"Nor understand what is said when it is spoken in your presence?"
"No, your ladyship."
"So much the better," she answered with a grating laugh. "Children have long ears, and there is no freedom of conversation when they are present." With that she addressed some remarks in French to Sister Agnes, who replied to her in the same language. I knew nothing about my ears being long, but her ladyship's words had made them tingle as if they had been boxed. For one thing I was thankful--that no further remarks were addressed to me during dinner. The conversation in French became animated, and I had leisure to think of other things.
Dinner was quickly over, and at a signal from her ladyship the folding doors were thrown open, and we defiled into the Green Saloon, I bringing up the rear meekly. On the table were fruit and flowers, and one small bottle of some light wine. The butler filled her ladyship's glass, and then withdrew.
"You can take a pear, little girl," said Lady Pollexfen. Accordingly I took a pear, but when I had got it I was too timid to eat it, and could do nothing but hold it between my hot palms. Had I been at Park Hill Seminary, I would soon have made my teeth meet in the fruit, but I was not quite certain as to the proper mode of eating pears in society.
Lady Pollexfen placed her glass in her eye, and examined me critically.
"Haie! haie!" she said. "That good Chinfeather has not quite eradicated our gaucherie, it seems. We are deficient in ease and aplomb. What is the name of that Frenchwoman, Agnes, who 'finished' Lady Kinbuck's girls?"
"You mean Madame Duclos."
"The same. Look out her address to-morrow, and remind me that you write to her. If mademoiselle here remain in England, she will grow up weedy, and will never learn to carry her shoulders properly. Besides, the child has scarcely two words to say for herself. A little Parisian training may prove beneficial. At her age a French girl of family would be a little duchess in bearing and manners, even though she had never been outside the walls of her pension. How is such an anomaly to be accounted for? It is possible that the atmosphere may have something to do with it."
Here was fresh food for wonder, and for such serious thought as my age admitted of. I was to be sent to a school in France! I could not make up my mind whether to be sorry or glad. In truth, I was neither wholly the one nor the other; the tangled web of my feelings was something altogether beyond my skill to unravel.