On the marriage of the governess who had lived in his service
for many years (a woman of an age and an appearance to set even
Mrs. Milroy's jealousy at defiance), the major had considered
the question of sending his daughter away from home far more
seriously than his wife supposed. He was conscious that scenes
took place in the house at which no young girl should be present;
but he felt an invincible reluctance to apply the one efficient
remedy--the keeping his daughter away from home in school time
and holiday time alike. The struggle thus raised in his mind once
set at rest, by the resolution to advertise for a new governess,
Major Milroy's natural tendency to avoid trouble rather than
to meet it had declared itself in its customary manner. He had
closed his eyes again on his home anxieties as quietly as usual,
and had gone back, as he had gone back on hundreds of previous
occasions, to the consoling society of his old friend the clock.
It was far otherwise with the major's wife. The chance which her
husband had entirely overlooked, that the new governess who was
to come might be a younger and a more attractive woman than the
old governess who had gone, was the first chance that presented
itself as possible to Mrs.
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