aring! We might try for a century,
and never get any further. I cannot waste any more time." Then, seeing
the large tears gathering, he framed the pretty face in his hands, and
looked at it with a tender smile. "Never mind, darling! there are
better things in this world than being clever and learned. You will be
our little house-daughter; help mother with her work, and play and sing
to father when he is tired in the evening. Work hard at your music,
learn how to manage a house, to sew and mend and cook, and you will have
nothing to regret. A woman who can make a home, has done more than many
scholars."

So it came to pass that Mellicent added the violin to her
accomplishments, and was despatched to her own room to practise
exercises, while her elder sister wrestled with problems and equations.

When Peggy Saville arrived, here was a fresh problem, for Fraulein
reported that the good child could not add five and six together without
tapping them over on her finger; was as ignorant of geography as a
little heathen, and had so little ear for music that she could not sing
"Rule Britannia" without branching off into "God save the Queen." But
when it came to poetry!--Fraulein held up her hands in admiration. It
was absolutely no effort to that child to remember, her eyes seemed to
flash down the page, and the lines were her own, and as she repeated
them her face shone, and her voice thrilled with such passionate delight
that Esther and Mellicent had been known to shed tears at the sound of
words which had fallen dead and lifeless from their own lips. And at
composition, how original she was! What a relief it was to find so
great a contrast to other children! When it was the life of a great man
which should be written, Esther and Mellicent began their essays as
ninety-nine out of a hundred schoolgirls would do, with a flat and
obvious statement of birth, birthplace, and parentage; but Peggy
disdained such commonplace methods, and dashed headlong into the heart
of her subject with a high-flown sentiment, or a stirring assertion
which at once arrested the reader's interest. And it was the same with
whatever she wrote; she had the power of investing the dullest subject
with charm and brightness. Fraulein could not say too much of Peggy's
powers in this direction, and the vicar's eye brightened as he listened.
He asked eagerly to be allowed to see the girl's manuscript book, and
summoned his wife from pastry-making