Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/64

50 of being abandoned by her mother. Familiar as she had become with the idea of the great alternative to the proper, she felt that her governess and her father would have a substantial reason for not emulating that detachment. At the same time she had heard somehow of little girls—of exalted rank, it was true—whose education was carried on by instructors of the other sex; and she knew that if she were at school at Brighton it would be thought an advantage to her to be more or less in the hands of masters. She meditated on these mysteries and she at last remarked to Miss Overmore that if she should go to her mother perhaps the gentleman might become her tutor.

"The gentleman—?" The proposition was complicated enough to make Miss Overmore stare.

"The one who's with mamma. Might n't that make it right—as right as your being my governess makes it for you to be with papa?"

Miss Overmore considered. She colored a little; then she embraced her ingenious disciple. "You're too sweet! I'm a real governess. "

"And couldn't he be a real tutor?"

"Of course not. He's ignorant and bad."