"Though I may never have seen any, still..."
"Still you suppose, probably, that they are not unfrequent."
"I do not say that, but..."
"But I say," continued her mother, seriously, "that we are not permitted to amuse ourselves with such child's play, when the welfare of one of whom we have taken charge is at stake; and if you had bestowed upon Nanette an education which would make her disdain the humble career to which she is no doubt destined, you would have rendered her a very mischievous service."
"So then, mamma, you did not think I ought to give lessons to Nanette?"
"Not at all; but I was quite easy about the matter."
"Besides," said Cecilia, blushing, "here I am always interrupted, and then two hours for all the lessons are nothing; but we shall be going into the country in a month, where, if you will allow it, she will be more frequently with me, and I shall easily find the means of giving her a proper education."
"Very well," said Madame de Vesac, smiling; for she did not place much more reliance on her daughter's perseverance in the country than in Paris. Cecilia did not observe this smile; quite absorbed in her plans for the future education of Nanette, she began by interrupting it for the present, as if the good that was to be done at some distant day exempted her from performing that which was in her power at the actual moment. She therefore told Nanette, that she would give her no more lessons until they went into the country; and Nanette, to whom a month seemed a lifetime, imagined herself for ever freed, both from Cecilia and her lessons. Cecilia, whose month was taken up with two or three balls, with purchases, packing, and receiving visits from the friends who called to bid her good-bye, completely lost the habit of thinking of Nanette; and this habit she found so unpleasant to resume, that they had been a whole week in the country when her mother said to her:—
"And Nanette?"
"We are going to recommence our lessons," she replied, somewhat ashamed at not having done so earlier. "But you know," she added, "that on arriving in the country there are a thousand things to be done; besides, I do not think Nanette is very anxious."