“Why is it queer?” said Lucy. “If he is their nephew, he may surely come to see them. If they had a son, he would live here.”
“I don’t think so,” said Katie promptly. “Oh, no! if they had a dozen sons, not while the girls are here. It would never do. I have been at other schools, and I know. I have spent my life at schools, I think,” the girl said, with an impatient shrug of her shoulders, “and I know mademoiselle is quite right, though she oughtn’t to say so. I wonder, Lucy, if I will be as governessy when I am old? They almost always are.”
Lucy could not follow this quick digression. She gazed at her friend with wondering eyes. “You always jump so,” she said. “Which am I to answer--about the gentleman, or about--”
“Oh, never mind the gentleman. I only told you--it can’t matter very much to me,” said Katie. “It is for Maud and Lily, and girls of that set, that it is not right, or you-- Is it true that you are to have a great fortune, Lucy? I always wanted to ask you, but I did not like--”
“Yes, I believe so,” said Lucy quietly; “why shouldn’t you like? Papa takes a great deal of trouble about it: but it does not matter so much to me. One is just the same one’s self, whether one is rich or poor; it will give a great deal of trouble. So I don’t care for it for my part.”
“Oh, I should care for it,” cried Katie. “I should not mind the trouble. How delightful it must be to be really, really rich! I should give-- I should do--oh, I don’t know what I shouldn’t do! The use of being rich,” Katie added sententiously, “is that you can do as you please--go where you please, be as kind to everybody as you please; help people, enjoy yourself, buy everything you like, and yet always have something. Oh,” she said, clasping her hands, “to have to think and think whether you can buy yourself a pair of gloves--not to be able to get a cab when your mother is tired; and to grow old, and to grow governessy, like mademoiselle--”
“Mademoiselle is very nice, Katie. Don’t say anything against her.”
“_I_ say anything against her! I adore her! but she is governessy, how can she help it, poor old darling? Her mind is full of the girls’ little ways, and what they mean by this and by that, Lucy,” said the girl, stopping short to give greater emphasis to her words. “If we ever see each other when I am an old governess like mademoiselle--be sure you remember to tell me when you see me worrying, that the girls mean _nothing_ by it--_nothing!_ This is the 21st of February. It is my birthday-- I am nineteen. Tell me to recollect that I said they meant nothing--and that it’s true.”