‘As your chief ambition?’ said Miss Fennimore, who, governess as she was, could not help being a little satirical, especially when Bertha’s eyes twinkled responsively.
‘One does get so tired of mutton and rice-pudding,’ answered the less observant Miss Fulmort, who was but dimly conscious of any one’s existence save her own, and could not have credited a governess laughing at her; ‘but really this is not so bad, after all, for a change; and some pale ale. You don’t mean that you exist without pale ale?’
‘We all drink water by preference,’ said Miss Fennimore.
‘Indeed! Miss Watson, our finishing governess, never drank anything but claret, and she always had little pâtés, or fish, or something, because she said her appetite was to be consulted, she was so delicate. She was very thin, I know; and what a figure you have, Phœbe! I suppose that is water drinking. Bridger did say it would reduce me to leave off pale ale, but I can’t get on without it, I get so horridly low. Don’t you think that’s a sign, Miss Fennimore?’
‘I beg your pardon, a sign of what?’
‘That one can’t go on without it. Miss Charlecote said she thought it was all constitution whether one is stout or not, and that nothing made much difference, when I asked her about German wines.’
‘Oh! Augusta, has Miss Charlecote been here this morning?’ exclaimed Phœbe.
‘Yes; she came at twelve o’clock, and there was I actually pinned down to entertain her, for mamma was not come down. So I asked her about those light foreign wines, and whether they do really make one thinner; you know one always has them at her house.’
‘Did mamma see her?’ asked poor Phœbe, anxiously.
‘Oh yes, she was bent upon it. It was something about you. Oh! she wants to take you to stay with her in that horrible hole of hers in the City—very odd of her. What do you advise me to do, Miss Fennimore? Do you think those foreign wines would bring me down a little, or that they would make me low and sinking?’