Mrs. Barnaby suited the action to the word, and unlocked her work-box, in which she found ready to her hand good store of work prepared for her beloved needle.
"Now, only see, Agnes, what a thing it would have been for you, if you had learned to work satin-stitch!" she said, "Here am I, happy and amused, and before I go to bed I dare say I shall have done a good inch of this beautiful collar.... And only look at yourself! What earthly use are you of to anybody?... I wonder you are not ashamed to sit idle in that way, while you see me hard at work."
"May I get a book, aunt?"
"Books, books, books!... If there is one thing more completely full of idleness than another, it is reading,—just spelling along one line after another.... And what comes of it? Now, here's a leaf done already, and wait a minute and you'll see a whole bunch of grapes done in spotting. There is some sense in that: but poring over a lot of rubbishly words is an absolute sin, for it is wasting the time that Heaven gives us, and doing no good to our fellow-creatures."
"And the grapes!" thought Agnes, but she said nothing.
"Why don't you answer when I speak to you, child?... Did that stupid Mrs. Wilmot never tell you to speak when you were spoken to?... What a different creature you would have been if I had had the placing you, instead of that crooked, frumpish old maid!... But I am sadly afraid it is too late now to hope that you will ever be good for much."
"I should be very glad to try to make myself competent for the situation of a governess, aunt, as you once mentioned to me," replied Agnes.
"Oh! by the by, I want to speak to you about that. You are not to say one word on that subject here, remember, nor indeed anywhere, till at such time as I shall give you leave. It will be cruelly hard for me to have the monstrous expense of maintaining you, exactly as if you were my own child, and not have the credit of it. And, besides I don't feel quite sure that I shall send you out as a governess ... it must depend upon circumstances. Perhaps I shall get you married, and that might suit me just as well. All you have to do is to keep yourself always ready to go out at a minute's warning, if I say the word; but you need mention it to nobody, and particularly not to my relations here."
"Very well, aunt.... I will say nothing about it. But in order to be ready when you say the word, I think I ought to study a good deal, and I am willing to do it if you will give me leave."
"How you do plague me, child, about your learning! Push the candles this way, can't you, and snuff them, when you see me straining my poor eyes with this fine work.... And do you know, miss, I think it's very likely those books you are so mighty fond of are nothing in the world but trumpery story-books, for I don't believe you'd hanker after them so, if they were really in the teaching line. For, after all, Agnes, if I must speak the truth, I don't believe you ever did pay attention to any single thing that could be really useful in the way of governessing. Now, music, for instance, nobody ever heard you say a word about that; and you ought to sing too, if you wer'n't more stupid than anything ever was, for both your father and mother sang like angels."