But poor Lady Adeline was too much occupied with domestic anxieties of her own at that time to feel more than a passing gleam of sympathetic interest in other people's. As Lord Dawne had hinted to Mrs. Orton Beg, it was now a question of how best to educate the twins. Their parents had made what they considered suitable arrangements for their instruction; but the children, unfortunately, were not satisfied with these. They had had a governess in common while they were still quite small; but Mr. Hamilton-Wells had old-fashioned ideas about the superior education of boys, and consequently, when the children had outgrown their nursery governess, he decided that Angelica should have another, more advanced; and had at the same time engaged a tutor for Diavolo, sending him to school being out of the question because of the fear of further trouble from the artery he had severed. When this arrangement became known, the children were seen to put their heads together.
"Do we like having different teachers?" Diavolo inquired tentatively.
"No, we don't," said Angelica.
Lady Adeline had tried to prepare the governess, but the latter brought no experience of anything like Angelica to help her to understand that young lady, and so the warning went for nothing. "A little affection goes a long way with a child." she said to Lady Adeline, "and I always endeavour to make my pupils understand that I care for them, and do not wish to make their lessons a task, but a pleasure to them."
"It is a good system, I should think," Lady Adeline observed, speaking dubiously, however.
"Can you do long division, my dear," the governess asked Angelica when they sat down to lessons for the first time.
"No, Miss Apsley," Angelica answered sweetly.
"Then I will show you how. But you must attend, you know,"—this last was said with playful authority.
So Angelica attended.
"How did you get on this morning?" Lady Adeline asked Miss Apsley anxiously afterward.