"Yes," she replied, "but I have heard so little."
"You have had a very quiet life at Queen's Chase, I should imagine," he said.
"Yes, as quiet as life could well be."
"You should not regret it. I am quite of the old régime. I think young girls should be so reared."
"For what reason?" she asked.
"For a hundred reasons. If there is one character I detest more than another, it is that of a worldly woman. Delicacy, purity, refinement, are all so essential—and no girl can possess them brought up under the glare and glitter of the world. You have been singularly fortunate in living at Queen's Chase."
"Thank Heaven," she thought to herself, "that he does not know the shameful escape I tried to make—that he does not know how I loathed and hated the place."
"But," she said aloud, "it is not pleasant to be always dull."
"Dull! No. Youth is the very time for enjoyment; every thing rejoices in youth. You, for instance, have been happy with your books and flowers at Queen's Chase: the world now is all new to you. You are not what fashionable jargon calls 'used up.' You have not been playing at being a woman while you were yet a child; your heart has not been hardened by flirtations; your soul has not been soiled by contact with worldlings; you are fresh, and pure, and beautiful as the flowers themselves. If you had been living all these years in the hot-bed of society, this would not have been the case. There is nothing so detestable, so unnatural, as a worldly young girl."
He liked her as she was! For the first time in her life Hyacinth blessed Lady Vaughan and Queen's Chase.