‘It is so hard to judge, my dear, without knowing all. Perhaps Mysie had finished her lessons.’
‘Ah! I know you always are for Lady Merrifield! But what do you say, then, to her prying into all that poor child’s correspondence?’
‘My dear, I think most people do think it advisable to have some check on young girl’s letters. Perhaps Dolores’s father desired it.’
‘He never put on any restrictions,’ said Constance. ‘I am sure he never would. Men don’t. It is always women, with their nasty, prying, tyrannous instincts.’
‘I am sure,’ returned Mary, ‘one would not think a child like Dolores Mohun could have anything to conceal.’
‘But she has!’ cried Constance.
‘No, my dear! Impossible!’ exclaimed Miss Hacket, looking very much shocked. ‘Why, she can’t be fourteen!’
‘Oh! it is nothing of that sort. Don’t think about that, Mary.’
‘No, no, I know, Connie dear; you would never listen to any young girl’s confidence of that kind—so improper and so vulgar,’ said Miss Hacket, and Constance did not think it necessary to reveal her knowledge of the post-office under the cushions at church, and other little affairs of that sort.
‘It is her uncle,’ said Constance. ‘Her mother, it seems, though quite a lady, was the daughter of a professor, a very learned man, very distinguished, and all that, but not a high family enough to please the Mohuns, and they never were friendly with her, or treated her as an equal.’