ge in
her manner, but it was still quite agreeable Mrs Fanshawe was always
agreeable for choice: she found it the best policy, and her indolent
nature shrank from disagreeables of every kind. This pretty girl had
made herself quite useful, and a chat with her would enliven a dull hour
in the train. Curiosity shifted its point, but remained actively in
force.

"Tell me all about it!" she said suavely. "I know nothing about
teachers. Shocking, isn't it? They alarm me too much. I have a horror
of clever women. You don't look at all clever. I mean that as a
compliment--far too pretty and smart, but I suppose you are dreadfully
learned, all the same. What are you going to teach?"

"French. I am almost as good as a Frenchwoman, for I've talked little
else for sixteen years. Mother and I spoke English together, or I
should have forgotten my own language. It seems, from a scholastic
point of view, that it's a useful blend to possess--perfect French and
an English temperament. `Mademoiselle' is not always a model of
patience!"

"And you think you will be? I prophesy differently. You'll throw the
whole thing up in six months, and fly off to mamma in India. You
haven't the least idea what you are in for, but you'll find out, you'll
find out! Where is this precious school? In town, did you say? Shall
you live in the house or with friends?"

"I have no friends in London except Miss Farnborough, the head mistress,
but there are fifteen other mistresses besides myself. That will be
fifteen friends ready-made. I am going to share lodgings with one of
them, and be a bachelor girl on my own account. I'm so excited about
it. After living in countries where a girl can't go to the pillar-box
alone, it will be thrilling to be free to do just as I like. Please
don't pity me! I'm going to have great fun."

Mrs Fanshawe hitched herself still further into her corner and smiled a
lazy, quizzical smile.

"Oh, I don't pity you--not one bit! All young people nowadays think
they are so much wiser than their parents; it's a wholesome lesson to
learn their mistake. You're a silly, blind, ridiculous little girl, and
if I'd been your mother, I should have insisted upon taking you with me,
whether you liked it or not. I always wanted a daughter like you--sons
are so dull; but perhaps it's just as well that she never appeared. She
might have wanted to be independent, too, in which case we should have
quarrelled.--So tho