vel. She had a little money of her
own, and bought what she wanted.

Along with all this she taught the child. The two sat at the big table
in the drawing-room, "Aunt Eva" in her chair of state, the little girl
opposite her. But whenever it was necessary, Marit had to come round and
stand beside Aunt Eva's desk. The hours of instruction passed so
pleasantly that the little one often forgot that she was at lessons. Her
father, whose library opened out of the drawing-room, often forgot it
too, when he came in and listened to the conversations or to what Mrs.
Dawes was telling.

Lessons might be easy, but something else was difficult and led to
conflict. Mrs. Dawes wished to bring about a general alteration in the
child's habits, and here she had the father against her. But he was, of
course, worsted, and that before he understood what she was about. Marit
had to learn to obey; she had to learn the meaning of punctuality, of
order, of politeness, of tact. She had to practise every day, to hold
herself straight at table, to wash her hands an unlimited number of
times, always to tell where she was going--and all this against her own
will, and really against her father's, too.

Mrs. Dawes had one sure base from which to operate. This was the child's
unbounded faith in her mother's perfection. She convinced Marit that her
mother had never gone to bed later than eight o'clock. Before getting
into bed, too, Mother had always arranged her clothes upon a chair and
set her shoes outside the door.

From what Mother had done, and done to perfection, Mrs. Dawes went on
to what Mother would have done if she had been in Marit's place, and,
also, to what she would not have done if she had been Marit. This proved
harder. When Mrs. Dawes, for instance, assured her that her mother had
never ridden out of sight on her bicycle, Marit asked: "How do you know
that?" "I know it because I know that your father and mother were never
away from each other." "That is true, Marit," said her father, glad to
be able for once to confirm one of Mrs. Dawes's assertions; most of them
were not true.

The farther the work of education progressed, the more interested in it
did Mrs. Dawes become, and the stronger did her hold on the child grow.
She set herself the task of eradicating Marit's dream-life, an
inheritance from her mother, which flourished exuberantly as long as her
father encouraged it and took pleasure in it.

One spring Marit rushed in and