I don't want to play second fiddle to my sister.'
'You are a very impertinent person, and deserve to be taken at your
word,' replied my lady, scowling at her; 'but I have no doubt before you
are twenty you will tell another story.'
'Oh!' said Mary, now just turned seventeen, 'then I am not to come out
till I am twenty.'
'That will be soon enough,' answered the Countess. 'It will take you as
long to get rid of those odious freckles. And no doubt by that time
Lesbia will have made a brilliant marriage.'
And now on this rainy July morning these two girls, neither of whom had
any serious employment for her life, or any serious purpose in living,
wasted the hours, each in her own fashion.
Lesbia reclined upon a cushioned seat in the deep embrasure of a Tudor
window, her _pose_ perfection--it was one of many such attitudes which
Mademoiselle had taught her, and which by assiduous training had become
a second nature. Poor Mademoiselle, having finished her mission and
taught Lesbia all she could teach, had now departed to a new and far
less luxurious situation in a finishing school at Passy; but Fraeulein
Mueller was still retained, as watch-dog and duenna.
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