But Lilias’s spirits seemed to have received a check. She remained unusually quiet and depressed all the evening, and Mary felt puzzled.
“She cannot really have taken to heart what mother said,” she thought to herself. “Mamma has often said things of that sort without Lilias minding.”
And when bed-time came and she was alone with her sister, she set to work to find out what was wrong.
“What has made you so dull this evening, Lilias?” she asked, gently.
“Nothing, or rather, perhaps, I should say everything,” replied Lilias. “Mary,” she went on; she was sitting in front of the looking-glass, her beautiful fair hair loosened and falling about her shoulders, and as she spoke she put her hands up to her face, and leaning with her elbows on the table gazed into the mirror before her—“Mary, don’t think me conceited for what I am going to say—I wouldn’t say it to any one but you. Do you know, I think I wish I wasn’t pretty.”
“Why?” said Mary, without, however, testifying any great astonishment.
“If I could tell you exactly why, I should understand myself better than I do,” she replied. “I fancy somehow being pretty has helped to put me out of conceit of my life; and after all, what a poor, stupid thing it is! A very few years more, I shall be quite passée—indeed, I see signs of it coming already. I want to be good and sensible, and sober, and contented like you, Mary, and I can’t manage it. Oh, it does makes me so angry when mamma talks that way—about our own sphere and all that!”
“You shouldn’t be angry at it, it does not really make any difference,” said Mary, philosophically; “poor mamma thinks it is for our good.”
“But it isn’t only that; it is everything. Mary, people talk great nonsense about poverty not necessarily lowering one; it does lower us—that I think is the reason why I dislike mamma’s saying those things so. There is truth in them. We are rapidly becoming unfit for anything but a low sphere, and it is all poverty. Did you ever see anything more disgraceful than the younger girls’ manners sometimes?—Alexa’s silly babyishness, and Josephine’s vulgar noisiness? They should both be sent to a good school, or have a proper governess.”
“Yes,” said Mary, looking distressed, “I know they should.”