But the Count de Vieux-bois had gone upon a very different plan; and it is quite possible that just as Helen found it much more lifelike and real to mend Janey’s frocks and teach her her letters, so the demoiselles Cécile and Thérèse might have found more satisfaction in the abortive balls and dinner-parties, which might not have come to nothing in their hands. But the life of which Helen became a spectator at the _château_ filled her with admiration and awe. She could only look with respectful alarm at the volumes which the others worked steadily through, morning after morning, with the most noble devotion. No one so much as saw the young ladies at the _château_ till twelve o’clock, when the big bell rang, and they all came out of their rooms to the first common meal. “When do you work?” Cécile had said almost severely when Helen told her of the breakfasts in England. “If it is so, I shall not like that at all. When can one work?--and if one does not read, and read much, how shall one be a companion to one’s husband?” the young lady asked with great gravity. We have already said that domestic virtue and duty is, in France, for the time being, the highest fashion, the finest _cachet_ of supreme aristocracy. Helen made the most simple, but, to this highly educated young Frenchwoman, the most bewildering reply. “Oh! perhaps he will not read very much either. Gentlemen never do; they read the ‘Times’ and the ‘Field’--and; have I said anything wrong?” (“Elle est folle donc,” said Thérèse to Cécile. “C’est que son père est un homme de _sport_,” said Cécile in an undertone to Thérèse.) “You deceive yourself, _chère_ Hélène,” said the elder sister with a smile. “The journals are nothing; one must know what is going on. But if you knew how difficult it is to keep up with the reading of gentlemen--our dear father, for example. Mamma did not try. She said, ‘It is useless at my age. I cannot do it; my daughters, I leave it to you.’ And we tried, but never succeeded. Nevertheless, papa was very kind. He always recognised that there were difficulties. But I am resolved to be a companion to my husband. I will not leave it to my daughters,” said Cécile. “I have read your great writers, and a great deal of the constitutional history. And now I shall be ready to take up anything that John is doing.” “Is his name John?” said Helen, with rising interest. “It is a very pretty name,” said Cécile; “there are a great many in England. It is something like our Jean in France, but more _distingué_.” “Oh, much, much more distinguished,” said Thérèse. “He had not any title at first,” Cécile continued. “They say that in England that, too, is more distinguished. I thought I should be called Mistress. It is droll.”