“No, my little Harry,” replied the placid mother.

The very appearance of the children, fragile, delicate-looking, nervous, was in striking contrast to the solid, rosy, somewhat stolid English children to whom she was accustomed.  They were pretty, quite abnormally intelligent she thought, and as attractive as such rearing would permit them to become; but their habits and manners positively afflicted her.  She pined to put them to bed at seven o’clock, keep them four or five hours of every day in the open air, give them simple, nourishing food,—­in short, inaugurate the wholesome nursery system of her own country.  To see them sitting down to table without saying their grace or putting on their pinafores, and order of the servant soups full of condiments, veal, any or all of eight vegetables, pickles, tarts, pudding, jelly, custard, fruit-cake, bon-bons, strong coffee, cheese, almonds, raisins, figs, more custard, raisins again, and more fruit-cake, all despatched in great haste, with no attention to the proper use of napkin, knife, fork, or spoon, was acutely disagreeable to her; and it was amusing to see her efforts to insinuate, as it were, better things into their daily life.  “Nice, clever children,” she would say,—­“so delicate-featured, and so refined in appearance, but, heavens! what a monstrous system of education!” She had taken a fancy to Bijou from the first, and she soon noticed in her a great many little evidences of weariness, discontent, unhappiness; also that she was alternately very pale and depressed or flushed and animated.  She took the girl therefore under her motherly wing, lectured her a little in her gentle way about some things, praised her in others, and was very kind to her.

“My dear,” she would say, “do you not eat entirely too many sweets, bon-bons, and what not, and then go without proper food at the regular meals?” Or it would be, “How do you occupy yourself, as a rule, dear child?  Do you district-visit, botanize, sketch, learn a language?  What do you do?  You would enjoy a course of belles-lettres, and should take that.  And that head in crayons that you did at school was pleasantly executed:  why not study from life constantly?” Bijou had to confess that she did nothing, and not even that industriously.  “But, my dear, you are not an Asiatic.  You surely don’t wish to be a doll, a plaything, self-indulgent, helpless, leading a life of mere luxurious indulgence and artificiality?”

No, Bijou had no such wish; but what was the use of learning or doing anything now as a girl?  If she married, it would be different; but then she would never, never marry.  But Miss Noel insisted that an idle woman was a miserable woman, married or single, and was brisk and cheerful and kind, and devised a number of small employments for Bijou, whom she kept with her a great deal, and so befriended her as effectually as Mr. Ketchum had done Mr. Ramsay.  Mrs. Sykes found fault with her once or twice, but did not find her all meekness.