"It is odd enough that you should dread reproval from the governess of your sisters when you do not dread it from your own mother! But Mademoiselle Hennequin has nothing to do with you. You were educated and out before she entered your family, and it is singular that a person not older than yourself, who was engaged in Paris so recently, should have obtained so much influence over the mind of one who never was her pupil."
"I am not afraid of her in most things," rejoined Julia, "but I confess I am in all that relates to taste; particularly in what relates to extravagance."
"I have greatly misunderstood the character of Mademoiselle Hennequin if she ventured to interfere with you in either! A governess ought not to push her control beyond her proper duties."
"Nor has Mademoiselle Hennequin," answered Julia honestly. "Still I cannot but hear the lessons she gives my sisters, and—yes—to own the truth, I dread the glance she cannot avoid throwing on my purchase. It will say, 'of what use are all my excellent lessons in taste and prudence, if an elder sister's example is to counteract them?' It is THAT I dread."
Mary was silent for fully a minute; then she smiled archly, as girls will smile when certain thoughts cross their playful imaginations, and continued the discourse.
"And Betts Shoreham has nothing to do with all this dread?"
"What is Betts Shoreham to me, or what am I to Betts Shoreham? I am sure the circumstances that we happened to come from Europe in the same packet, and that he continues to visit us now we are at home, do not entitle him to have a veto, as they call it, on my wardrobe."
"Not YET, certainly, my dear. Still they may entitle him to have this VETO, in petto."
{in petto = in private (Italian)}
I thought a shade passed over the features of the pretty Julia Monson as she answered her friend, with a seriousness to show that she was now in earnest, and with a propriety that proved she had great good sense at bottom, as well as strong womanly feeling.