Mr Hogarth's Will by Catherine Helen Spence

Mrs. Phillips was somewhat annoyed at her husband's treating Elsie Melville on their continental tour more as a travelling companion than as a paid dependant. Where was to be the glory of this journey through France and Italy, of which she would have to boast all her life, if her maid and herself were to be on such terms of equality? In vain Mr. Phillips said he had disliked the difference that was made between the two sisters, and had only submitted to it in London on account of the servants, and that he was glad to take this opportunity of treating Elsie as her birth and education deserved. In vain he pointed out that French ladies conducted themselves to their dependants with less distance and hauteur than Englishwomen, and that in France it was proper to do as the French did.

Mrs. Phillips felt offended, and, for the first time in her life, a little jealous -- not very jealous, for she was so conscious of her own beauty, and so unconscious of her defects of mind and temper, that she had a strong substratum of confidence in her husband's affection -- but at this time, Elsie was looking really very pretty; her movements were quick and graceful -- a great contrast to Mrs. Phillips's slow, dignified, Juno-like deportment -- and her conversation so sparkling and amusing, that she thought Mr. Phillips looked at her too much, and talked to her too much. When they spoke French together -- for Mr. Phillips was trying to revive his more than half-forgotten schoolboy French, and found he could do it more easily with Alice than with the foreigners -- Mrs. Phillips had a vague sense that they were talking about something that they did not want her to hear.