“Yes, of course,” said the girl, putting down her stitching and looking up; “that is not exactly what I mean.  They can go in the current, they can do what they like with their money, but I mean with themselves.  Aren’t they in a condition that binds them half the time to do what they don’t wish to do?”

“It’s a condition that all the world is trying to get into.”

“I know.  I’ve been talking with mamma about the world and about society, and what is expected and what you must live up to.”

“But you have always known that you must one day go into the world and take your share in life.”

“That, yes.  But I would rather live up to myself.  Mamma seems to think that society will do a great deal for me, that I will get a wider view of life, that I can do so much for society, and, with my position, mamma says, have such a career.  McDonald, what is society for?”

That was such a poser that the governess threw up her hands, and then laughed aloud, and then shook her head.  “Wiser people than you have asked that question.”

“I asked mamma that, for she is in it all the time.  She didn’t like it much, and asked, ‘What is anything for?’ You see, McDonald, I’ve been with mamma many a time when her friends came to see her, and they never have anything to say, never—­what I call anything.  I wonder if in society they go about saying that?  What do they do it for?”

Miss McDonald had her own opinion about what is called society and its occupations and functions, but she did not propose to encourage this girl, who would soon take her place in it, in such odd notions.

“Don’t you know, child, that there is society and society?  That it is all sorts of a world, that it gets into groups and circles about, and that is the way the world is stirred up and kept from stagnation.  And, my dear, you have just to do your duty where you are placed, and that is all there is about it.”

“Don’t be cross, McDonald.  I suppose I can think my thoughts?”

“Yes, you can think, and you can learn to keep a good deal that you think to yourself.  Now, Evelyn, haven’t you any curiosity to see what this world we are talking about is like?”

“Indeed I have,” said Evelyn, coming out of her reflective mood into a girlish enthusiasm.  “And I want to see what I shall be like in it.  Only—­well, how is that?” And she held out the handkerchief she had been plying her needle on.

Miss McDonald looked at the stitches critically, at the letters T.M. enclosed in an oval.

“That is very good, not too mechanical.  It will please your father.  The oval makes a pretty effect; but what are those signs between the letters?”

“Don’t you see?  It is a cartouche, and those are hieroglyphics—­his name in Egyptian.  I got it out of Petrie’s book.”

“It certainly is odd.”

“And every one of the twelve is going to be different.  It is so interesting to hunt up the signs for qualities.  If papa can read it he will find out a good deal that I think about him.”