‘It seems strange to think that it is the last night,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with not inappropriate reflectiveness. ‘How many things have happened to us within these walls, Millicent! And perhaps we may never enter them again.’
‘I hope not, I am sure,’ said her daughter; ‘a more dreary set of rooms I never was in. If we cannot make out something better than this, I should never wish to come back at all.’
‘Of course we must both wish never to come back at all,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I trust your next home, my dear, may be of a totally different kind. If I could but live to see my child settled, and enjoy the change a little,’ the mother added, putting her hands softly together, ‘I should have all I want in this world.’
‘I don’t see that, mamma,’ said Millicent. ‘You are old, it is true; but I think you want quite as much as I do in the world. You are very fond of being comfortable;—most people are, I suppose. And then you can get the good of things without the trouble;—I should have more pleasure, perhaps,—if I ever come to anything,—but then I shall have all the trouble as well.’
‘The trouble of looking nice and making yourself agreeable! I don’t think there is much in that,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a little contempt. ‘The serious business,—managing matters, and getting introductions, and all that,—always falls to my share.’
‘I am sure I wish we were done with it all;—I hate it. I wish I had been brought up to be a governess,’ said Millicent, ‘or a dressmaker, or something. I should not have liked the work; but then one would not have had to be thinking always what would please some man.’
‘You don’t find it so difficult to please them,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a little gentle maternal flattery, such as was necessary now and then to keep the sullen shade,—which spoiled it,—off Millicent’s beautiful face.
‘I wonder I don’t hate them,’ cried the young woman, ‘after all I have gone through! I am sure it would not be half so hard to go in for examinations and things like poor Fitzgerald. I don’t see how a girl can be good if she were to try,—always brought up to think she may get to be rich in a moment, like a gambler! I declare, mamma, I will go to the gaming-place in Homburg and try.’
‘I hope, Millicent, you will not be such a fool!’ cried her mother, ‘after all the pains I have taken to keep respectable,—paying bills many a time when it was like taking my heart’s blood; and you know, among the English, it’s only disreputable people who play.’
‘It comes to just the same thing,’ said Millicent; ‘and I tell you, mamma, a girl has no chance to be good, brought up like that to play for a man for his money. I hate the men! Let us go and play for the money; it will be far better; and then nobody like Ben Renton can come and look in one’s face, and make one feel like,—like——’