"Uncle Philip," said Mrs. Clavering, smiling at his vehemence, for on such occasions she had always found it more prudent to smile than to frown, "you may say what you will now, but I foresee that you will finally become a convert to my views of this subject. I intend to make French the general language of the family, and in a short time you will soon catch it yourself. Why, though I cannot say much for his proficiency in his lessons, even Richar[4] has picked up without intending it, a number of French phrases, that he pronounces quite well when I make him go over them with me."
"Richar!" cried Uncle Philip, "and pray who is he? Who is Richar?"
"That's me, uncle," said Dick.
"So you have Frenchified Dick's name, have you!" said the old gentleman, "but I'm determined you shall not Frenchify Sam's."
"No," observed Sam, "I'll not be Frenchified."
"And pray, young ladies," resumed the uncle, "Fanny, Jenny, and Anny, have you too been put into French?"
"Yes, uncle," replied Jane, "we are now Fanchette, Jeanette, and Annette."
"So much the worse," said Uncle Philip. "Listen to me, when I tell you, that all this Frenchifying will come to no good; and I foresee that you may be sorry for it when it is too late. Of what use will it be to any of you? I have often heard that all French books worth reading are immediately done into English. And I never met with a French person worth knowing that had not learned to talk English."
"Now, uncle," said Mrs. Clavering, "you are going quite too far. If our knowledge of French should not come into use while in our own country, who knows but some time or other we may all go to France."
"I for one," replied Uncle Philip, "I know that you will not; at least, you shall never go to France with my consent. No American woman goes to France, without coming home the worse for it in some way or other. There were the two Miss Facebys, who came up here last spring, fresh from a six months' foolery in Paris. I can see them now, ambling along in their short petticoats, with their hands clasped on their belt buckles, their mouths half open like idiots, and their eyes turned upwards like dying calves."