“Ah,” said I, “young people only come to me by way of a treat—to me and to themselves. If you were with me much, I’m afraid I should spoil you.”
“I know what it is in the common acceptation of the word—it is what Mademoiselle does to Flora: she spoils her by letting her have her own way; but she spoils me by _never_ letting me have mine!”
“It is easy to see, Arbell, that you are not very fond of Mademoiselle.”
“(Some bread-and-butter, Phillis.) My dear, I cannot reply to your question, except by asking others; and I do not feel it quite right to seek a confidence which you do not repose in your own mother.”
“I wish she would let me,” said Arbell, with filling eyes.
“Why, my dear, you spend your mornings together.”
“But how? Dear mamma is always preoccupied—by papa, by the housekeeper, by the gardener, by the nurses, by her own maid. She must always see poor little Arthur’s spine rubbed herself” (here Phillis brought in the bread-and-butter, and went out), “and baby is cutting her teeth; and she has to give orders about her Italian garden, and dinner, and relief for the poor, and the children’s new dresses and her own, and to send baskets and hampers of things to grandpapa. Then, when all this is over, if I venture to begin with ‘Mamma!’ she says, ‘My dear, I am writing a note.’”
A tear dropped on Shock’s white coat, and she turned her head away. “Nobody has so small a share of her as I,” said she; “and I love her so much!”
“My dear Arbell,” said I, after a pause, “I cannot help thinking what an inestimable advantage it may be to you in after-life, to have had this training, this by-play, this insight, as a bystander, into your mother’s life. You may yourself be placed at the head of an equally large establishment: many girls, so placed, after a life exclusively devoted to their own studies and amusements, are completely at sea. They have no practical knowledge, no taste even, for the daily duties which it is a woman’s greatest honour and pleasure to discharge well; they are complete babies. They meet every emergency with a helpless, ‘Well, I’m sure I can’t tell what is to be done!’ and everything is at a stand-still, or goes the wrong way.”
Arbell seemed struck. “That never occurred to me,” said she.