that it may be seen whether I am worthy to be, on some august future
occasion--possibly--a member (Oh, so much to mumble!) of this great
family. Had I known it when I was leaving home, I should have
countermanded the cording of my boxes. If you please, I do the packing,
and not the cording. I must practise being polite, or I shall be
horrifying these good people.

I am mortally offended. I am very very angry. I shall show temper.
Indeed, I have shown it. Mr. Pollingray must and does think me a goose.
Dear sir, and I think you are justified. If any one pretends to guess
how, I have names to suit that person. I am a ninny, an ape, and mind
I call myself these bad things because I deserve worse. I am flighty,
I believe I am heartless. Charles is away, and I suffer no pangs.
The truth is, I fancied myself so exceedingly penetrating, and it was my
vanity looking in a glass. I saw something that answered to my nods and
howd'ye-do's and--but I am ashamed, and so penitent I might begin making
a collection of beetles. I cannot lift up my head.

Mr. Pollingray is such a different man from the one I had imagined!
What that one was, I have now quite forgotten. I remember too clearly
what the wretched guesser was. I have been three weeks at Dayton, and if
my sisters know me when I return to the vicarage, they are not foolish
virgins. For my part, I know that I shall always hate Mrs. Romer
Pattlecombe, and that I am unjust to the good woman, but I do hate her,
and I think the stories shocking, and wonder intensely what it was that I
could have found in them to laugh at. I shall never laugh again for many
years. Perhaps, when I am an old woman, I may. I wish the time had
come. All young people seem to me so helplessly silly. I am one of them
for the present, and have no hope that I can appear to be anything else.
The young are a crowd--a shoal of small fry. Their elders are the select