As I have told you, although the daughter of a clergyman, I was, when I became an orphan, obliged to go out as a governess." "But there was no harm in that, Mother ?" "No harm, dear; but a certain loss of position.

Had my father been alive, and had I been living with him in a country rectory, your grandfather might not have been pleased at your father's falling in love with me, because he would probably have considered that, being, as you know by his photograph, a fine, tall, handsome man, and having the best education money could give him, he might have married very much better; that is to say, the heiress of a property, or into a family of influence, through which he might have been pushed on; but he would not have thought of opposing the marriage on the ground of my family.

But a governess is a different thing.

She is, in many cases, a lady in every respect, but her position is a doubtful one.
"In some families she is treated as one of themselves.

In others, her position is very little different from that of an upper servant.