gret that her dear little girl had not been
taught to speak French or play on the piano. Mr. Fairfax's
plenipotentiary looked grave. His own daughters were perfect in those
accomplishments--"Indispensable to the education of a finished
gentlewoman," he said.

Thereupon Bessie, still in excited spirits, delivered her mind with
considerable force and freedom. "It is nonsense to talk of making me a
finished gentlewoman," she added: "I don't care to be anything but a
woman of sense."

Mr. John Short answered her shrewdly: "There is no reason why you should
not be both, Miss Fairfax. A woman of sense considers the fitness of
things. And at Abbotsmead none but gentlewomen are at home."

Bessie colored and was silent. "We have been proposing that you should
go to school for a year or two, dear," said Mrs. Carnegie persuasively.
Tears came into Bessie's eyes. The lawyer's letter had indeed mentioned
school, but she had not anticipated that the cruel suggestion would be
carried out.

"Shall it be an English school or a school in France?" said Mr. Short,
taking the indulgent cue, to avoid offence and stave off resistance. But
his affectation of meekness was more provoking than his sarcasm. Bessie
fired up indignantly at such unworthy treatment.

"You are deciding and settling everything without a word to my father.
How do you know that he will let me go away? I don't want to go," she
said.

"That _is_ settled, Bessie darling. _You have to go_--so don't get angry
about it," said Mrs. Carnegie with firmness. "You may have your choice
about a school at home or abroad, and that is all. Now be good, and
consider which you would like best."

Bessie's tears overflowed. "I hate girls!" she said with an asperity
that quite shamed her mother, "they are so silly." Mr. John Short with
difficulty forbore a smile. "And they don't like me!" she added with
gusty wrath. "I never get on with girls, never! I don't know what to say
to them. And when they find out that I can't speak French or play on the
piano, they will laugh at me." Her own countenance broke into a laugh as
she uttered the prediction, but she laughed with tears still in her
eyes.

The lawyer nodded his head in a satisfied way. "It will all come right
in time," said he. "If you can make fun of the prospect of school, the
reality will not be very terrible to a young lady of your courageous
temper."

Poor Bessie was grave again in an instant. She felt that she had let her