“Oh, didn’t she imply it?” said Emily. “The kitchenmaid, who is second parlourmaid tonight, must find it too much.”
“Isn’t it too much?” said Theresa.
“How good we all are at talking without ever saying anything we think!” said Bumpus.
“It is not always politic to say what we think,” said Miss Basden.
“It is not so easy,” said Masson.
“Sometimes I suppose it is right to say it, whether or no we like it, and whether or no it is liked,” said Delia.
“Yes, yes; the thing to be done,” said Miss Lydia, sighing.
“Oh, just possibly. Once or twice in a lifetime,” said Mr. Bentley to his daughter.
“Nearer once than twice,” said Bumpus.
“Oh, everyone is not a man,” said Theresa.
“No, that would be a queer state of things,” said Miss Basden.
“Yes,” said Bumpus. “Suppose there had to be two under masters instead of you and Burgess!”
“Oh, Mr. Bumpus!” said Miss Basden.
“Well, would two under mistresses do instead of the two of us?” said Mr. Burgess, not feeling self-suppression a duty in this case. “Or is prejudice the one thing regarded in this school?”
“No, no, Mr. Burgess. Come, you know it is not,” said Mr. Merry. “You are the only sop to it. I mean … what I meant was, Mr. Burgess, that if it didn’t matter about having a man on the staff, we should still have been glad to have you, you know. That is what I meant, Mr. Burgess.”
“I meant that, too,” said Bumpus.
“Oh, well, Mr. Merry, you are very kind. But it doesn’t sound as if you would have been much good to me, much compensation to me, in the event of my not being a man.”
Mr. Burgess noted Miss Basden’s expression, and relapsed into peace.
“I should think you are all great readers, Fletcher,” said Herrick. “Miss Fletcher, now, are you not a great person for books?”
“Oh, my books! Yes, I am very fond of my books,” said Miss Lydia. “My dear books, that live in my special case! I love them very much. I am always excited when I have a new companion for them. Yes, I am a great person for my books.”
“Have you a particular kind?” said Herrick.
“Yes,” said Miss Lydia, raising her eyes without lifting her head. “History! Nearly all my books are historical; or if not, biographical. I should think I have not read a novel for thirty years.”
“What books do you read most, Mr. Fletcher?” said Delia, to Francis.
“Miss Bentley, the book I read the most, is, I am thankful to say, the Old Book. My life is largely made up of what must be called the sordid things of the world. But I have the one great privilege.”
“Yes, yes, we can all do with that book. A very good book!” said Herrick.
“Miss Basden, what do you read?” said Emily. “Only the Bible or not?”
“Well, I read a good deal of French, Miss Herrick. I do not know how it is, but I always enjoy books so much more, when they are in French. I feel so much more at home in the language, somehow. Now I very seldom read an English book.”
“How wonderful and educational for the boys of you! But what kind of books do you read?”
“Oh, all kinds. I really do not mind, as long as they are French. Or if not French, Italian or German. What I do not like to read, is an English book.”
“Well, Miss Basden, we can very few of us say that,” said Francis.
“I believe I really read the Bible the most, too,” said Delia.
“It is a good thing we did not all live in the time when the Bibles were chained up in the churches,” said Bumpus. “It would have been so lonely.”
“Well, but it is a good thing to read the Bible,” said Francis.
“Of course it is the most beautiful book,” said Emily. “And now we are modern, and only read about wickedness, it is so nice to have it unchained, isn’t it? It really ought to be chained, I think.”
“Ah, you try to get at us, Miss Herrick,” said Francis, not quite checking a laugh.
“Ah, there is much warning in it for us,” said Miss Lydia.
“In all great pictures,” said Francis, firmly pulling himself together, and finding the effort inspiring; “we are shown the dreadful as well as the beautiful. We are surely not given only one side of the lesson.”
“I am one of the greatest readers alive,” said Herrick. “I have read all European modern literature, the enormous bulk of it. And I have read as much medieval literature as any man living. And I know my Greek and Latin. They were taught us well when I was a boy.”
“But you need not imply how they are taught now,” said Bumpus.
“What do you read, Mr. Masson?” said Mrs. Merry.
“Very little off my own line, Mrs. Merry. Miss Austen is the novelist I read the most.”
“What do you think of her books, Mr. Fletcher?” said Delia to Francis.
“I am afraid, Miss Bentley, that I have very little use for books written by ladies for ladies, if I may so express myself; though I dare say I should be the better for them.”
“Oh, no, you would not. You could not be,” said Bumpus.
“It is the other way round,” said Masson.
“Personally, I can’t get over the littleness in her books,” said Miss Basden.
“Ah, we are not small enough, not small enough,” said Miss Lydia.
“The best goods are done up in a certain way,” said Mr. Fletcher, smiling.
“It is my great regret that Jane Austen died so young,” said Masson.
“And one used to think that forty odd was not so young after all,” said Herrick.
“I never think about my age,” said Miss Basden.
“Ah, but we are in progress,” breathed Miss Lydia, “simply in progress.”
“To what may be big enough in the end for us,” said Theresa.
“One is really a hero for not committing suicide, I suppose,” said
