“This is Thérèse’s proper place, and here she shall stay,” replied the lady. “However, she shall read to us; and then, you know, she cannot be a spy upon your doings.” Thérèse read accordingly till the hair was dressed. At the first pause, Philips observed that she must brush up her French, her fluency in which she had lost from having missed the advantage of visiting Paris last year. “Thérèse will be obliged to any one who will talk with her in her own tongue, Philips. Suppose, instead of having fancies about supplanting one another, you make the best use you can of each other, since you must be a good deal together.” “I will do my best, I am sure, my lady, to instruct the girl in all that relates to her own sphere, without encroaching on mine. I will do my best to reform her dress, which really bespeaks her to be a green-grocer’s daughter, if I may venture to say so. But as to dressing hair,—allow me to appeal to lady Frances whether it can be expected that I should disseminate my principles out of my own sphere.” “See who knocks, Thérèse.” The earl and lady Frances were below, and lady Frances would be particularly glad to speak to Mrs. Philips, if not engaged with my lady. Mrs. Philips, at her lady’s desire, went to receive her late mistress’s commands, and Thérèse enacted the lady’s-maid, as she had done from the time she had left Paris in lady F——’s train. “Come, Thérèse, let us have done before anybody arrives to criticise us novices. How nervous you look, child! What is the difference between dressing me to-day and any other day?” “There is no toilet in travelling, madame,—no fêtes like this; and in the inns there was so much less grandeur than here. I have not been educated to serve you, like Mrs. Philips, or to live in a great house.—I am more fit to sew for you, madame, or read to you, than to help you instead of Mrs. Philips.” “I do not want two Mrs. Philipses, you know; and as for the grandeur you speak of,—if we do not find it comfortable, we will have done with it. What have we too much of,—of light, or of warmth, or of drawers and dressing boxes, or of books? You like old china, and I like old pictures, and here are both. Which of all these things do you wish away?” “O, none of them, I dare say, when I grow used to them: but they are so little like my father’s house! I felt the inns very grand at first, but they are bare and tarnished, compared with what we have here.” “Yes. You would have been glad of such a rug as this under your feet in those cold rooms at Amiens; and I should have liked such a mirror as this instead of one so cracked, that one half of my face looked as if it could not possibly fit the other. I see much to like and nothing to be afraid of in rugs and mirrors.” “You, madame, no! You are made to have the best of everything come to you of its own accord; and you know how to use everything. You....”