“Yes indeed, miss, thank God!”
On reflection I accepted this. “You mean that a boy who never is—?”
“Is no boy for _me!_”
I held her tighter. “You like them with the spirit to be naughty?”
Then, keeping pace with her answer, “So do I!” I eagerly brought out.
“But not to the degree to contaminate—”
“To contaminate?”—my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. “To
corrupt.”
She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh.
“Are you afraid he’ll corrupt _you?_” She put the question with such a
fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match
her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.
But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in
another place. “What was the lady who was here before?”
“The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young and
almost as pretty, miss, even as you.”
“Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!” I recollect
throwing off. “He seems to like us young and pretty!”
“Oh, he _did_,” Mrs. Grose assented: “it was the way he liked
everyone!” She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up.
“I mean that’s _his_ way—the master’s.”