“Oh, come, tell us—tell us!” cried Victoria.
Hope drew herself up.
“Except mamma and Helen—Miss Buchanan—but you don’t know her.”
“Yes I do—she keeps a school; yes I do—a governess and a schoolmistress—and Hope does not know any other ladies! I hope I shall never be one of Hope’s ladies.”
“What are you doing now, Hope?” said Adelaide. “Mamma has made me begin to work a cover for something; I don’t know what the shape of it will be, but it’s all in bits like this, and mamma says it will be very pretty—and Charlotte’s bringing such a load of music, and that governess!—you might come up, Hope, and help me, for I’m sure you’re not doing anything yourself.”
Hope acknowledged her idleness.
“No indeed, Adelaide; but I have only been two days at home; and—what’s the use of working covers? I don’t know why people labour at such things.”
“Because their mammas make them,” said Adelaide, gravely, and with a sigh; “but I think I like it too, Hope, for it’s very pretty, you know.”
Hope shook her head. She had been visited several times of late by some grave ruminations on this subject, and began to feel that working covers, however pretty, was in reality a quite unsatisfactory mode of life. But the cogitations were inarticulate; they had attained no shape, except at present a decided disinclination to work at all.
“And, Hope,” added Adelaide, “how long do you practise every day?”