o intimate that
there had been times when she extracted a needed comfort from it. Laura
suggested that botany might be a little dry for such young children in
winter, from text-books--that the better way would be perhaps to wait
till the spring and show them out of doors, in the garden, some of the
peculiarities of plants. To this Miss Steet rejoined that her idea had
been to teach some of the general facts slowly--it would take a long
time--and then they would be all ready for the spring. She spoke of the
spring as if it would not arrive for a terribly long time. She had hoped
to lay the question before Mrs. Berrington that week--but was it not
already Thursday? Laura said, 'Oh yes, you had better do anything with
the children that will keep them profitably occupied;' she came very
near saying anything that would occupy the governess herself.

She had rather a dread of new stories--it took the little boys so long
to get initiated and the first steps were so terribly bestrewn with
questions. Receptive silence, broken only by an occasional rectification
on the part of the listener, never descended until after the tale had
been told a dozen times. The matter was settled for 'Riquet with the
Tuft,' but on this occasion the girl's heart was not much in the
entertainment. The children stood on either side of her, leaning against
her, and she had an arm round each; their little bodies were thick and
strong and their voices had the quality of silver bells. Their mother
had certainly gone too far; but there was nevertheless a limit to the
tenderness one could feel for the neglected, compromised bairns. It was
difficult to take a sentimental view of them--they would never take such
a view of themselves. Geordie would grow up to be a master-hand at polo
and care more for that pastime than for anything in life, and Ferdy
perhaps would develop into 'the best shot in England.' Laura felt these
possibilities stirring within them; they were in the things they said to
her, in the things they said to each other. At any rate they would never
reflect upon anything in the world. They contradicted each other on a
question of ancestral history to which their attention apparently had
been drawn by their nurse, whose people had been tenants for
generations. Their grandfather had had the hounds for fifteen
years--Ferdy maintained that he had always had them. Geordie ridiculed
this idea, like a man of the world; he had had them till he went into