‘My dear, you know I think all girls should know how to work at something,’ said the governess, ‘when they have no fortunes; and you will never save money. You couldn’t, if your pictures were to sell twice as well; and though you are young and strong, still——’
‘I might die,’ said the padrona. ‘I often think of it. It is a frightful thought when one looks at these little things; but I have made up my mind for a long time that it is best never to think. One can’t live more than a day at a time, were one to try ever so much; and there is always God at hand to take care or the rest.’
‘But generally, so far as I know,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘God gives the harvest only when the farmer has sown the seed.’
‘Which means I am to bring up my child to do something,’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘And so she does,—a hundred things,—now, doesn’t she?—and makes the whole house go to music. I can’t train Alice to a trade. If necessity comes upon her, some work or other will drop into her hands. I was never trained to it myself,’ the padrona added, with a half-conscious smile about the corners of her mouth, and perhaps just a touch of innocent complacency in her own success, ‘and yet I get on,—as well as most.’
‘Better than most, my dear; better than most,’ the governess said, with a little enthusiasm. ‘But you know how much you have been worried about your drawing, and how sensitive you are to what those wretched men say in the “Sword.” Do you think I don’t notice? You take it quite sweetly when they talk about the colour, or texture, or the rest of their jargon; but you flush up the moment they mention your drawing. Now, if you had been trained to it, don’t you see, as a girl——’
The padrona grew very red as her friend spoke. It was clear that the criticism touched even when thus put, and Laurie, in the background, felt an overwhelming inclination to wring the neck of the strong-minded woman. But then she laughed very softly, with a certain sound of emotion that might have brought tears just as well.
‘When I was a girl,’ she said, ‘how every one would have stared to think I should ever be a painter, making my living!—how they would have laughed! “What, our Mary!” they would all have said. It came so natural to do one’s worsted work, and read one’s books, and go to one’s parties! And I suppose, as you say, I should have been working from the round, and studying anatomy,—faugh!—my child to do that! I would rather work my fingers to the bone!’
‘I think you are wrong, my dear,’ the governess said; and Laurie hated her, listening to the talk.
As for the padrona, she shook something like a tear from her eyelash. Laurie thought it was pretty to see her hands moving among the lace and the ribbon, with that look of power in them, knowing exactly how to twist it, how to make the lace droop as it ought. Not a very monstrous piece of work, to be sure. ‘Hush!’ she said, ‘here are some people coming up-stairs. Most likely Bessie Howard, who will tell us what the spirits are doing; or the Suffolks from over the way, who are great friends of hers. They have just come home from Dresden, and I want to hear what they have been about there.’
‘I hate travel-talk,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘and I detest the spirits, so I’ll go; and though it is not the first time, nor the second, we have spoken on this subject, I do hope, my dear, you’ll think of what I’ve said.’