“Pray speak in French to Fanny,” said Mrs. Burney. “I cannot get Lottie and Susan to do so as frequently as I could wish. You must remember that poor Fanny has had none of your advantages, and I do not want her to be talked of as the dunce of the family. She really is not a dunce, you know; in spite of her bad sight she really has done some very pretty sewing.”
“I have seen it,” said Esther. “She works very neatly—more neatly than any of us.”
Fanny blushed and smiled her thanks to her sister for the compliment.
“What else is there left for me to do but to give all my attention to my needle?” she said. “I constantly feel that I am the dunce of the family—you are all so clever.”
“It is well for many families that they include one useful member,” said her stepmother in a way that suggested her complete agreement with the girl’s confession that she was the dunce of the family. A mother’s acknowledgment that a girl is either useful or good-natured is practically an announcement that she is neither pretty nor accomplished.
“And Fanny has many friends,” continued Mrs. Burney indulgently.
“Which shows how kind people are, even to a dunce,” said Fanny, not bitterly, but quite good-humouredly.
“But I am not sure that she should spend so much of her time writing to Mr. Crisp,” said the elder Mrs. Burney to the younger.
“Oh, poor Daddy Crisp!” cried Fanny. “Pray, mother, do not cut him off from his weekly budget of news. If I fail to send him a letter he is really disconsolate. ’Tis my letters that keep him still in touch with the life of the town.”