"A 'cademy! lor, think o' that now," said Hannah much impressed "an' what do they larn yo' now, furrin languages I'll be bun."
"Oh dear, yes! I can already relieve my feelings to my aunt in French that she cannot understand, and which I dare say, would puzzle Mons. Feugley, our French master, and I know some German words that sound so like swearing that Aunt Tinker gasps and grows pale when I use them, and I can tinkle on the piano and sing indifferently well for a screechy voice."
"That's nooan Gospel, my word," put in Hannah, stoutly, and Lucy held up a reproving finger.
"And oh! tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon."
"I can, sh! speak low my voice, bend your heads and lend your ears.--I can dance!"
"Yes, _vraiment_, which is French or German, I forget which, for of a verity and in good sooth--but they don't know at home. It's an extra extra, dancing is and Aunt Martha wouldn't hear of it, and Uncle declared it was a vanity. But I learn all the same."
"How do you manage it?" asked Lucy, with an admiring, caressing but wistful look at the beaming face.
"Why the other girls teach me, silly, in the bedroom. We dance in our nightdresses, when _Fraulein_ has put out the gas. But it isn't as nice, they say, as dancing with Professor Blanc, _de Paris, vous savez_."
"Oh, Dorothy, how can you say such things!" and Lucy looked really shocked.
"But you, Lucy, you are altered too. Ah! How my tongue runs on. But there, it is such a relief to let it run just once in a way, for at school, it's 'Miss Tinker, give silence, if you please,' and 'Miss Tinker, less noise.' and 'Miss Tinker, cease laughing,' till I'm Miss Tinkered to death, and you know what it is at home. I vow if it weren't for old Betty and Irish Peggy, I'd soon be competent to conduct a school for the deaf and dumb. Yes, Lucy, you are altered too; you're stouter and rosier, altogether happier looking, what's come over the child, Hannah!"
"Ah! that's all Tom's doing," said Hannah, "and God's, mother dear," softly added Lucy.
"Tom?" queried Dorothy, "who in the name of goodness is Tom?"
"Why, Tom,--oh, Tom is just Tom," said Lucy, "you can't have forgotten him, Miss Dorothy, you must remember to have seen him."