"Dear mademoiselle, allow no such thought to enter your mind. You do me
great wrong, indeed you do," said Mrs. Marston, laying her hand upon the
young lady's, kindly.

There was a silence for a little time, and the elder lady resumed:--"I
remember now what you allude to, dear mademoiselle--the increased
estrangement, the widening separation which severs me from one
unutterably dear to me--the first and bitter disappointment of my life,
which seems to grow more hopelessly incurable day by day."

Mrs. Marston paused, and, after a brief silence, the governess said:--

"I am very superstitious myself, dear madame, and I thought I must have
seemed to you an inauspicious inmate--in short, unlucky--as I have said;
and the thought made me very unhappy--so unhappy, that I was going to
leave you, madame--I may now tell you frankly--going away; but you have
set my doubts at rest, and I am quite happy again."

"Dear mademoiselle," cried the lady, tenderly, and rising, as she spake,
to kiss the cheek of her humble friend; "never--never speak of this
again. God knows I have too few friends on earth, to spare the kindest
and tenderest among them all. No, no. You little think what comfort I
have found in your warm-hearted and ready sympathy, and how dearly I
prize your affection, my poor mademoiselle."

The young Frenchwoman rose, with downcast eyes, and a dimpling, happy
smile; and, as Mrs. Marston drew her affectionately toward her, and
kissed her, she timidly returned the embrace of her kind patroness. For a
moment her graceful arms encircled her, and she whispered to her, "Dear
madame, how happy--how very happy you make me."