Lady Ella did not know. She could have thought a school like St. Aubyns would have been safe, but nowadays nothing was safe. It was clear the girls who went there talked as girls a generation ago did not talk. Their people at home encouraged them to talk and profess opinions about everything. It seemed that Phoebe Walshingham and Lady Kitty Kingdom were the leaders in these premature mental excursions. Phoebe aired religious doubts.
“But little Phoebe!” said the bishop.
“Kitty,” said Lady Ella, “has written a novel.”
“Already!”
“With elopements in it—and all sorts of things. She's had it typed. You'd think Mary Crosshampton would know better than to let her daughter go flourishing the family imagination about in that way.”
“Eleanor told you?”
“By way of showing that they think of—things in general.”
The bishop reflected. “She wants to go to College.”
“They want to go in a set.”
“I wonder if college can be much worse than school.... She's eighteen—? But I will talk to her....”