Ada took no manner of notice of them, but looked straight before her.
‘Why do you not kiss your hand to your friends, and say good-bye to them?’ asked Magdalen, turning indifferently, as she lay back, also indifferently, and looked with languid curiosity at the little flushed face and small figure, bristling with importance, beside her.
‘’Cause I’m a young lady, and they are little common village girls,’ was the reply, so unexpected, that even Miss Wynter’s eyes were opened wide, and her eyebrows were raised, as she heard it.
‘Indeed?’ she said. ‘And do you think you are really a young lady?’
‘Not like you, yet,’ was the reply, ‘because I’m not old enough; but I shall be some time. Mamma says I’m so pretty I shall be sure to marry a gentleman; and I’m going to learn French and music.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ drawled Magdalen. ‘You are going to marry a gentleman. What is a gentleman? Did your mother tell you that, too?’
‘She didn’t tell me, but I know,’ replied Ada.
‘Well, suppose you tell me. Then I shall know, too.’
‘A gentleman is rich, and has a large house, and——’
‘Does a gentleman keep a shop?’