A Dark Nights Work | Page 8

that she had listened and could not hear a sound, to
which Ellinor had replied:

"Of course you cannot; he is not your papa!"
Then, when he went away in the morning, after he had kissed her,
Ellinor would run to a certain window from which she could watch him
up the lane, now hidden behind a hedge, now reappearing through an
open space, again out of sight, till he reached a great old beech- tree,
where for an instant more she saw him. And then she would turn away
with a sigh, sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by saying softly
to herself,
"He will come again to-night."
Mr. Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent on him for all her
pleasures. He was even a little jealous of anyone who devised a treat or
conferred a present, the first news of which did not come from or
through him.
At last it was necessary that Ellinor should have some more instruction
than her good old nurse could give. Her father did not care to take upon
himself the office of teacher, which he thought he foresaw would
necessitate occasional blame, an occasional exercise of authority,
which might possibly render him less idolized by his little girl; so he
commissioned Lady Holster to choose out one among her many
protegees for a governess to his daughter. Now, Lady Holster, who kept
a sort of amateur county register-office, was only too glad to be made
of use in this way; but when she inquired a little further as to the sort of
person required, all she could extract from Mr. Wilkins was:
"You know the kind of education a lady should have, and will, I am
sure, choose a governess for Ellinor better than I could direct you. Only,
please, choose some one who will not marry me, and who will let
Ellinor go on making my tea, and doing pretty much what she likes, for
she is so good they need not try to make her better, only to teach her
what a lady should know."
Miss Monro was selected--a plain, intelligent, quiet woman of forty--
and it was difficult to decide whether she or Mr. Wilkins took the most
pains to avoid each other, acting with regard to Ellinor, pretty much

like the famous Adam and Eve in the weather-glass: when the one
came out the other went in. Miss Monro had been tossed about and
overworked quite enough in her life not to value the privilege and
indulgence of her evenings to herself, her comfortable schoolroom, her
quiet cozy teas, her book, or her letter-writing afterwards. By mutual
agreement she did not interfere with Ellinor and her ways and
occupations on the evenings when the girl had not her father for
companion; and these occasions became more and more frequent as
years passed on, and the deep shadow was lightened which the sudden
death that had visited his household had cast over him. As I have said
before, he was always a popular man at dinner-parties. His amount of
intelligence and accomplishment was rare in --shire, and if it required
more wine than formerly to bring his conversation up to the desired
point of range and brilliancy, wine was not an article spared or grudged
at the county dinner-tables. Occasionally his business took him up to
London. Hurried as these journeys might be, he never returned without
a new game, a new toy of some kind, to "make home pleasant to his
little maid," as he expressed himself.
He liked, too, to see what was doing in art, or in literature; and as he
gave pretty extensive orders for anything he admired, he was almost
sure to be followed down to Hamley by one or two packages or parcels,
the arrival and opening of which began soon to form the pleasant
epochs in Ellinor's grave though happy life.
The only person of his own standing with whom Mr. Wilkins kept up
any intercourse in Hamley was the new clergyman, a bachelor, about
his own age, a learned man, a fellow of his college, whose first claim
on Mr. Wilkins's attention was the fact that he had been travelling-
bachelor for his university, and had consequently been on the Continent
about the very same two years that Mr. Wilkins had been there; and
although they had never met, yet they had many common
acquaintances and common recollections to talk over of this period,
which, after all, had been about the most bright and hopeful of Mr.
Wilkins's life.
Mr. Ness had an occasional pupil; that is to say, he never put himself

out of the way to obtain pupils, but did not refuse the entreaties
sometimes made to him that he would prepare a young man for college,
by allowing the said