Christobelle walked several times up and down the boudoir, to allow her mother to complete her observations. She was to throw her head gracefully back--she was to curtesy, as if in the act of receiving company--she was bid to come forward and offer a fan, with an air of easy composure. She performed many disagreeable, but extremely necessary evolutions, to give her mother satisfaction; and, unfortunately, her dress, and her eagerness to bring the lesson to an end, assisted her success. She was decided a creature not destitute of a certain air, and, as Landscape Brown would word it, there was "great capability," with severe pruning, and much persevering determination, to shine. If Christobelle made good use of the three following years, her mother did not despair of matching her even higher than Lady Ennismore. "A very Frenchy style of dress and walk would prove a great novelty, and attract gentlemen who always approved the novelties they failed to admire. She would cause a sensation, and some contention in opinion, which would inevitably make her the highest fashion in Shropshire."
This was an unlooked-for change in the politics of Wetheral. Little did Christobelle think Félicé's hand would have wrought such evil to an unsuspecting, unspeculative creature as herself. Little did she dream, under her tasteful assistance, to spring, at a bound, from the "awkward, dull Bell--Sir John's tiresome, learned daughter," into an object of speculation, which would again waken her mother's powers into action, to draw her from happy tranquillity, into scenes of distracting contention. She was glad to think the Bedinfield visit stood between her and a second lesson upon graceful movements. She could not dive into the future, or draw conclusions from the present, at this moment: she rejoiced only to escape lectures upon style, and reprimands for acting upon impulse. Christobelle hoped to find freedom and happy enjoyment at Bedinfield, and that pleasing thought gave her spirits to endure her mother's unceasing efforts to arouse "a proper vanity" in her mind, and make her look forward to a ducal, or, at least, the coronet of a marquis.
"Bell, you shall certainly be emancipated from the seclusion of Wetheral, and receive the first advantages which a dancing-master can give. I will endeavour to persuade your poor father to give us a spring or two in London, or a trip to Paris. Paris I should approve most. Félicé has quite delighted me with her tasteful fancy."