Afterward Joe coaxed the little girl to come and sit on his knee. They were talking about schools.
"Seems to me, Margaret better be studying housekeeping and learning how to make her clothes instead of going to school," said Mrs. Underhill shortly. "She can write a nice letter and she's good at figures, and, really, I don't see——"
"She wants to be finished," returned Steve, with a laugh. "She's a city girl now. I've been looking schools over. There are several establishments where they burnish up young ladies. There's Madame Chegary's——"
"I won't have her going to any French school and reading wretched French novels!"
Steve threw back his head and laughed. He had such splendid, strong, white teeth.
"My choice would be Rutgers Institute. It's going to be the school of the day," declared Joe.
"Exactly. I was coming to that. There would be one term before vacation."
"I call it all foolishness. And she'll be eighteen on her next birthday," said her mother. "If she wasn't a good scholar already—and what more do you expect her to learn?"
They all laughed at their mother's little ebullition of temper.
"The world grows wiser every day," said Joe sententiously.