"And writing. Oh, Betty, when will I be able to write a letter to Miss Arabella? Now, if you could talk across the ocean!"
"The idea! One would have to scream pretty loud, and then it wouldn't go a mile." Betty threw her head back and laughed.
But Doris was to live long enough to talk across the ocean, though no one really dreamed of it then; indeed, at first it was quite ridiculed.
"It is a nice thing to know a good deal, but it is awful hard to learn," said the little girl presently.
"Now, it seems to me I never could learn French. And when you rattle it off in the way you do, I am dumb-founded."
"What is that, Betty?"
Betty flushed and laughed. "Surprised or anything like that," she returned.
"But, you see, I learned to talk and read just as you do English. And then papa being English, why I had both languages. It was very easy."
"Patience and perseverance will make this easy."
"And I can't knit a stocking nor make a shirt. And I haven't pieced a bedspread nor worked a sampler. Mary Green has a beautiful one, with a border of strawberries around the edge and forget-me-nots in the corner. Her father is going to have it framed."