Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/695



the same handsome reception-room in Portland Place, where you saw them a fortnight ago, sat again the Earl of Oakburn and his daughter Jane. Jane was knitting some wrist-mittens for her father, her mind busy with many themes: as Jane’s thoughtful mind was sure to be. She was beginning to doubt whether she should like the governess—who had entered on her new situation some ten days now; and she was deliberating how she should best introduce the subject which she was determined to speak of that morning—Clarice. A whole fortnight had Jane hesitated, but the hesitation must have an end.

The earl read the Times. He was glancing over a short speech of his own, therein reported; for he had risen to his legs the previous night and given the Lords a little of his mind in his own peculiar fashion. A question had arisen in regard to the liberties of seamen in government vessels, and the earl told the assemblage, and especially the Lord Chancellor, that they were all wrong together and knew no more about the matter than a set of ignorant landlubbers could be expected to know.

“Papa,” said Jane, knitting rapidly at the mittens—the old sailor called them muffatees—“does it appear to you that Miss Lethwait will suit?”

“She’ll suit for all I know,” the earl replied. “Why shouldn’t she suit?”

Jane was silent for a moment before making any answer. “I fear she is above her situation, papa: that we shall find her—if I may use the word—too pretentious.”

“Above her situation?” repeated the earl. “How can she be above that?”

“Papa, I allude to her manner. I do not like it. Wishing to treat her with all courtesy as a gentlewoman, I made no arrangements for her sitting apart from us in the evening; but I must say I did not expect her to identify herself so completely with us as she is doing; at least in so short a time. When visitors are here, Miss Lethwait never seems to remember that she is not in all respects their equal; she comports herself entirely as if she were a daughter of the house, taking more upon herself a great deal than I think is seemly. She pushes herself before me, papa; she does indeed.”

“Push her back,” said Lord Oakburn.

“That is easier said than done, with regard to Miss Lethwait,” replied Jane. “I grant that she is in manner naturally imperious, inclined to treat every one de haut en bas”

“Treat every one how?” was the angry interruption. “Where’s the sense of jabbering that foreign stuff, Jane! I thought you were above it.”

“I beg your pardon, papa,” Jane meekly answered, full of contrition for her fault, which had been spoken in thoughtlessness, for Lord Oakburn understood no language but that of his native land, and had little toleration for those who interlarded it with another. “It is evident that Miss Lethwait is by nature haughty, I was observing; haughty in manner; but I do consider that she forgets her position in this house in a way that is anything but agreeable. But that you are unobservant, papa, you would see that she does.”

“Tell her of it,” said Lord Oakburn, seizing his stick and giving a forcible rap.

“I should not much like to do that,” returned Jane. “What annoys me is, that she does not feel herself what is becoming conduct, and what is not”

“I don’t see that there’s anything unbecoming in her conduct,” was the interruption.

“She should not stop long with Lucy, I can tell you, if I saw anything of that.”

“No, no, papa, there is nothing unbecoming in one sense; I never meant to imply that. Miss Lethwait is always a lady. She is too much of a lady, if you can understand it; she assumes too much; she never seems to recollect, when in the drawing-room of an evening, that she is not one of ourselves, and a very prominent one. A stranger, coming in, might take her for the mistress of the house, certainly for an elder daughter. And when we are alone, papa, don’t you note how familiar she is with you, conversing with you freely on all kinds of subjects, listening to you, and laughing at your stories of your sea life?”

“She has a splendid figure,” remarked the earl, not altogether, as Jane thought, apropos to the point. “And she talks sensibly—for a woman.”

“Well, papa, I don’t like her.”

“Then don’t keep her. You are the best judge of whether she’s fit for her berth, or whether she is not.”

“As governess to Lucy she is entirely fit. I could not wish to find a more efficient in-