This terminated the dialogue, Julia retiring to her own room, carrying me with her. I was thrown upon the bed, and soon after my mistress opened a door, and summoned her two younger sisters, who were studying on the same floor, to join her. I shall not repeat all the delightful exclamations, and other signs of approbation, that so naturally escaped the two pretty little creatures, to whom I may be said to have now been introduced, when my beauty came under examination. I do not thus speak of myself out of any weakness, for pocket-handkerchiefs are wholly without vanity, but simply because I am impelled to utter nothing but truth. Julia had too much consideration to let her young sisters into the secret of my price--for this would have been teaching a premature lesson in extravagance; but, having permitted them to gratify their curiosity, she exacted of them both promises not to speak of me to their governess. "But why not, Julia?" asked the inquisitive little Jane, "Mademoiselle Hennequin is SO good and SO kind, that she would be glad to hear of your good fortune." Julia had an indistinct view of her own motive, but she could not avow it to any one, not even to herself. Jealousy would be too strong, perhaps too indelicate a word, but she alone had detected Betts Shoreham's admiration of the governess; and it was painful to her to permit one who stood in this relation to her own weakness in favor of the young man, to be a witness of an act of extravagance to which she had only half consented in committing it, and of which she already more than half repented. From the first, therefore, she determined that Mademoiselle Hennequin should never see me. CHAPTER XIV. And now comes an exhibition of my mesmeritic powers, always "handkerchiefly speaking," that may surprise those who have not attended to the modern science of invisible fluids. It is by this means, however, that I am enabled to perceive a great deal of that which passes under the roof where I may happen to be, without absolutely seeing it. Much escapes me, of course--for even a pocket-handkerchief cannot hear or see every thing; but enough is learned to enable me to furnish a very clear outline of that which occurs near me; more especially if it happen to be within walls of brick. In wooden edifices I find my powers much diminished--the fluids, doubtless, escaping through the pores of the material. That evening, then, at the usual hour, and while I lay snugly ensconced in a most fragrant and convenient drawer, among various other beings of my species, though not of my family, alas! the inmates of the house assembled in the front drawing-room to take a few cups of tea. Mr. and Mrs. Monson, with their only son, John Monson, their three daughters, the governess, and Betts Shoreham, were all present; the latter having dropped in with a new novel for the ladies.