"You have improved wonderfully, Fan, since you first came," she said,
"but I fear that this kind of improvement will not be of much practical
use, and my conscience is not quite satisfied about you. I have taken
this responsibility on myself, and must not go on shutting my eyes to it.
Some day it will be necessary for you to go out into the world to earn
your own living; that is what we have got to think about. Remember that
you can't have me always to take care of you; I might go abroad, or die,
or get married, and then you would be left to your own resources. You
couldn't make your living by simply looking pretty; you must be useful as
well as ornamental; and I have taught you nothing--teaching is not in my
line. It would be a thousand pities if you were ever to sink down to the
servant-girl level: we must think of something better than that. A young
lady generally aspires to be a governess. But then she must know
everything--music, drawing, French, German, Latin, mathematics, algebra;
all that she must have at her finger-ends, and be able to gabble
political economy, science, and metaphysics to boot. All that is beyond
you--unattainable as the stars. But you needn't break your heart about
it. She doesn't get much. Her wages are about equal to those of a
kitchen-maid, who can't spell, but only peel potatoes. And the more
learned she is, the more she is disliked and snubbed by her betters; and
she never marries, in spite of what the _Family Herald_ says, but
goes on toiling until she is fifty, and then retires to live alone on
fifteen shillings a week in some cheap lodging for the remnant of her
dreary life. No, poor Fan, you can't hope to be anything as grand as a
governess."

Fan laughed a little: she had grown accustomed to and understood this
half-serious mocking style of speech in which her mistress often
indulged.