"COUSIN GEOFFREY," "MARRIED FOR LOVE," &c. "We need not bid for cloistered cell, THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1861. The right of Translation is reserved. THE DAILY GOVERNESS. CHAPTER I. SELF-SACRIFICE. Lucy looked very pale, and felt very sad and sick at heart. Not only had she been much shocked by the scene in Arundel Street, but now that this hideous, but, alas! too common tragedy, had been enacted there, she knew it was very doubtful whether any letter that Henry Greville addressed to her at that place would be taken in; in short, she did not feel at all sure that one would ever reach her hands. Jaded and dejected, every thing looked dark and gloomy to the poor young Daily Gover VOL. III. B ness; but it is in the darkest sky that the Polar star shines the brightest, and the Polar star of Lucy's mental firmament was Faith. Brightly and clearly rose that star on the midnight of the young girl's mind, and as Faith without works is void, so the first work on which that star shone, was the work of selfsacrifice in the devoted daughter's heart. No murmur, no word of dejection or despair, passed her lips. She welcomed her mother with cheerful accents, owned she was tired, agitated by the scene she graphically described as having occurred in Arundel Street, and said nothing of any other cause of distress or anxiety. She then made the tea, boiled her mother's egg, and buttered the toast; and soon, from the noble effort to appear calm and composed, became so in reality. Mrs. Blair at this time was much better pleased with the aspect of affairs than was poor Lucy; she was much less sensitive and imaginative, and much more sanguine, credu lous, and simple-minded than her daughter. She had great faith in the editor of the Monday Review," and in Lucy's talents and influence over him, and she could make herself perfectly happy and contented as long as Lucy was present before her, weaving, with her fancy, a glittering web of her child's future destiny, and with her fingers knitting, netting, or crocheting warm jackets and stockings for herself and her darling during the approaching winter. Just now she was engaged on a scarlet comforter for the scraggy throat of Mr. Grinlay Snarl, and Lucy, when breakfast was over, and her simple marketing done, sat down to her écritoire to embody Grinlay Snarl's suggestions for the tale to be called "Trains and Travellers." At first she found it very difficult to concentrate her thoughts, and, with all the world before her, to know on what people and incidents to fix; but having once decided, her pen and her fancy worked rapidly together; |