[CHAPTER XIII.]
LESSONS IN WORLD-WISDOM.
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart;
They were dangerous guides, the feelings: she herself was not exempt.
"Well, Adèle, what have you done with Arthur?"
The speaker was a comely, elderly lady who had sailed, in the full magnificence of brocade and lace, into the dining-room of her handsome house. A substantial lunch was on the table, an obsequious butler was in waiting, a fair-haired girl was seated in one of the arm-chairs, her head resting on her hand.
At the sound of her mother's voice she looked up. "Dropped him en route, mamma," she said pleasantly.
"And why did you not bring him in?"
"He had business, I believe, in town."
"Business, indeed! You should be his first business. Mark my words, Adèle—though it seems impossible to instill worldly wisdom into your brain—boys are volatile and require keeping in hand. A girl ought to be tolerably exigeante if she would either make or keep a conquest, especially when a boy of Arthur's age and character is in question." Then to the butler: "Take the covers, James; after that you can go down stairs. Miss Churchill and I will wait upon ourselves to-day. One always forgets James," she continued as he retired, "he is so quiet and unobtrusive; but then—faithful creature!—I feel very sure he could make no mischief of anything he hears."
"I wish, all the same, mamma," said Adèle rather fretfully, "that you would not always talk of my affairs and Arthur's before the servants. Burton, James, Elizabeth, it seems not to matter at all before which of them you speak."