the
evening, she changed her mode of making herself agreeable, and proceeded
on the indirect tack.

'Well, I couldn't help saying, miss, if you was to kill me for it,' said
the attendant, 'that I never see nobody look so vulgar as Miss Price
this night.'

Miss Squeers sighed, and composed herself to listen.

'I know it's very wrong in me to say so, miss,' continued the girl,
delighted to see the impression she was making, 'Miss Price being a
friend of your'n, and all; but she do dress herself out so, and go on
in such a manner to get noticed, that--oh--well, if people only saw
themselves!'

'What do you mean, Phib?' asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little
glass, where, like most of us, she saw--not herself, but the reflection
of some pleasant image in her own brain. 'How you talk!'

'Talk, miss! It's enough to make a Tom cat talk French grammar, only to
see how she tosses her head,' replied the handmaid.

'She DOES toss her head,' observed Miss Squeers, with an air of
abstraction.

'So vain, and so very--very plain,' said the girl.

'Poor 'Tilda!' sighed Miss Squeers, compassionately.

'And always laying herself out so, to get to be admired,' pursued the
servant. 'Oh, dear! It's positive indelicate.'

'I can't allow you to talk in that way, Phib,' said Miss Squeers.
''Tilda's friends are low people, and if she don't know any better, it's
their fault, and not hers.'

'Well, but you know, miss,' said Phoebe, for which name 'Phib' was
used as a patronising abbreviation, 'if she was only to take copy by
a friend--oh! if she only knew how wrong she was, and would but set
herself right by you, what a nice young woman she might be in time!'

'Phib,' rejoined Miss Squeers, with a stately air, 'it's not proper
for me to hear these comparisons drawn; they make 'Tilda look a coarse
improper sort of person, and it seems unfriendly in me to listen to
them. I would rather you dropped the subject, Phib; at the same time,
I must say, that if 'Tilda Price would take pattern by somebody--not me
particularly--'

'Oh yes; you, miss,' interposed Phib.

'Well, me, Phib, if you will have it so,' said Miss Squeers. 'I must
say, that if she would, she would be all the better for it.'

'So somebody else thinks, or I am much mistaken,' said the girl
mysteriously.

'What do you mean?' demanded Miss Squeers.

'Never mind, miss,' replied the girl; 'I know what I know; that's all.'

'Phib,' said Miss Squeers dramatically