At this point her mother's angry voice made itself heard. Matilda desisted, with a merry remark to her friends
The next morning when she and I were alone she tantalized me again. She made another attempt to tuck my side-locks behind my ears. As we were alone I had more courage
"If you don't stop I'll go away from here," I said, in a rage. "What do you want of me?"
As I thus gave vent to my resentment I instinctively felt that, so far from causing her to avoid me, it would quicken her rompish interest in me. And I hoped it would
"'S-sh! don't yell," she said, startled. "Can't you take a joke?"
"A nice joke, that."
"Very well, I won't do it again. I didn't know you were a touch-me-not." After a pause she resumed, in grave, friendly accents: "Come, don't be angry. I want to talk to you. Look here. Is there any sense in your wasting your life the way you do? Look at the way you are dressed, the way you live generally. Besides, the idea of a young man like you not being able to speak a word of Russian! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Why, mother says you are remarkably bright. Isn't it a pity that you should throw it all away? Why don't you try to study Russian, geography, history? Why don't you try to become an educated man?"
"The idea!" I said, with a laugh.
My confusion was gone, partly, at least. I looked her full in the face
She flared up. "The idea!" she mocked me. "Rather say, 'The idea of a bright young fellow being so ignorant!' Did you ever hear of a provoking thing like that?" There was a good deal of her mother's helter-skelter explosiveness in her