"What did you think when you left her?"
"I don't know—I thought her very worried. That child Mittie Trevor talked as if she and her mother were to live at the Hall. She is a dear child, I should fancy, but Hermione did not take to her."
"And Marjory did?"
"I can't resist children. She is very small, with a great mane of fair hair, and such a pair of winning black eyes. When she followed me through the garden, and threw her little arms round me, begging for kisses, I found her irresistible. Hermione is not like me in that. She only cares for children in a Sunday-school."
"Seated in neat rows, to be talked to," suggested the Rector, with a twinkle in the corner of his eye, for it did sound very much like Hermione, and Marjory's unconscious satire on her friend amused him.
"Hermione is so good at teaching!"
"Many people are much better at teaching than learning."
"But not Hermione! You did not mean Hermione."
"It comes to her more easily. So it does to a good many of us."
Marjory looked rather tried. "I must not interrupt you longer," she said, and she went away. Nobody heard the sighing utterance— "Strange, while my father is so dear and good to me, he never does appreciate Hermione!"