'Much Phoebe will let her
stand in her way when she wants to come to London for the season--but
I'll not take her out, I promise her.'

'But you will take me,' cried Bertha. 'You'll not leave me in this
dismal hole always.'

'Never fear, Bertha. This plan won't last six months. Mervyn and Phoebe
will get sick of one another, and Augusta will be ready to take her
in--she is pining for an errand girl.'

'I'll not go there to read cookery books and meet old fogies. You will
have me, Juliana, and we will have such fun together.'

'When you are come out, perhaps--and you must cure that stammer.'

'I shall die of dulness before then! If I could only go to school!'

'I wouldn't be you with Maria for your most lively companion.'

'It is much worse than when we used to go down into the drawing-room.
Now we never see any one but Miss Charlecote, and Phoebe is getting
exactly like her!'

'What, all her sanctimonious ways? I thought so.'

'And to make it more aggravating, Miss Fennimore is going to get
religious too. She made me read all Butler's _Analogy_, and wants to put
me into _Paley_, and she is always running after Robert.'

'Middle-aged governesses always do run after young clergymen--especially
the most _outre's_.'

'And now she snaps me up if I say anything the least comprehensive or
speculative, or if I laugh at the conventionalities Phoebe learns at the
Holt. Yesterday I said that the progress of common sense would soon make
people cease to connect dulness with mortality, or to think a serious
mistiness the sole evidence of respect, and I was caught up as if it were
high treason.'

'You must not get out of bounds in your talk, Bertha, or sound
unfeeling.'

'I can't help being original,' said Bertha. 'I must evolve my ideas out
of my individual consciousness, and assert my independence of thought.'

Juliana laughed, not quite following her sister's metaphysical tone, but
satisfied that it was anti-Phoebe, she answered by observing, 'An
intolerable fuss they do make about that girl!'

'And she is not a bit clever,' continued Bertha. 'I can do a translation
in half the time she takes, and have got far beyond her in all kinds of
natural philosophy!'

'She flatters Mervyn, that's the thing; but she will soon have enough of
that. I hope he won't get her into some dreadful scrape, that's all!'

'What sort of scrape?' asked Bertha, gathering from the smack of the hope
that it was something exciti