The Retrospect by Ada Cambridge — Read

Twenty years ago -- or was it nearer twenty-five? -- a dear girl came to live with me as governess-out-of-school to my young children and general aide-de-camp to myself. It was in the time, which spread over so many years, when I was not strong enough for all the domestic duties that properly belonged to me. I got her through an advertisement -- the only time I was ever beholden to such a source for such an acquisition. "A young English lady" was the attractive description of her -- the very thing, to my mind, for my bush-bred infants.

I called on her at the Governesses' Home in Melbourne, and engaged her on the spot. She had come to Australia for her health, but if she told me so I did not grasp the fact; she looked as well and as good as I felt she would be comfortable to get on with. Also she had come from a good English house and a well-to-do and well-placed family, and was choosing to earn her living rather than be an expense to her father, from no compulsion but that of her own independent spirit; and this too was a fact I did not grasp. She never allowed me to perceive it. Had she been penniless, with only her casual employer to depend on, she could not have served me more devotedly. She worked far harder than I should have allowed her to do had I divined the secret weaknesses in her sturdy-looking little frame, always with bright face and cheerful voice and unslackening energy and interest. She seemed to have no thought for herself at all.