six weeks had passed she had got over that, and thought
being in London had softened it down very considerably, and she did not
think the children were at all inclined to pick it up. She began to
wonder if the governess would not give her some help or some hints, for
she was going to visit her husband's relations in Derbyshire for a
second time--her first visit had not been very long--and she hoped and
wished that she might get on better than she had done before. Her
husband had never found any fault with her in the bush of Australia;
but her blunders before his father, brother, and sisters had distressed
him so much that he had spoken to her many times rather sharply in
private about them. Though she was a woman of a very indolent
character, now that Jane managed all her housekeeping and her servants,
wrote all her notes--that, however, was a saving of time to her husband
rather than to herself--and relieved her a good deal from the worry of
the children, she felt that she had some time on her hands, in spite of
her going out a good deal to see and to be seen. She was no reader, and
had no taste for needlework; but she had the gift of being able to sit
in an easy chair thinking of nothing in particular, and doing nothing
at all, but looking so beautiful that one might have fancied her
thoughts to be of the most elevated description.

One day, while in this state of luxurious ease, she asked Jane how long
she had been at school, and opened her eyes a hair-breadth or two wider
when she was told of the education so peculiar, so protracted, that Mr.
Hogarth had given to his nieces, and that even after she had left off
regular study, Jane had never ceased to be learning something. Even now
she was keeping up, partly for Tom Lowrie's sake, and partly for her
own gratification, some of those branches of learning that were likely
to be useful to him, and corresponding with him every week on those
subjects.

Mrs. Phillips sighed, and said she had been married at sixteen, and had
been very little at school all her life. She had always been moved from
place to place when she was a girl, and there were no schools in the
colony that were fit to teach young ladies then. Even now, it was the
children's education that had been Mr. Phillips's great inducement to
come to England, and she liked it very much herself, there was so much
to see in London. But would Miss Melville think it very absurd if she
were to propose to take lessons no