“I sent for you,” said Lady Dorothea, in a half-careless tone, while she turned over some books on the table, as if in search of something,—“I sent for you, partly at the request of your mother—”
“My stepmother, my Lady,” interposed the girl, calmly.
Lady Dorothea stared at her for a second or two, as though to say, how had she dared to correct her; but either that the reproof had not met its full success, or that she did not care to pursue it, she added, “At the request of your friends, and partly out of curiosity.” And here Lady Dorothea raised her glass to her eye, and quietly surveyed her,—an examination which, it must be owned, none could have borne with more unshaken fortitude; not the slightest tremor of a limb, not the faintest change of color betokening that the ordeal was a painful one.
“I do see that you have been educated in France,” said her Ladyship, with a smile of most supercilious import, while a courtesy from the young girl admitted the fact.
“Were you brought up in Paris?” asked she, after a pause.
“For four years, my Lady.”
“And the remainder of the time, where was it passed?”
“We travelled a great deal, my Lady, in Germany and Italy.”
“'We,'—who were the 'we' you speak of? Please to bear in mind that I know nothing of your history.”
“I forgot that, my Lady. I thought my stepmother had, perhaps, informed your Ladyship.”