"And do you write themes?" said she--"We always wrote themes once every week, at Suxberry House, which I used to hate of all things, for I never could find any thing to say--it made me hate writing, I know;--but that's all over now; thank goodness, I've done with themes, and French letters, and exercises, and translations, and all those plaguing things; and now I've left school for ever, I may do just as I please--that's the best of going to school; it's over some time or other, and there's an end of it; but you that have a governess and masters at home, you go on for ever and ever, and you have no holidays either; and you have no out-of-school hours; you are kept _hard at it_ from morning till night: now I should hate that of all things. At Suxberry House, when we had got our task done, and finished with the writing-master and the drawing-master, and when we had practised for the music-master, and _all that_, we might be as idle as we pleased, and do what we liked out of school-hours--you know that was very pleasant: I assure you, you'd like being at Suxberry House amazingly." Isabella and Matilda, to whom it did not appear the most delightful of all things to be idle, nor the most desirable thing in the world to have their education finished, and then to lay aside all thoughts of farther improvement, could not assent to Miss Fanshaw's concluding assertion. They declared that they did not feel any want of holidays; at which Miss Fanshaw stared: they said that they had no tasks, and that they liked to be employed rather better than to be idle; at which Miss Fanshaw laughed, and sarcastically said, "You need not talk to me as if your governess were by, for I'm not a tell-tale--I shan't repeat what you say." Isabella and Matilda, who had not two methods of talking, looked rather displeased at this ill-bred speech. "Nay," said Miss Fanshaw, "I hope you aren't affronted _now_ at what I said; when we are by ourselves, you know, one says just what comes into one's head. Whose handsome coach is this, pray, with a coronet?" continued she, looking out of the window: "I declare it is stopping at your door; do let us go down. I'm never afraid of going into the room when there's company, for we were taught to go into a room at Suxberry House; and Mrs. Suxberry says it's very vulgar to be ashamed, and I assure you it's all custom. I used to colour, as Miss Matilda does, every minute; but I got over it before I had been long at Suxberry House." Isabella, who had just been reading "A Father's Legacy to his Daughters," recollected at this instant Dr. Gregory's opinion, "that when a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of beauty." She had not, however, time to _quote_ this in Matilda's defence; for Miss Fanshaw ran down stairs, and Isabella recollected, before she overtook her, that it would not be polite to remind her of her early loss of charms.