"At any rate, you have excited my curiosity. Let her come, Lawrence, as soon as you please. I want to see this paragon of girls, who is more ignorant than a charity school girl."
"On the contrary, Agatha, she is better informed than most girls of her age. If she is not well read she is well told."
"But really, Lawrence, think. She cannot read, even."
"Not if you gave her a basketful of tracts. But that is rather a distinction now. At least she will never want to go in for what they call the Higher Education, will she?"
"She must learn to read; but will she ever master Spelling?"
"Very few people do; they only pretend. I am weak myself in spelling. Phillis does not want to be a certificated Mistress, Agatha."
"Well, my cousin, of course the Rule of Three is as necessary to life as the Use of the Globes, over which the schoolmistresses used to keep such a coil. And it has been about as accessible to poor Phillis as an easy seat to a tombstone cherub. But she can count and multiply and add, and tell you how much things ought to come to; and really when you think of it, a woman does not want much more, does she?"
"It is the mental training, Lawrence. Think of the loss of mental training."
"I feel that, too," he said, with a smile of sympathy. "Think of growing up without the discipline of Vulgar Fractions or Genteel Decimals. One is appalled at imagining what our young ladies would be without it. But you shall teach her what you like, Agatha."
"Nonsense, my cousin; she is sweetness itself. Let me bring her to-morrow."
"Yes; she can have the room next to mine." Agatha sighed a little. "Suppose we don't get on together after all. It would be such a disappointment, and such a pain to part."
"Get on, Agatha?--and with you? Well, all the world gets on with you. Was there ever a girl in the world that you did not get on with?"
"Yes, there was. I never got on with Victoria Pengelley--Mrs. Cassilis. Shall you call upon her, Lawrence?"
"No--yes--I don't know, Agatha," he replied, hurriedly; and went away with scant leave-taking. He neither took any tea nor stayed to dinner.
"Of course," she said. "How stupid of me! They used to talk about Lawrence and Victoria. Can he think of her still? Why, the woman is as cold as ice and as hard as steel, besides being married. A man who would fall in love with Victoria Pengelley would be capable of falling in love with a marble statue."