“No I haven’t, Nurse, indeed,” answered Hermione.  “I had no patience at all when I was in a passion with the cat just now.”

“Well, I suppose there are two or three sorts of Patiences, Miss, then,” persisted Nurse, “for I’m certain you have some sorts.  But, dear me, its ever so much past six o’clock, and you have to be dressed by half-past.  Do put away the worsted and get yourself ready, Miss, and call Jane to help you.”

Here the Nurse and Hermione nearly had a scuffle over the worsted.  Hermione declared the cat had spoilt her stocking; and the only comfort left to her now was to roll it comfortably up into a ball.  Nurse on the contrary insisted that it didn’t signify a bit what became of the worsted; she must dress and go down.  The dispute ended by Hermione running off with the half finished ball and its untidy remains, and cramming the whole concern into the pocket of her best frock.  “The people will soon be tired of talking to me,” muttered she to herself, “and then I can finish my ball quietly in the corner behind Mamma’s chair.”

The thought of this ingenious plan for her private amusement down stairs so tickled Hermione’s fancy that she was on the giggle the whole time she was being dressed.  “If Nurse did but know what was in the pocket of my best frock and how fat it is! how she would scold, and what a fight we should have.”  And she could hardly refrain from loud laughter at the thought.  When she had got her frock on she sat down, and laying her arm over the fat pocket asked Jane to touch up her curls:  and while this operation was going on she began to talk to the nurse.

“Nurse, should you think it a very nice thing to go to a dinner party and sit in chairs all round a large room, where the coloured covers are taken away and everything looks very gay, and so tidy, nobody is allowed to do anything but smile, and talk, and wear white kid gloves?”

“Very nice, Miss, it’s so like a lady,” was the Nurse’s ready reply.

“Well then, I don’t think it’s nice at all, Nurse—­I think it’s very nasty and stupid.”

“Dear, Miss Hermione, how you do talk; I hope you won’t tell the ladies so when you get down stairs.”

“Oh dear no, that would be rude, and it’s wrong to be rude, but to tell you the truth I don’t know what I shall do when I grow up if I am obliged to be so dull as that is, very often.”

“Goodness, Miss Hermione, to hear you talk one would think you’d better be a housemaid at once, instead of a lady with nothing to do.”

“Nurse, I should see no objection to be a housemaid at all, only that I am learning so many things that wouldn’t suit a housemaid; but without being a housemaid there are many pleasanter things to do than to sit in that stupid sort of way.  I like the room when all Papa’s books and papers are about, and when he is scribbling away so busy, and when Mamma has got her microscope out looking at seaweeds or curiosities.  I have a chance then myself.  I don’t like ladies who say nothing but ‘Pretty little dear, what a nice colour she has,’ just to please Mamma.”