How curiously Christian courtesy and polished manners sometimes separate themselves! and how conceit interferes with both!  I acquit Metelill and Isa of all but thoughtless habit, and Pica was absorbed.  She can be well mannered enough when she is not defending the rights of woman, or hotly dogmatical on the crude theories she has caught—­and suppose she has thought out, poor child!  And Jane, though high-principled, kind, and self-sacrificing, is too narrow and—­not exactly conceited—­but exclusive and Bourne Parvaish, not to be as bad in her way, though it is the sound one.  The wars of the Druces and Maronites, as Martyn calls them, sometimes rage beyond the bounds of good humour.

Ten P.M.—­I am vexed too on another score.  I must tell you that this hotel does not shine in puddings and sweets, and Charley has not been ashamed to grumble beyond the bounds of good manners.  I heard some laughing and joking going on between the girls and the pupils, Metelill with her “Oh no!  You won’t!  Nonsense!” in just that tone which means “I wish, I would, but I cannot bid you,”—­the tone I do not like to hear in a maiden of any degree.

And behold three of those foolish lads have brought her gilt and painted boxes of bon-bons, over which there was a prodigious giggling and semi-refusing and bantering among the young folks, worrying Emily and me excessively, though we knew it would not do to interfere.

There is a sea-fog this evening unfavourable to the usual promenades, and we elders, including the tutor, were sitting with my mother, when, in her whirlwind fashion, in burst Jane, dragging her little sister Chattie with her, and breathlessly exclaiming, “Father, father, come and help!  They are gambling, and I can’t get Meg away!”

When the nervous ones had been convinced that no one had been caught by the tide or fallen off the rocks, Jane explained that Metelill had given one box of bon-bons to the children, who were to be served with one apiece all round every day.  And the others were put up by Metelill to serve as prizes in the ‘racing game,’ which some one had routed out, left behind in the lodging, and which was now spread on the dining-table, with all the young people playing in high glee, and with immense noise.

“Betting too!” said Jane in horror.  “Mr. Elwood betted three chocolate creams upon Charley, and Pica took it!  Father!  Come and call Meg away.”

She spoke exactly as if she were summoning him to snatch her sister from Rouge et NOIR at Monaco; and her face was indescribable when her aunt Edith set us all off laughing by saying, “Fearful depravity, my dear.”

“Won’t you come, father?” continued Jane; “Mr. Methuen, won’t you come and stop those young men?”

Mr. Methuen smiled a little and looked at Horace, who said—­

“Hush, Janie; these are not things in which to interfere.”

“Then,” quoth Jane sententiously, “I am not astonished at the dissipation of the university.”