The Nonesuch Read Online Free PDF Page B

transformed from a tomboy into an accomplished young lady.
    Unfortunately, Miss Climping’s establishment included a number of day-pupils, with whom Tiffany soon struck up friendships. She was permitted to visit them, and once outside the seminary considerably extended her circle of acquaintances. It was not until a billet from a love-lorn youth, addressed to Tiffany, and smuggled into the house by a venial servant, fell into Miss Climping’s hands that the good lady realized that the unexceptionable visits to school friends masked far from desirable excursions; or that a girl not yet sixteen could embark on a clandestine love-affair. Tiffany was a valuable pupil, her trustees paying for every extra on the curriculum without a blink; but had it not been for one circumstance Miss Climping would have requested Mr Burford to remove from her select establishment a firebrand who threatened to ruin its reputation. That was the arrival, to assume the duties of a junior teacher, of Ancilla Trent, herself a one-time pupil at the school. Bored by the reproaches and the homilies of what she called a parcel of old dowdies, Tiffany took an instant fancy to the new teacher, who was only eight years older than herself, and in whose clear gray eyes she was swift to detect a twinkle. It did not take her long to discover that however straitened her circumstances might be Ancilla came of a good family, and had been used to move in unquestionably genteel circles. She recognized, and was a little awed by, a certain elegance which owed nothing to Ancilla’s simple dresses; and bit by bit she began to lend an ear to such scraps of worldly advice as Ancilla let fall at seasonable moments. It was no part of Ancilla’s duty to admonish the older pupils, nor did she do so. She appreciated the humour of certain outrageous pranks, but managed to convey to the heiress that they were perhaps a little childish; and when informed of Tiffany’s determination to marry into the peerage not only accepted this as a praiseworthy ambition, but entered with gratifying enthusiasm into various schemes for furthering it. As these were solely concerned with the preparation of the future peeress for her exalted estate, Tiffany was induced to pay attention to lessons in Deportment, to practise her music, and even, occasionally, to read a book; so that when she left school she had ceased to be a tomboy, and had even acquired a few accomplishments and a smattering of learning.
    But she was harder than ever to manage, and nothing was farther from her intention than to submit to her Aunt Burford’s plans for her. Mrs Burford, launching her eldest daughter into society, said that Tiffany was too young to be brought out. She might sometimes be allowed to join a small, informal party, or be included in an expedition of pleasure, but she was to consider herself still a schoolroom miss. She would attend concerts and dancing-lessons under the chaperonage of her cousins’ governess; and she must spend a part of her time trying to improve her French, and learning to play the harp.
    Mrs Burford had reckoned without her host. Tiffany did none of these things; and at the end of three months Mrs Burford informed her lord that unless he wished to be plunged into some shocking scandal, and to see the wife of his bosom dwindle into the grave, he would be so obliging as to send his niece back to Yorkshire. Not only was she so lost to all sense of propriety as to escape from the house when she was believed to be in bed and asleep, and to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens, escorted by a besotted youth she had met heaven only knew where or how: she was utterly destroying her cousin Bella’s chances of forming an eligible connection. No sooner did a possible suitor catch sight of Bella’s abominable cousin, said Mrs Burford bitterly, than he had eyes for no one else. As for a marriage between her and Jack, or William, even had she shown herself willing (which she most certainly had