Selina proceeded. “Yes; Leila I thought was a little wrong to express herself so strongly; you know Uncle Howard always says she must try to command her feelings more,—you are not angry with me, Leila, for saying this?”
“Angry? Oh! no, no. I love you even more when you tell me I have not done right; for I feel that you are so true, and you say it so gently, just as my papa does.”
“Well to be sure!” Matilda said; “to like to be told that one is not good, I can never get up to that; I don’t like at all to be told I am not good; I would rather say it of myself than that others should say it; indeed, it comforts me sometimes to say it all out. Selina, do you know that at this very moment I am not good?”
“Yes, I do know,—you were glad when I said Leila had been wrong too.”
“And is that all?” Matilda inquired.
“No, not quite all; you were disappointed when you found it was so small a fault.”
“Oh, Selina! it is too bad in you to say that; you are glad when you find people are good, and like yourself, and I cannot help being rather glad also, when I find people a little like myself, though I am not good; but you are getting into a way of seeing me through and through; you must not do that, or you will see a great many things to frighten you; at least, please don’t begin to-day, when we were to have been so merry; but do you know what I think is going to happen; something that won’t make us merry at all,—and yet I shall be so curious to see her.”
“See whom?” both the others exclaimed; “what do you mean, Matilda?”
“I mean that we are going to get a governess; that is, that I think, perhaps, we are to get one.”
“And why do you think so?” Selina asked.