These," she continued, "are only the answers I reserved to choose from amongst but I think I had thirty-six in all, hadn't I, Mrs. Percy?" and she turned to the individual in grey, who remained standing near her chair; but before this quiet-looking person had summed up in her recollection their exact number, Mrs. Roberts rejoined" at all events, I was quite astonished. I didn't really think so many persons could have been in want of situations."

She was looking in my face as she spoke, and her ignorance of the rest of the world's wants seemed so real, so unaffected, that you scarcely knew whether to admire, or be angry at her happy unconsciousness of individual strait and suffering. To me, early initiated into the usages of adversity, there was a freshness about it very delightful to fancy, but very painful to be brought in collision with, because you felt that the sympathy from whence springs all the charities of human nature could have no place in a heart so unwitting of its daily trialsso wanting in that species of mental omniscience, that is only gained by the study of humanity in all its phases.

"I am afraid," she continued, "that you are too young for what I require. I ought to have stated age in my advertisement; some one about thirty would be best, as I want the entire management of the children taken off my hands-they begin to be very troublesome, and I have so many engagements; but you don't look as if you could com

mand them sufficiently—that is, you don't look resolute enough to make them mind you.'

I ventured to remark, "that as I had been accustomed to children, if entrusted with their charge, I hoped to be able to give satisfaction." She smilingly gave me a view of a very fine set of teeth, and went on to inquire of the duties of my last situation. She then wished it had been in town, that she might have obtained a reference at once; upon which I placed in her hands the kind and complimentary letters of one who was what Mrs. Roberts appeared only playing-a lady.

Oh! the incertitude-the trembling anxiety with which I waited during the few minutes passed by her in unscrupulously reading through my letters, with no better object, as it presently appeared, than to satisfy curiosity; for although it was very evident that in Mrs. Roberts' establishment, a governess was (literally speaking) on a very different footing from what she usually occupies in any other, yet my philosophy, which was that of despair, made me determine to put up with anything rather than continue a burden at home; and though I found this cup of forced humility exceedingly distasteful, I tasked myself to drink it to the dregs.

"Of course," she said, lifting her eyes from my letter, "you would not object to remaining entirely in the school-room?"

Having no choice, I bowed my acquiescence.

"Nor to make yourself generally useful?"

I had an idea of answering in newspaper parlance. But I thought I would let things take their own course, and besides, my heart was so full, that I had not the power of speaking, and another assenting nod was my reply.

She then went on to stipulate something about wardrobes, and children's dresses, which latter clause rather startled me, as the situation seemed fast merging into that of needlewoman, and I knew about as much of making garments as Mother Eve; but necessity has no law-I promised to make myself as useful as possible, forgetting in my anxiety to eat the bread of independence, the very acute advice of an old friend who used to say, that in making an engagement of this nature, it was necessary to be as exacting as the principal-and whatever your real sentiments, to affect to set an inordinate value on yourself and your attainments. "Quackery, my dear girl," she would say, "is sure to be regarded, where modest merit is lost sight of." And many times through life have I observed the truth, of (what then appeared to me) a heartless aphorism.

Having thus voluntarily humbled myself, and depressed my position for the pleasure of taking home the news of an engagement, my vexation and disappointment was considerable, when, just as we seemed thoroughly to understand one another, I noticed an awkward wavering manner in Mrs. Roberts's address; and she handed me my letters with, "I am very sorry I did not know all this before, as I am sure I should have liked you; but the truth is, one of the persons whom I saw this morning, has been seven years in a similar situation to mine, and if the reference she has given me is satisfactory, I have engaged her; but if not, I will write to you. I have your address-Kensington, isn't it ?"

I had scarcely sufficient command of myself to put her right on this head, with an unbroken voice, and bowing to the quiet lady in grey, I