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“Dear me,” said she, casting a scornful glance at Matilda’s globe, “this is vastly pretty, but we’ve no such thing at Suxberry House. I wonder Mrs. Harcourt didn’t send both of you to Suxberry House–every body sends their daughters, who can afford it, now, to Suxberry House; but, to be sure, it’s very expensive–we had all silver forks, and every thing in the highest style, and Mrs. Suxberry keeps a coach. I assure you she’s not at all like a schoolmistress, and she thinks it very rude and vulgar of any body to call her a schoolmistress. Won’t you ask your mamma to send you, if it’s only for the name of it, for one year, to Suxberry House?”

“No,” said Matilda; “we are so happy under the care of Mad. de Rosier.”

“Ah, dear me! I forgot–mamma told me you’d got a new French governess lately–our French teacher, at Suxberry House, was so strict, and so cross, if one made a mistake in the tenses: it’s very well for you your governess is not cross–does she give you very hard exercises?–let me look at your exercise book, and I’ll tell you whether it’s the right one–I mean that we used to have at Suxberry House.”

Miss Fanshaw snatched up a book, in which she saw a paper, which she took for a French exercise.

“Come, show it me, and I’ll correct the faults for you, before your governess sees it, and she’ll be so surprised!”

“Mad. de Rosier has seen it,” said Matilda;–but Miss Fanshaw, in a romping manner, pulled the paper out of her hands. It was the translation of a part of “Les Conversations d’Emilie,” which we formerly mentioned.

“La!” said Miss Fanshaw, “we had no such book as this at Suxberry House.”

Matilda’s translation she was surprised to find correct.

“And do you write themes?” said she–“We always wrote themes once every week, at Suxberry House, which I used to hate of all things, for I never could find any thing to say–it made me hate writing, I know;–but that’s all over now; thank goodness, I’ve done with themes, and French letters, and exercises, and translations, and all those plaguing things; and now I’ve left school for ever, I may do just as I please–that’s the best of going to school; it’s over some time or other, and there’s an end of it; but you that have a governess and masters at home, you go on for ever and ever, and you have no holidays either; and you have no out-of-school hours; you are kept hard at it from morning till night: now I should hate that of all things. At Suxberry House, when we had got our task done, and finished with the writing-master and the drawing-master, and when we had practised for the music-master, and all that, we might be as idle as we pleased, and do what we liked out of school-hours–you know that was very pleasant: I assure you, you’d like being at Suxberry House amazingly.”

Isabella and Matilda, to whom it did not appear the most delightful of all things to be idle, nor the most desirable thing in the world to have their education finished, and then to lay aside all thoughts of farther improvement, could not assent to Miss Fanshaw’s concluding assertion. They declared that they did not feel any want of holidays; at which Miss Fanshaw stared: they said that they had no tasks, and that they liked to be employed rather better than to be idle; at which Miss Fanshaw laughed, and sarcastically said, “You need not talk to me as if your governess were by, for I’m not a tell-tale–I shan’t repeat what you say.”

Isabella and Matilda, who had not two methods of talking, looked rather displeased at this ill-bred speech.

“Nay,” said Miss Fanshaw, “I hope you aren’t affronted now at what I said; when we are by ourselves, you know, one says just what comes into one’s head. Whose handsome coach is this, pray, with a coronet?” continued she, looking out of the window: “I declare it is stopping at your door; do let us go down. I’m never afraid of going into the room when there’s company, for we were taught to go into a room at Suxberry House; and Mrs. Suxberry says it’s very vulgar to be ashamed, and I assure you it’s all custom. I used to colour, as Miss Matilda does, every minute; but I got over it before I had been long at Suxberry House.”