Afterwards
Pip spent the first week of her married life interviewing governesses. She interviewed tall governesses and short ones, young governesses and old ones, blonde governesses and brunettes, a redhead, and two governesses with gray hair. She asked them all the same two questions. “Which of these qualities is, in your opinion, the single most important one for girls to acquire?”
The latest candidate, a Miss Bollingbroke, was short, young, plump, and brown-haired. She had a lot of freckles and a pair of spectacles. She pushed the spectacles up her nose while she looked at the list Pip had given her.
Docility
Obedience
Confidence
Modesty
Deference
Humility
Miss Bollingbroke frowned as she read her way down the list, and then glanced at Pip. “The most important quality?”
“Yes.”
