“Nor wash your dishes?”
“Certainly not!”
Celestina dropped on the floor, a picture of misery.
“Too bad, isn’t it?” commented Straws. “But it can’t be helped, can it?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, wofully; “it can’t be helped! But why––why did you publish it?”
“Just what the critics asked, my dear! Why? Who knows? Who can tell why the gods invented madness? But it’s done; for bad, or worse!”
“For bad, or worse!” she repeated, gazing wistfully toward the rumpled bed.
“If somebody tells you fine feathers don’t make fine birds, don’t believe him,” continued the poet. “It’s envy that speaks! But what do you suppose I have here?” Producing a slip of paper from his vest pocket. “No; it’s not another draft! An advertisement! Listen: ‘Mademoiselle de Castiglione’s select seminary. Young ladies instructed in the arts of the bon ton. Finesse, repose, literature! Fashions, etiquette, languages! P. S. Polkas a specialty!’ Celestina, your destiny lies at Mademoiselle de Castiglione’s. They will teach you to float into a drawing room––but you won’t forget the garret? They will instruct you how to sit on gilt chairs––you will think sometimes of the box, or the place by the hearth? You will become a mistress of the piano––‘By the Coral Strands I Wander,’ ‘The Sweet Young Bachelor’––but I trust you will not learn to despise altogether the attic pipe?”
“You mean,” said Celestina, slowly, her face expressing 415 bewilderment, “I must go away somewhere?”