So Doris was quite comforted to know that Peter Faneuil, who was held in such esteem, had not even been born in Boston, and was of French extraction.
But girls soon get over their tiffs and disputes. Play is the great leveler. Then Doris was so obliging about the French exercises that the girls could not stay away very long at a time.
Miss Parker's typified the conventional idea of a girl's education prevalent at that time: that it should be largely accomplishment. So Doris was allowed considerable latitude in the commoner branches. Mrs. Webb had been exacting in the few things she taught, especially arithmetic. And Uncle Win admitted to himself that Doris had a poor head for figures. When she came to fractions it was heartrending. Common multiples and least and greatest common divisors had such a way of getting mixed up in her brain, that he felt very sorry for her.
She brought over Betty's book in which all her sums in the more difficult rules had been worked out and copied beautifully. There were banking and equation of payments and all the "roots" and progression and alligation and mensuration.
"I don't know what good they will really be to Betty," said Uncle Win gravely. Then, as his face relaxed into a half-smile, he added: "Perhaps Mary Manning's fifty pairs of stockings she had when she was married may be more useful. Betty has a good head and "twinkling feet." Did you know a poet said that? And another one wrote:
"'Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out
As if they feared the light;
But, oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fair a sight.'"
"Oh, Uncle Win, that's just delightful! Did your poet write any more such dainty things, and can I read them? Betty would just go wild over that."
"Yes, I will find it for you. And we won't worry now about the hard knots over in the back of the arithmetic."
"Nor about the stockings. Miss Isabel is knitting some beautiful silk ones, blossom color."
Ladies and girls danced in slippers then and wore them for evening company, and stockings were quite a feature in attire.