“Well, what of that?” asked Tod.
“Not much; but she might as well have been candid with us at Dyke Manor.”
“A governess is a lady.”
“Ought to be. But why did she make out to us that she had been a visitor at the Diffords’, when she was only the teacher? We should have respected her just as much; perhaps made more of her.”
“What are you cavilling at? As if a lady was never a teacher before!”
“Oh, Tod! it is not that. Don’t you see?—if she had kept a chandler’s shop, and been open about it, what should we have cared? It was the sailing under false colours; trying to pass herself off for what she is not.”
He gave no answer to this, except a whistle.
“She is turned six-and-twenty, Tod. And she was not a school-girl at Miss Lakon’s, but governess-pupil.”
“I suppose she was a schoolgirl once?”