Page:Authors daughter v1.djvu/62

58 had begun her career as governess in the family of the wealthy Mr. Derrick, who had made an immense fortune as a cotton manufacturer. She had been educated with great care by a mother who had been left in straitened circumstances, and who had staked her all on that one chance, for she felt sure that if Clarissa Hope once was placed with great people on any footing she was sure to make her way. So Miss Hope had been turned out perfectly competent for a first-class situation according to the requirements of twenty years ago, and had been engaged by Mr. Derrick at a very handsome salary as finishing governess to two young ladies of sixteen and fourteen years of age. Mr. Derrick had bought Stanmore, a fine estate in, ———shire, and was ambitious that his children should take a good place in county society. The only son of the family had been at Oxford and was travelling on the continent when Miss Hope began her educational duties; but before his return she had succeeded in making herself agreeable and almost necessary to the parents and in ingratiating herself also with her pupils; and he had not been long at home before she believed she had made a conquest of John Derrick also. In the last process she lost her own heart more completely than she ever did before or after, for she thought him both