“If you make a brief attempt to resist, and do not maintain a stubborn and determined resistance, you will be cramped and crippled for life. As you put it, the whole social system of the upper classes is Chinese bandaging of the feet; not only so, but it is Indian flattening of the skull. I have felt, and so have you, that in this house our heads are strapped between boards to give them the requisite shape, and our brains to be not allowed to exceed the requisite measure.” “What can I do? I have no one but yourself to advise me.” “It will be impossible for you to escape the influences brought to bear on you, if you remain here; the Cribbages, great and small, will lie in wait till you are napping and then fall on you and bind you, and apply the laces to your feet, and the boards to your head.” “But, whither could I go?” Arminell asked. She thought for a moment, and then said, “If I went to my Aunt Hermione, it would be going from beneath the shower under the shoot. There never was a more formal, society-laced creature in the whole world than my aunt, Lady Hermione Flathead. Everything in her house, her talk, her manners, her mind, her piety, everything about her is conventional.” Lady Lamerton approached, with little spots of colour in her cheeks, holding a parasol. “My dear Arminell,” she said, “how can you be so inconsiderate as to come out without a sunshade?” “You see,” said Arminell, turning contemptuously away and addressing the tutor; “everything is to order. I may not even take two steps without a parasol, in fine weather; and in bad, without an umbrella. The hand must never be free.” “I think, Mr. Saltren,” said Lady Lamerton, “that it would be well if Giles went indoors, and, now that he is better, learnt a little Latin.” “As your ladyship desires it, certainly,” answered the tutor. “I am so glad, my dear,” said Lady Lamerton, “that you have waited for me on the terrace. I am sorry to have detained you one minute, but I was looking out the address of those Straceys. I will take your arm and we will look at the pansies.” “Step-mothers, the Germans call them,” said Arminell. “I do not admire pansies.” “We call them pansies, from _pensée_, dear, which means thought, kind thought, and forethought, which possibly, though not always acknowledged, is to be found in step-mothers.” Arminell tossed her head. “The homely name for these same flowers,” continued Lady Lamerton, “is hearts-ease, and I’m sure it is a misnomer, if hearts-ease be the equivalent for step-mother, especially when she has to do with a wayward step-daughter.” “I think that step-mothers would find most hearts-ease, if they would turn their activity away from their step-daughters, and leave them alone.”