The other lifted her dove’s eyes. “More than two are destructive to the appearance.”
The hostess gave a sort of gasp. Of course, considering all things, the poor young creature was not to be blamed; but would not she herself have done more wisely to have in some degree prepared Camilla for the contents of the singular parcel she was sending her? Did “gay as a lark” at all cover the area occupied by this remarkable young person?
“My dear child,” she said, in a tone largely tinged with misgiving, “if you open the campaign at Stillington by remarks of that class, I shall have you back here in London by the first train to-morrow.”
“That will be clear gain, at all events.”
Mrs. Glanville did not assent.
“Camilla would be outraged at a girl of eighteen alluding to her future family at all; and if you made her the announcement that you have just made to me, I am convinced—yes, I am convinced—that she would take you by the shoulders and turn you out of the house!”
There was a minute’s pause, for Miss Ransome to assimilate this agreeable prophecy. Then she said in a voice of profound gloom—
“I believe that I shall spend my life in being turned neck and crop out of houses; and I shall never know what I have done!”
“You will, at all events, be able to give a good guess in this case,” rejoined the other.
“I shall be able to avoid saying that one particular thing,” returned Bonnybell, accepting her snub with the most perfect sweetness, but in a rather hopeless tone; “but I shall, no doubt, say hundreds of other things which I shall find out too late that a jeune fille ought not to have said. I have not the least idea what sort of things the right kind of jeune fille does say.”