The Stokesley Secret [23]
Oh dear! oh dear! all that the gentlemen on a journey were saying to one another has gone clean out of her head!
She cannot recollect the three first words. She only remembers that this is the third time, and another farthing is gone! She stands and stares.
"Susan," says Miss Fosbrook severely, "you never tried to learn this."
Susan gives a little gasp; and Elizabeth, who has said her French without a blunder, puts in an unnecessary and not very sisterly word: "Susan never will learn her French."
Susan's honest eyes fill with tears, but she gulps them back. She will not cry away another farthing, but she does feel it very cross in Bessie, and she is universally miserable.
Christabel feels heated, wearied, and provoked, and as if she were fast losing her own temper; and that made her resolve on mercy.
"Susie," she said with an effort, "run twice to the great lime-tree and back. Then take the book into my room, read this over three times, and we will try again."
Susan looked surprised, but she obeyed, came back, and repeated the phrases better than she had ever said French before. She was absolutely surprised and highly pleased, and she finished off her other lessons swimmingly; but oh, she was glad to be rid of them! Yes, they were off her mind, and so she deserved that they should be! She flew away to the nursery, and little Sarah was soon crowing in her arms.
Elizabeth? Not a blunder in French verbs or geography--very tidy copy. French reading good; English equally so, only it ended in a pout, because there was not time for her to go on to see what became of Carthage; and she was a most intolerable time in learning her poetry out of the book of Readings, or rather she much preferred reading the verses in other parts of the book to getting perfect in her lesson, and then being obliged to turn her mind to arithmetic. Miss Fosbrook called her three times; and at last she turned round peevishly at being interrupted in the middle of the "Friar of Orders Gray," and repeated her twenty lines of Cowper's "Winter's Walk" in a doleful whine, though without a blunder.
It was one of the horrible novelties that Miss Fosbrook was bringing in, that she expected people to understand their sums as well as work them. She gave much shorter ones, to be sure, than Mamma, who did sometimes set a long multiplication sum of such a huge size, that it looked as if it were meant to keep the victim out of the way; but who would not prefer casting up any length of figures, to being required to explain the meaning of "carrying"?
Really, if it had not been for the pig, that shocking question might have led to a mutiny in the school-room. When it was bad enough to do the thing, how could anyone ask what was meant by the operation, and why it was performed?
What did Bessie do when her sum was being overlooked? Miss Fosbrook read on: "4 from 8, 4; 7 from 1--how's this, Bessie? 7 from 10 are- -"
"3, and 1 are 4," dolorously, as her 3 was changed.
"Now then, what next?"
"Carry one."
"What did I tell you was meant by carry one?"
"The tens," said Bessie, not in the least thinking "the tens" had anything to do with the matter, but only that she had heard something about them, and could thus get rid of the subject.
"Now, Bessie, what tens can you possibly mean? Think a little."
"I'm sure you said tens once," said injured innocence.
"That was in an addition sum. See, here it is quite different. I told you."
Bessie put on a vacant stare. She was not going to attend to what she did not like.
Miss Fosbrook saw the face. She absolutely shrank from provoking another fit of crying, and went quickly through the explanation. She saw that her words might as well have been spoken to the slate. Bessie neither listened nor took them in. Not all her love for her dear Christabel Angela could stir her up to make one effort contrary to her inclinations. The slate was given back to her, she wiped out the sum in a pet, and ran away.
Miss Fosbrook turned round, David, whose lessons had been perfectly
She cannot recollect the three first words. She only remembers that this is the third time, and another farthing is gone! She stands and stares.
"Susan," says Miss Fosbrook severely, "you never tried to learn this."
Susan gives a little gasp; and Elizabeth, who has said her French without a blunder, puts in an unnecessary and not very sisterly word: "Susan never will learn her French."
Susan's honest eyes fill with tears, but she gulps them back. She will not cry away another farthing, but she does feel it very cross in Bessie, and she is universally miserable.
Christabel feels heated, wearied, and provoked, and as if she were fast losing her own temper; and that made her resolve on mercy.
"Susie," she said with an effort, "run twice to the great lime-tree and back. Then take the book into my room, read this over three times, and we will try again."
Susan looked surprised, but she obeyed, came back, and repeated the phrases better than she had ever said French before. She was absolutely surprised and highly pleased, and she finished off her other lessons swimmingly; but oh, she was glad to be rid of them! Yes, they were off her mind, and so she deserved that they should be! She flew away to the nursery, and little Sarah was soon crowing in her arms.
Elizabeth? Not a blunder in French verbs or geography--very tidy copy. French reading good; English equally so, only it ended in a pout, because there was not time for her to go on to see what became of Carthage; and she was a most intolerable time in learning her poetry out of the book of Readings, or rather she much preferred reading the verses in other parts of the book to getting perfect in her lesson, and then being obliged to turn her mind to arithmetic. Miss Fosbrook called her three times; and at last she turned round peevishly at being interrupted in the middle of the "Friar of Orders Gray," and repeated her twenty lines of Cowper's "Winter's Walk" in a doleful whine, though without a blunder.
It was one of the horrible novelties that Miss Fosbrook was bringing in, that she expected people to understand their sums as well as work them. She gave much shorter ones, to be sure, than Mamma, who did sometimes set a long multiplication sum of such a huge size, that it looked as if it were meant to keep the victim out of the way; but who would not prefer casting up any length of figures, to being required to explain the meaning of "carrying"?
Really, if it had not been for the pig, that shocking question might have led to a mutiny in the school-room. When it was bad enough to do the thing, how could anyone ask what was meant by the operation, and why it was performed?
What did Bessie do when her sum was being overlooked? Miss Fosbrook read on: "4 from 8, 4; 7 from 1--how's this, Bessie? 7 from 10 are- -"
"3, and 1 are 4," dolorously, as her 3 was changed.
"Now then, what next?"
"Carry one."
"What did I tell you was meant by carry one?"
"The tens," said Bessie, not in the least thinking "the tens" had anything to do with the matter, but only that she had heard something about them, and could thus get rid of the subject.
"Now, Bessie, what tens can you possibly mean? Think a little."
"I'm sure you said tens once," said injured innocence.
"That was in an addition sum. See, here it is quite different. I told you."
Bessie put on a vacant stare. She was not going to attend to what she did not like.
Miss Fosbrook saw the face. She absolutely shrank from provoking another fit of crying, and went quickly through the explanation. She saw that her words might as well have been spoken to the slate. Bessie neither listened nor took them in. Not all her love for her dear Christabel Angela could stir her up to make one effort contrary to her inclinations. The slate was given back to her, she wiped out the sum in a pet, and ran away.
Miss Fosbrook turned round, David, whose lessons had been perfectly