which would have
been comical if it had not seemed at the same time somewhat pathetic.

"I can do the fifth proposition in Euclid," I objected, "and the Latin
Grammar as far as irregular verbs."

My father shook his head.

"That might help you a little if you were a boy in a public school, but
it's not all that your mother would have wished. You've not been taught
a note of music, you can't speak French or dance a quadrille, and if it
came to a question of fine sewing, I'm afraid you'd scarcely know which
was the right end of your needle!"

The list of my deficiencies was so dreadfully true that I had no excuse
to bring forward, and my father continued.

"Besides, it's absurd to attempt to educate you in this out-of-the-way
spot, where you've no opportunity of mixing with cultured people. I wish
you to see England, and learn English ways, and to have companions of
your own age."

"I think San Carlos is the most beautiful place in the world," I said
quickly. "And I don't want any companion but you."

"Which shows me all the more that it's time I sent you away," answered
Father. "Though it will strain my heart-strings to part with you, I own.
It's such a splendid opportunity, too, when Madame Montpellier is
returning to Paris and will take charge of you on the voyage. No,
Philippa child, I've quite made up my mind. You're to go to England, and
you'll please me best by taking it bravely, and trying to learn all you
can in the years we must be apart from each other."

We were sitting on the vine-covered terrace of our beautiful South
American home. Below us the bright flowers of our tropical garden shone
a blaze of colour against the dark background of the lemon-trees; away
to the right stretched the dazzling blue sea, with here and there the
dark sail of a native fishing craft; while to the left rose the white
houses of the little Spanish town of San Carlos, with its picturesque,
Moorish-looking church and campanile, set in a frame of tall palm-trees,
which led the eye over the long slopes of the coffee-plantations up the
hill-side to where the sharp peaks of the sierras towered like giants
against the cloudless sky.

For ten years I had lived here as in paradise, and the thought that I
must leave it, and go far away over the sea to strangers and to an
unknown land, filled me with dismay.

As an only child, and a motherless one, I suppose I had been spoilt,
though to be very dearly loved does not always necessa