custard, raisins again, and more fruit-cake, all despatched in great haste,
with no attention to the proper use of napkin, knife, fork, or spoon, was
acutely disagreeable to her; and it was amusing to see her efforts to
insinuate, as it were, better things into their daily life. "Nice, clever
children," she would say,--"so delicate-featured, and so refined in
appearance, but, heavens! what a monstrous system of education!" She had
taken a fancy to Bijou from the first, and she soon noticed in her a great
many little evidences of weariness, discontent, unhappiness; also that she
was alternately very pale and depressed or flushed and animated. She took
the girl therefore under her motherly wing, lectured her a little in her
gentle way about some things, praised her in others, and was very kind to
her.

"My dear," she would say, "do you not eat entirely too many sweets,
bon-bons, and what not, and then go without proper food at the regular
meals?" Or it would be, "How do you occupy yourself, as a rule, dear
child? Do you district-visit, botanize, sketch, learn a language? What do
you do? You would enjoy a course of belles-lettres, and should take that.
And that head in crayons that you did at school was pleasantly executed:
why not study from life constantly?" Bijou had to confess that she did
nothing, and not even that industriously. "But, my dear, you are not an
Asiatic. You surely don't wish to be a doll, a plaything, self-indulgent,
helpless, leading a life of mere luxurious indulgence and artificiality?"

No, Bijou had no such wish; but what was the use of learning or doing
anything now as a girl? If she married, it would be different; but then
she would never, never marry. But Miss Noel insisted that an idle woman
was a miserable woman, married or single, and was brisk and cheerful and
kind, and devised a number of small employments for Bijou, whom she kept
with her a great deal, and so befriended her as effectually as Mr. Ketchum