’Aunt Kitty will not consent, I am sure, if you are really unhappy there, my poor Clara.’

’No! no!  I am ordered not to tell granny.  It would only vex her, and Jem says it must be.  I don’t want her to be vexed, and if I tell you, I may be able to keep it in!’

Out poured the whole flood of troubles, unequal in magnitude, but most trying to the high-spirited girl.  Formal walks, silent meals, set manners, perpetual French, were a severe trial, but far worse was the companionship.  Petty vanities, small disputes, fretful jealousies, insincere tricks, and sentimental secrets, seemed to Clara a great deal more contemptible than the ignorance, indolence, abrupt manners and boyish tastes which brought her into constant disgrace—­and there seemed to be one perpetual chafing and contradiction, which made her miserable.  And a further confidence could not help following, though with a warning that Jem must not hear it, for she did not mind, and he spent every farthing on her that he could afford.  She had been teased about her dress, told that her friends were mean and shabby, and rejected as a walking companion, because she had no parasol, and that was vulgar.

‘I am sure I wanted to walk with none of them,’ said Clara, ’and when our English governess advised me to get one, I told her I would give in to no such nonsense, for only vulgar people cared about them.  Such a scrape I got into!  Well, then Miss Salter, whose father is a knight, and who thinks herself the great lady of the school, always bridled whenever she saw me, and, at last, Lucy Raynor came whispering up, to beg that I would contradict that my grandmamma kept a school, for Miss Salter was so very particular.’

‘I should like to have heard your contradiction.’

’I never would whisper, least of all to Lucy Raynor, so I stood up in the midst, and said, as clear as I could, that my grandmother had always earned an honest livelihood by teaching little boys, and that I meant to do the same, for nothing would ever make me have anything to do with girls.’

‘That spoilt it,’ said Louis—­’the first half was dignified.’

‘What was the second?’

‘Human nature,’ said Louis.

‘I see,’ said Clara.  ’Well, they were famously scandalized, and that was all very nice, for they let me alone.  But you brought far worse on me, Louis.’

‘I!’

’Ay!  ’Twas my own fault, though, but I couldn’t help it.  You must know, they all are ready to bow down to the ninety-ninth part of a Lord’s little finger; and Miss Brown—­that’s the teacher—­always reads all the fashionable intelligence as if it were the Arabian Nights, and imparts little bits to Miss Salter and her pets; and so it was that I heard, whispered across the table, the dreadful accident to Viscount Fitzjocelyn!’

‘Did nobody write to you?’

’Yes—­I had a letter from granny, and another from Jem by the next morning’s post, or I don’t know what I should have done.  Granny was too busy to write at first; I didn’t three parts believe it before, but there was no keeping in at that first moment.’