“I don’t understand, Grandpapa. I really do want your advice.”
“Advice is cheap,” said Grandpapa. “A great many people say they want it, especially women. What they really want, Lyddie, is an opportunity for telling someone what they have already decided to do. Then they can say afterwards ‘Oh, but so-and-so and I talked it all over and he advised me to do such-and-such.’ You mark my word, no one ever yet asked advice whose mind wasn’t more or less made up already.”
To take the bull by the horns was always the best way of dealing with Grandpapa.
Lydia said resolutely:
“Well, I haven’t yet made up my mind, Grandpapa, that’s why I want to talk to you.”
“So that I can advise you to do whatever you want to do?” satirically demanded Grandpapa. “Well, my dear, you know me well enough to know that I shan’t do that. Talk away.”
Thus encouraged, Lydia began.
“I am seventeen, Grandpapa.”
She pretended not to hear Grandpapa’s cheerful ejaculation, “Only seventeen, my dear? Quite a young child, then.”
“I shall be eighteen by the time I leave school next month, and there’ll be my future to think about. I know Miss Glover means to give me a chance of a Junior Mistress-ship, or I suppose I could get a post as governess, as Aunt Beryl is always suggesting. It would be a pity to waste all my education at dressmaking, or anything like that, though I suppose I could take up something of the sort. Only really I feel as though I’d rather use my head than my hands. Of course, I like anything to do with figures, and Mr. Almond seemed to think that I shouldn’t have any difficulty in getting into the Bank here.”