At luncheon, as they had agreed, Lily began by asking where her papa
and William were gone? Claude answered, 'To Stoney Bridge, to call
upon Mr. Stevens; they mean to ask him to dine one day next week, to
be introduced to his pupils.'
'Is he an Oxford or Cambridge man?' asked Lily.
'Oxford,' exclaimed Jane, quite forgetting whence she had derived her
information, 'he is a fellow of--'
'Indeed?' said Lily; 'how do you know that?'
'Why, we have all been talking of him lately,' said Jane.
'Not I,' said Emily, 'why should he interest us?'
'Because he is to tutor the boys,' said Jane.
'When did you hear that he is to tutor the boys?' asked Lily.
'When you did, I suppose,' said Jane, blushing.
'You did, did you?' said Claude. 'I feel convinced, if so, that you
must really be what you are so often called, a changeling. I heard
it, or rather read it first at Oxford, where the Baron desired me to
make inquiries about him. You were, doubtless, looking over my
shoulder at the moment. This is quite a discovery. We shall have to
perform a brewery of egg-shells this evening, and put the elf to
flight with a red-hot poker, and what a different sister Jane we
shall recover, instead of this little mischief-making sprite, so
quiet, so reserved, never intruding her opinion, showing constant
deference to all her superiors--yes, and to her inferiors, shutting
her eyes to the faults of others, and when they come before her,
trying to shield the offender from those who regard them as merely
exciting news.
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