Countess Kate

“There, I’ve done every bit I can do! I’m going to see what o’clock it is.”

“Sylvia, you’ll tip up! What a tremendous stretch!”

“Wha-ooh! Oh dear! We sha’n’t get one moment before dinner! Oh, horrible! oh, horrible! most horrible!”

“Sylvia, you know I hate hearing Hamlet profaned.”

“You can’t hate it more than having no one to hear our lessons.”

“That makes you do it. What on earth can Mary be about?”

“Some tiresome woman to speak to her, I suppose.”

“I’m sure it can’t be as much her business as it is to mind her poor little sisters. Oh dear! if Papa could only afford us a governess!”

“I am sure I should not like it at all; besides, it is wrong to wish to be richer than one is.”

“I don’t wish; I am only thinking how nice it would be, if some one would give us a famous quantity of money. Then Papa should have a pretty parsonage, like the one at Shagton; and we would make the church beautiful, and get another pony or two, to ride with Charlie.”

“Yes, and have a garden with a hothouse like Mr. Brown’s.”

“Oh yes; and a governess to teach us to draw. But best of all—O Sylvia! wouldn’t it be nice not to have to mind one’s clothes always? Yes, you laugh; but it comes easier to you; and, oh dear! oh dear! it is so horrid to be always having to see one does not tear oneself.”

“I don’t think you do see,” said Sylvia, laughing.

“My frocks always will get upon the thorns. It is very odd.”