She knew governesses were poor; Miss
Overmore was unmentionably and Mrs. Wix ever so publicly so. Neither
this, however, nor the old brown frock nor the diadem nor the button,
made a difference for Maisie in the charm put forth through everything,
the charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that somehow, in her ugliness and her
poverty, she was peculiarly and soothingly safe; safer than any one
in the world, than papa, than mamma, than the lady with the arched
eyebrows; safer even, though so much less beautiful, than Miss Overmore,
on whose loveliness, as she supposed it, the little girl was faintly
conscious that one couldn't rest with quite the same tucked-in and
kissed-for-good-night feeling. Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda,
who was in heaven and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal Green, where
they had been together to see her little huddled grave. It was from
something in Mrs. Wix's tone, which in spite of caricature remained
indescribable and inimitable, that Maisie, before her term with her
mother was over, drew this sense of a support, like a breast-high
banister in a place of "drops," that would never give way. If she knew
her instructress was poor and queer she also knew she was not nearly so
"qualified" as Miss Overmore, who could say lots of dates straight off
(letting you hold the book yourself), state the position of Malabar, play
six pieces without notes and, in a sketch, put in beautifully the trees
and houses and difficult parts.
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