Читать книгу When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead. A Thrilling Detective Story онлайн

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“The latter is a very bright girl, but she is fearfully spoiled by alternate over-indulgence and fault-finding. She has led her former governess a pretty dance, by all accounts, and coolly told me that she always did as she liked, and that it was no use telling tales of her, as her mother never believed them, but invariably punished the governess instead of the refractory pupil.

“‘It’s no use your setting me any lessons,’ she remarked yesterday afternoon. ‘I shall only work when I like, just as I have always done.’

“‘Very well,’ I replied coolly, ‘we’ll be idle together. It’s no use killing oneself to keep oneself, is it?’

“You would have been highly amused if you had seen Miss Fanny Stavanger’s stare of surprise. She is evidently not used to being humoured.

“‘I don’t know,’ was her dubious answer to my query. ‘If you take your wages you ought to try to earn them. That is what mamma always tells the other servants.’

“This wasn’t a palatable speech to hear. But the stake for which I am playing is too big to allow me to be daunted by trifles, so I merely told the girl it rested entirely with her whether I accepted my ‘wages’ from her parents or not, and that if she refused to learn her lessons there would be no alternative for me but to refuse.