The girl turned angrily on Ethel. "Nobody asked you to speak: mind your copying."
"Mind your manners, said Ethel nodding to her.
"Not for you, or for anybody else in this room."
"It is very unpleasant to hear young ladies say these rude things," interposed Madame. "As your governess, Miss Flora, I shall not permit it."
"That's what my other governesses would say," retorted Flora. "It made no difference to me."
"If the other governesses did not do their duty by you, it is no reason why I should not do mine," said Madame. "Your papa has charged me with forming your manners; if I have trouble in doing it I am to appeal to him."
Flora was silent. The one only authority she feared, in the house or out of it, was her father's. He would not be trifled with, however her mother might be.
"I hate governesses, Madame Guise. I'd like to know what they were invented for?"
"To teach ignorant and refractory children to become good young ladies," spoke Madame, who did not seem in the least to lose her temper. Flora did not like the calmness: it augured badly for the future. It was so totally unlike her experience of former governesses. They were either driven wild, or had subsided into a state of apathy.
"I drove those other governesses away, and I'll drive you. I'll never do anything you tell me. I won't learn and I won't practise."