A ROMANCE.
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1, 8, and 5 BOND STREET.
1884.
“Wanted, a Governess; must be young.” I cut out the advertisementthus headed eagerly from the Times. I was eighteen, and my youth hadbeen the great obstacle to my getting an engagement; now here was somedelightful advertiser who considered it an advantage. I wrote to theaddress given, enclosing my photograph and the list of myqualifications. Within a week I was travelling down to Geldham,Norfolk, engaged to teach “one little girl, aged six,” at a salary ofthirty-five pounds a year. The correspondence had been carried on bymy future pupil’s father, who said he would meet me at the station atBeaconsburgh, the market-town nearest to Geldham.
It was about five o’clock on an afternoon in early August that I sat,trembling with excitement and fright, at the window of therailway-carriage, as the train steamed slowly into Beaconsburghstation. I looked out on to the platform. There were very few peopleon it, and there was no one who appeared at all like the gentleman Ihad pictured to myself as my future employer. There were two or threered-faced men who gave on