"I sincerely hope Miss Bowes is not telling her love-affairs to Grace or Lily. Why, Harriet, you could not have been older than Grace when Clare was married!" said Lady Cuxhaven, in maternal alarm.
"No; but I was well versed in the tender passion, thanks to novels. Now I daresay you don't admit novels into your school-room, Mary; so your daughters wouldn't be able to administer discreet sympathy to their governess in case she was the heroine of a love-affair."
"My dear Harriet, don't let me hear you talking of love in that way; it is not pretty. Love is a serious thing."
"My dear mamma, your exhortations are just eighteen years too late. I've talked all the freshness off love, and that's the reason I'm tired of the subject."
This last speech referred to a recent refusal of Lady Harriet's, which had displeased Lady Cumnor, and rather annoyed my lord; as they, the parents, could see no objection to the gentleman in question. Lady Cuxhaven did not want to have the subject brought up, so she hastened to say,—
"Do ask the poor little daughter to come with her mother to the Towers; why, she must be seventeen or more; she would really be a companion to you, mamma, if her mother was unable to come."
"I was not ten when Clare married, and I'm nearly nine-and-twenty," added Lady Harriet.
"Don't speak of it, Harriet; at any rate you are but eight-and-twenty now, and you look a great deal younger. There is no need to be always bringing up your age on every possible occasion."
"There was need of it now, though. I wanted to make out how old Cynthia Kirkpatrick was. I think she can't be far from eighteen."
"She is at school at Boulogne, I know; and so I don't think she can be as old as that. Clare says something about her in this letter: 'Under these circumstances' (the ill-success of her school), 'I cannot think myself justified in allowing myself the pleasure of having darling Cynthia at home for the holidays; especially as the period when the vacation in French schools commences differs from that common in England; and it might occasion some confusion in my arrangements if darling Cynthia were to come to Ashcombe, and occupy my time and thoughts so immediately before the commencement of my scholastic duties as the 8th of August, on which day her vacation begins, which is but two days before my holidays end.' So, you see, Clare would be quite at liberty to come to me, and I daresay it would be a very nice change for her."