By listening to all that was said, laughing when others laughed, keeping silent when she was puzzled, comparing results and drawing deductions, she presently began to understand a good deal more than she had bargained for, was considerably shocked and disgusted, and perhaps felt desirous to unlearn what she had learned.
But this was not so easy.

Things she would willingly have forgotten seemed, for that very reason, to stick in her memory--nay, in some moods of mind, to appear less entirely objectionable than in others.

She had little opportunity for solitude--to bethink herself where she stood, and how she came there.

During the daytime, there were the young ladies, here, there, and everywhere; there could be no seclusion.

In the afternoons and evenings some admiring, soft-voiced young gentleman was always at her side, offering her his arm on the faintest pretext, or attempting to put it round her waist on no pretext at all; who always found it more convenient to murmur in her ear, than to speak out from a reasonable distance; whose hands were always getting into proximity with hers, and often attempting to clasp them; whose eyes were forever expressing something earnest or arch, pleading or romantic--though precisely what, his lingering utterance scarcely tried to define; who never could "see the harm" of these and many other peculiarities of behavior; and, indeed it was not very easy to argue about them, although the young gentlemen never shrank from the dispute, and never failed to have on hand an inexhaustible assortment of syllogisms to combat any remonstrance that might be advanced withal; while at the worst they could always be surprised and hurt if their conduct were called into question.