"She has not only amiability and kindness of heart," said the Reverend Mother, at the parting interview with the pupil's father, "she has plenty of common sense, and she will never give you any trouble." When the General took his daughter to India, there had been some talk of a companion-governess, or governess-companion, for Suzette; but against this infliction the girl herself protested strongly. "If I am not old enough or wise enough to take care of myself, I will go back to the convent," she declared. "I would rather take the veil than submit to be governed by a 'Mrs. General.' I had learnt everything the nuns could teach me before I left the Sacré Cœur. I am not going to be taught by an inferior teacher--some smatterer, perhaps. Nobody can teach like the sisters of the Sacré Cœur." General Vincent had been preached at by his female relatives on this subject of the governess-companion. "Suzette is too young and too pretty to be alone," said one. "Suzette will get into idle habits if there is no one to direct her mind," said another. "A girl's education has only begun when she leaves school," said a third, as gloomy in their foreshadowing of evil as if they had been the three fatal sisters. But the General loved his daughter, and when withdrawing her from the convent had promised her that her life should be happy; so he abandoned an idea that had never been his own. "A Mrs. General would have been a doosid expensive importation," he told his friends afterwards, "and I knew there would be plenty of nice women to look after Suzie." Suzette had proved quite capable of looking after herself, unaided by the nice women; indeed, her conduct had been--or should have been--a liberal education to more than one of those nice women, who might have found their matronly exuberances of conversation and behaviour in a manner rebuked by the girl's discretion and self-respect. Suzette passed unsmirched through the furnace of a season at Simla, and a season at Naini Tal, and came to rustic Wiltshire with all the frank gaiety of happy girlhood, and all the _savoir faire_ which comes of two years' society experience. She had been courted and wooed, and had blighted the hopes of more than one eligible admirer. When she came to Matcham, there was again a question of chaperon or companion. The odious word governess was abandoned. But it was said that Indian society was less conventional than English society, and that what might be permitted at Simla could hardly be endured at Wiltshire; and again Suzette threatened to go back to her convent if she were not to be trusted with the conduct of her own life. "If I cannot take care of myself I am only fit for a cloister," she said. "I would rather be a lay sister, and scrub floors, than be led about by some prim personage, paid to keep watch and ward over me, a hired guardian of my manners and my complexion."