chair.
Euphrosyne looked up in his face, while she said, as well as she could
for tears, "If you feel it so now, what will it be when I am shut up in
the convent, and you will hardly ever see me?"

"That is no affair of yours, child. I choose that you should go."

"Whose affair is it, if it is not mine? I am your grandchild--your only
one; and it is my business, and the greatest pleasure I have in the
world, to be with you, and wait upon you. If I leave you, I shall hear
my poor mother reproaching me all day long. Every morning at my
lessons, every night at my prayers, I shall hear her saying, `Where is
your grandfather? How dare you desert him when he has only you left?'
Grandpapa, I shall be afraid to sleep alone. I shall learn to be afraid
of my blessed mother."

"It is time you were sent somewhere to learn your duty, I think. We are
at a bad pass enough; but there must be some one in the colony who can
tell you that it is your duty to obey your grandfather--that it is your
duty to perform what you promised him."

"I can preach that myself, grandpapa, when there is nobody else who can
do it better. It is just what I have been teaching little Babet, this
month past. I have no more to learn about that; but I will tell you
what I do want to learn--whether you are most afraid of my growing up
ignorant, or--(do just let me finish, and then we shall agree
charmingly, I dare say)--whether you are most afraid of my growing up
ignorant, or unsteady, or ill-mannered, or wicked, or what? As for
being unsafe, I do not believe a word of that."

"Everything--all these things, child. I am afraid of them all."

"What, all! What a dreadfully unpromising creature I must be!"

"You know you must be very ignorant. You have had no one to teach you
anything."

"Then I will go to the convent to study for four, six, eight, twelve
hours a day. I shall soon have learned everything in the world at that
rate: and yet I can go on singing to you in the evenings, and bringing
your coffee in the mornings. Twelve hours' study a day may perhaps make
me steady, too. That was the next thing, was it not?"

"Now have done. Say only one thing more--that you will perform your
promise."

"That is a thing of course; so I may just ask one other thing. Who is
to wait upon you in my place? Ah! I see you have not fixed upon any
one yet; and, let me tell you, it will be no easy matter to find one who
makes coffee as I do. Then, yo