Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/199



ISS EDEN'S life-history was a sad one. She told it to her employer before she had been a week at the Beeches. Mrs. Despard came into the school-room and surprised the governess in tears. No one could ever resist Mrs. Despard—I suppose she has had more confidences than any woman in Sussex. Anyhow, Miss Eden dried her tears and faltered out her poor little story.

She had been engaged to be married—Mrs. Despard's was a face trained to serve and not to betray its owner, so she did not look astonished, though Miss Eden was so very homely, poor thing, that the idea of a lover seemed almost ludicrous—she had been engaged to be married: and her lover had been killed at Elendslaagte, and her father had died of heart disease—an attack brought on by the shock of the news, and his partner had gone off with all his