e while, quietly?" said Margaret; "we
hardly ever have one of our talks."

"I didn't mean to vex you, dear Margaret; I like nothing so well, only
we are never alone, and I've no time."

"Pray do spare me a minute, Ethel, for I have something that I must say
to you, and I am afraid you won't like it--so do listen kindly."

"Oh!" said Ethel, "Miss Winter has been talking to you. I know she said
she would tell you that she wants me to give up Cocksmoor. You aren't
dreaming of it, Margaret?"

"Indeed, dear Ethel, I should be very sorry, but one thing I am sure of,
that there is something amiss in your way of going on."

"Did she show you that horrid exercise?"

"Yes."

"Well, I know it was baddish writing, but just listen, Margaret. We
promised six of the children to print them each a verse of a hymn on a
card to learn. Ritchie did three, and then could not go on, for the
book that the others were in was lost till last evening, and then he
was writing for papa. So I thought I would do them before we went to
Cocksmoor, and that I should squeeze time out of the morning; but I got
a bit of Sophocles that was so horridly hard it ate up all my time, and
I don't understand it properly now; I must get Norman to tell me. And
that ran in my head and made me make a mistake in my sum, and have
to begin it again. Then, just as I thought I had saved time over the
exercise, comes Miss Winter and tells me I must do it over again, and
scolds me besides about the ink on my fingers. She would send me up at
once to get it off, and I could not find nurse and her bottle of stuff
for it, so that wasted ever so much more time, and I was so vexed that,
really and truly, my hand shook and I could not write any better."

"No, I thought it looked as if you had been in one of your agonies."

"And she thought I did it on purpose, and that made me angry, and so
we got into a dispute, and away went all the little moment I might have
had, and I was forced to go to Cocksmoor as a promise breaker!"

"Don't you think you had better have taken pains at first?"

"Well, so I did with the sense, but I hadn't time to look at the writing
much."

"You would have made better speed if you had."

"Oh, yes, I know I was wrong, but it is a great plague altogether.
Really, Margaret, I shan't get Thucydides done."

"You must wait a little longer, please, Ethel, for I want to say to
you that I am afraid you are doing too much, and that prevents you from
do