and governesses are but women, and women are sometimes foolish,
and when you want to be foolish it must be annoying to have
to be wise.

Minora and Irais arrived yesterday together; or rather,
when the carriage drove up, Irais got out of it alone, and informed
me that there was a strange girl on a bicycle a little way behind.
I sent back the carriage to pick her up, for it was dusk and
the roads are terrible.

"But why do you have strange girls here at all?" asked Irais
rather peevishly, taking off her hat in the library before the fire,
and otherwise making herself very much at home; "I don't like them.
I'm not sure that they're not worse than husbands who are out of order.
Who is she? She would bicycle from the station, and is, I am sure,
the first woman who has done it. The little boys threw stones at her."

"Oh, my dear, that only shows the ignorance of the little boys.
Never mind her. Let us have tea in peace before she comes."
"But we should be much happier without her," she grumbled.
"Weren't we happy enough in the summer, Elizabeth--just you and I? "

"Yes, indeed we were," I answered heartily, putting my
arms round her. The flame of my affection for Irais burns
very brightly on the day of her arrival; besides, this time I
have prudently provided against her sinning with the salt-cellars
by ordering them to be handed round like vegetable dishes.
We had finished tea and she had gone up to her room to dress
before Minora and her bicycle were got here. I hurried out
to meet her, feeling sorry for her, plunged into a circle