A Reminiscence opens with Mrs. Hilary deep in the serious task of sourcing a suitable governess—one equipped with a strict curriculum, refined manners, and a moral backbone unbending enough to mold young girls into paragons of propriety. Her requirements, outlined with the precision of a civil servant drafting policy, receive polite nods from Miss Phyllis and the more irreverent attention of Mr. Carter. As she dictates a letter to the agency, Carter, bored by the administrative nature of the conversation, allows his mind to drift backward to his own youthful days under the apple tree at his father’s home. It was there, supposedly during French lessons, that he spent time with a governess whose idea of education leaned more toward conversational ease than grammatical rigor. Her presence brought him a pleasant kind of mischief, harmless in retrospect, yet tinged with a faint sense of lost possibility. These recollections surface with a warmth that neither mocks nor mourns but gently honors the past.

While Mrs. Hilary remains focused on finding someone exemplary for her nieces, Mr. Carter continues to spin his memory into amusement. He describes the irony of having gained admiration from his sisters for his commitment to “study,” while the governess’s reputation, through no fault of hers, declined in the household. Their time together wasn’t marked by scandal but by a sweet informality—conversations about nothing and everything, shaded by the rustling leaves overhead. That calm routine ended when his mother stumbled upon them mid-lesson, an expression of disapproval freezing both participants in place. The next day, the governess vanished. It wasn’t a tragedy, only a quiet disappearance that left behind an enduring, wistful impression. Carter tells it with more humor than regret, though one senses that the memory lingers deeper than he admits. His story contrasts sharply with Mrs. Hilary’s rigid standards, highlighting how youthful affection rarely conforms to adult expectations.

The present interrupts the reverie when Mrs. Hilary recalls Lady Polwheedle has a governess recently freed from her duties—a Miss Maud Elizabeth Bannerman, praised for her uprightness and intelligence. As the name is uttered, a flicker of recognition crosses Carter’s face. The coincidence feels too precise, too laden with the familiar weight of a memory stirred after years of dormancy. He says little, but his sudden silence betrays the thought forming beneath his composed expression. Could it be the same Miss Bannerman? The one who once corrected his French pronunciation with a smile and listened as he described the birds nesting in the hedge? That possibility hums beneath the surface as Mrs. Hilary grows excited by the prospect of hiring someone so thoroughly recommended.

Carter quietly muses on the strangeness of time. He wonders what Miss Bannerman would make of him now—older, a bit rounder, more prone to sarcasm than sincerity. His mind briefly sketches what a meeting would be like: polite smiles, veiled recognition, or perhaps awkward silence. He considers, with comic self-awareness, whether he still possesses the charm that once made idle afternoon lessons the highlight of his youth. While Mrs. Hilary proposes they all meet for lunch to discuss the arrangement, Carter declines, citing a vague prior engagement. The excuse is delivered with casual grace, but the reader senses it is more than a scheduling conflict. It’s a quiet refusal to turn a private memory into a public encounter—some things are better left shaded beneath the branches of an old apple tree, untarnished by the realities of age and formality.

This chapter, framed by a simple search for a governess, unravels into a gentle meditation on memory and the quiet power of seemingly inconsequential moments. The contrast between Mrs. Hilary’s structured present and Carter’s tender, chaotic past reveals the subtle tension between what we expect from life and what life actually gives us. Carter’s story isn’t one of heartbreak or lost love but of realization—that the past holds versions of us that time cannot reproduce. In remembering Miss Bannerman, he doesn’t yearn to return but acknowledges the soft way the past shapes our present reflections. “A Reminiscence” reminds us that sometimes, the most enduring lessons aren’t taught in classrooms but are discovered in the moments we never thought would matter at all.