One reason was, as she discerned through her confusion at the thought, that the day drew near for her speaking fully to Nesta; when, between what she then said and what she said now, a cruel contrast might strike the girl and in toneing revelations now, to be more consonant with them then;—­in softening and shading the edges of social misconduct, it seemed painfully possible to be sowing in the girl’s mind something like the reverse of moral precepts, even to smoothing the way to a rebelliousness partly or wholly similar to her own.  But Nataly’s chief and her appeasing reason for pursuing the conventional system with this exceptional young creature, referred to the sentiments on that subject of the kind of young man whom a mother elects from among those present and eligible, as perhaps next to worthy to wed the girl, by virtue of good promise in the moral department.  She had Mr. Dudley Sowerby under view; far from the man of her choice and still the practice of decorum, discretion, a pardonable fastidiousness, appears, if women may make any forecast of the behaviour of young men or may trust the faces they see, to, promise a future stability in the husband.  Assuredly a Dudley Sowerby would be immensely startled to find in his bride a young woman more than babily aware of the existence of one particular form of naughtiness on earth.

Victor was of no help:  he had not an idea upon the right education of the young of the sex.  Repression and mystery, he considered wholesome for girls; and he considered the enlightening of them—­to some extent—­a prudential measure for their defence; and premature instruction is a fire-water to their wild-in-woods understanding; and histrionic innocence is no doubt the bloom on corruption; also the facts of current human life, in the crude of the reports or the cooked of the sermon in the newspapers, are a noxious diet for our daughters; whom nevertheless we cannot hope to be feeding always on milk:  and there is a time when their adorable pretty ignorance, if credibly it exists out of noodledom, is harmful:—­but how beautiful the shining simplicity of our dear young English girls!  He was one of the many men to whose minds women come in pictures and are accepted much as they paint themselves.  Like his numerous fellows, too, he required a conflict with them, and a worsting at it, to be taught, that they are not the mere live stock we scheme to dispose of for their good:  unless Love should interpose, he would have exclaimed.  He broke from his fellows in his holy horror of a father’s running counter to love.  Nesta had only to say, that she loved another, for Dudley Sowerby to be withdrawn into the background of aspirants.  But love was unknown to the girl.