e don't know you as
yet, however. But we have heard things!"

"Come and see my room," Geraldine interrupted. "And perhaps you'd like
to see your own. It's next to mine."

"Are you allowed to go up and down stairs just as you like?" Beth
asked in surprise.

"Why, of course!" Geraldine cried. "You can go where you like and sit
where you like when you've done your work. We're not in prison!"

Beth had a dainty little room, hung with white curtains, all to
herself. Her heart expanded when she saw it. The delightful appearance
of her new surroundings had already begun to have the happiest effect
upon her mind.

When Geraldine took her into her own room she drew a yellow book from
under a quantity of linen in a drawer. "It's a French novel," she
said. "Miss Blackburne wouldn't let me read it for worlds if she knew,
so you mustn't tell. I'll lend it to you if you like."

"I couldn't read it if I would; I don't know enough," Beth said.

"Oh, you'll soon learn; and I'll tell you all there is in it. I say,
what size is your waist? Mine is only seventeen inches; but I laced
till I got shingles to reduce it to that. I know a doctor who says
small waists are neither healthy nor beautiful; but then they're the
fashion, and men are such awful fools about fashion. They sneer at a
healthy figure, and saddle themselves every day with ailing wives, all
deformed, because they're accustomed to see women so; and then they
call _us_ silly! My husband won't think _me_ silly once I get command
of his money, whatever else he may think me. Till then--!" she made a
pretty gesture with her hands and laughed--Beth observing her the
while with deep attention as a new specimen.

She found eventually that Geraldine was not at all a bad girl, or in
the least inclined to be vicious, her conversation notwithstanding;
she was merely a shrewd one learning how to protect herself in that
state of life to which she was destined. If a woman is to make her way
in society and keep straight, she must have wits and knowledge of a
special kind. There is probably no more delightful, high-minded,
charming-mannered, honourable and trustworthy woman in the world than
a well-bred Englishwoman; but, on the other hand, there can be nothing
more vulgar-minded, coarse, and despicable than women of fashion tend
to become. There is no meanness nor shabbiness, not to mention fraud,
that they will not stoop to when it suits themselves, from tricking a
tradesman and swe