And what does she require to have in order to accomplish all this? Only a pretty face and figure, and some cleverness! If a woman is naturally pretty, if she knows how to enhance her charms with tasteful dress, and understands how to show them off properly, and if she keeps her five senses together, so as to have them at hand the moment they are wanted, I tell you she must win. There’s hardly one sensible man in a dozen, and, as far as their relation to women goes, even that sensible one is sure to be caught in the net, if it is only not spread to clumsily. If I was your father I’d make an actress you!”
“Father would never allow that,” said Jenny.
“That’s what I say! But even as a governess you may have good luck. You are pretty even now, and if you don’t get the small-pox, you’ll be a fine woman in a few years. Learn, my dear girl; cram your head as fast as you can with all sorts of knowledge. If you are able to play the piano well, and to sing coquettishly; if you can speak French fluently, and know how to converse pleasantly about everything; if you will understand how to humour the one that holds the reins of the house, and to find out the foibles of important persons, and to work upon them for your own advantage; if you will know how to be virtuous at proper times, and again to be more accessible at other suitable times, and—above all—if you have a determined will and know how to carry your own point;—the deuce must be in it if you, as a governess or companion in a nobleman’s family, do not succeed in catching some fine baron, or even a count!”
Jenny’s innate girlish feelings naturally revolted at first against such barefaced principles and doctrines as these. But her disposition was not at all inclined
