Philips immediately looked very solemn; and though the toilet lamps were duly lighted, and all was ready for her operations, she stood with her arms by her side, in the attitude of waiting.
“Well, Philips, I am ready.”
“Will you please, my lady, to send Thérèse and her work elsewhere? It cannot be expected that I should exhibit my ways so as a mere novice may supplant me any day, my lady.”
“This is Thérèse’s proper place, and here she shall stay,” replied the lady. “However, she shall read to us; and then, you know, she cannot be a spy upon your doings.”
Thérèse read accordingly till the hair was dressed. At the first pause, Philips observed that she must brush up her French, her fluency in which she had lost from having missed the advantage of visiting Paris last year.
“Thérèse will be obliged to any one who will talk with her in her own tongue, Philips. Suppose, instead of having fancies about supplanting one another, you make the best use you can of each other, since you must be a good deal together.”
“I will do my best, I am sure, my lady, to instruct the girl in all that relates to her own sphere, without encroaching on mine. I will do my best to reform her dress, which really bespeaks her to be a green-grocer’s daughter, if I may venture to say so. But as to dressing hair,—allow me to appeal to lady Frances whether it can be expected that I should disseminate my principles out of my own sphere.”
“See who knocks, Thérèse.”
The earl and lady Frances were below, and lady Frances would be particularly glad to speak to Mrs. Philips, if not engaged with my lady. Mrs. Philips, at her lady’s desire, went to receive her late mistress’s commands, and Thérèse enacted the lady’s-maid, as she had done from the time she had left Paris in lady F——’s train.
“Come, Thérèse, let us have done before anybody arrives to criticise us novices. How nervous you look, child! What is the difference between dressing me to-day and any other day?”