Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/96

88, their manners were uncultivated, and their tempers unruly. And this she attributed to a want of sufficient firmness, and diligent, persevering care on my part.

Unshaken firmness, devoted diligence, unwearied perseverance, unceasing care, were the very qualifications on which I had secretly prided myself, and by which I had hoped in time, to overcome all difficulties, and obtain success at last. I wished to say something in my own justification, but in attempting to speak, I felt my voice falter, and rather than testify any emotion, or suffer the tears to overflow, that were already gathering in my eyes, I chose to keep silence, and bear all, like a self-convicted culprit.

Thus was I dismissed, and thus I sought my home. Alas! what would they think of me? unable, after all my boasting to keep my place, even for a single year, as governess to three small children, whose mother was asserted, by my own aunt, to be a "very nice woman." Having been thus weighed in the balance, and found wanting, I need not hope they would be willing to try me again. And this was an unwelcome thought, for vexed, harassed, disappointed as I had been, and