her Mrs. Berrington were at home or not:
she was for the most part not, and the governess had a way of silently
intimating (it was the manner she put her head on one side when she
looked at Scratch and Parson--of course _she_ called them Geordie and
Ferdy) that she was immensely handicapped and even that they were.
Perhaps they were, though they certainly showed it little in their
appearance and manner, and Laura was at least sure that if Selina had
been perpetually dropping in Miss Steet would have taken that discomfort
even more tragically. The sight of this young woman's either real or
fancied wrongs did not diminish her conviction that she herself would
have found courage to become a governess. She would have had to teach
very young children, for she believed she was too ignorant for higher
flights. But Selina would never have consented to that--she would have
considered it a disgrace or even worse--a _pose_. Laura had proposed to
her six months before that she should dispense with a paid governess and
suffer _her_ to take charge of the little boys: in that way she should
not feel so completely dependent--she should be doing something in
return. 'And pray what would happen when you came to dinner? Who would
look after them then?' Mrs. Berrington had demanded, with a very shocked
air. Laura had replied that perhaps it was not absolutely necessary that
she should come to dinner--she could dine early, with the children; and
that if her presence in the drawing-room should be required the children
had their nurse--and what did they have their nurse for? Selina looked
at her as if she was deplorably superficial and told her that they had
their nurse to dress them and look after their clothes--did she wish the
poor little ducks to go in rags? She had her own ideas of thoroughness
and when Laura hinted that after all at that hour the children were in
bed she declared that even when they were asleep she desired the
governess to be at hand--that was the way a mother felt who really took
an interest. Selina was wonderfully thorough; she said something about
the evening hours in the quiet schoolroom being the proper time for the
governess to 'get up' the children's lessons for the next day. Laura
Wing was conscious of her own ignorance; nevertheless she presumed to
believe that she could have taught Geordie and Ferdy the alphabet
without anticipatory nocturnal researches. She wondered what her sister
supposed Miss Steet taught th