"Well, let me hear you." Betty laid the book on the wide window sill and gave out the words between the stitches, and Doris spelled every one rightly but "perceive."
"Those i's and e's used to bother me," said Betty. "I made a list of them once and used to go over them until I could spell them in the dark."
"Is it harder to spell in the dark?"
"Oh, you innocent!" laughed Betty. "That means you could spell them anywhere."
Spelling had been rather a mysterious art, but Mr. Dilworth, and now Mr. Noah Webster, had been regulating it according to a system.
"Now you might go over some tables. You can add and multiply so much faster when you know them. Suppose we try them together."
That was very entertaining and, Doris began to think, not as difficult as she had imagined in the morning.
"Betty," said her mother, when there was a little lull, "what do you suppose has become of Aunt Priscilla? I do hope she did not come over the day we were at Cousin Winthrop's. But she never was here once last week."
"There were two rainy days."
"And she may be ill. I think you had better go down and see."