“That is true. Papa does not mind about things.”
“But he minds about his dinner, and about everything being right when his friends come to the house, and all that; and perhaps he might mind about our coming here too. I think I shall tell him that we were in the church.”
Tessie said he would be sure not to care, and Frederica thought so too, or perhaps she would not have been so ready to tell him about it. It is possible he did not care very much; but he was rather cross about it, Frederica confessed, when she told Tessie afterward. His comfort had already been interfered with since Mrs Ascot’s departure, for the affairs of the house did not go on very well for a while, and he had other causes for embarrassment which he could not tell to her. He only said it was not a proper thing for her to be going about the streets alone, or with no one but Tessie, and insisted that an end should be put to it.
“You are no longer a child,” said he; “you are almost a woman.”
“But surely, papa, I should be all the fitter to go about for that,” said she, laughing.
“That is your idea, is it? Well, it is not mine. You must amuse yourselves within the bounds of the garden, while your vacation lasts.”
“But, papa,” said Frederica, with dignity, “it is not a question of amusement: you forget that I am housekeeper.”
“No, I am not likely to forget that,” said her father drily. “If you must go out, you must go in the carriage, or take Dixen with you. I cannot have you going here and there by yourself.”
“Very well, papa: I will remember.”
It was very agreeable to her that her father should acknowledge that she was no longer a child, but she was by no means sure that all the consequences of being almost a woman would be agreeable. However, she was determined to make the best of it.