"I'll ask Cousin Leverett," she answered, in nowise abashed by her ignorance. "He tells me a great many things."
"You must study it out of books. I s'pose she's going to live here? She's not going back to the Ingies? I heard the captain was coming home."
"He is settling up his affairs," was the quiet answer.
Dame Wilby looked the child all over.
"You'll sit on that bench," she said. Then she rang the bell and the children trooped in, staring at her. The little boys—four of them—were on the seat back of her, on her seat she made the fifth. Betty Upham was in the desk contingent.
They repeated the Lord's prayer in concert. Then lessons were given out. The larger girls read.
"You can come and read with this class;" nodding to Cynthia.
She was not a regularly bashful child, but she flushed as the children stared at her. They sometimes wore their Sunday white frock one or two days at school. Cynthia was so used to her clothes, cared so little about them that they were rarely in her mind. But this universal attention annoyed her.
"'Tend to your books, children."
Cynthia acquitted herself finely, rather too much so, the dame thought. She would talk to her about it. A girl didn't want to read as if she was a minister preaching a sermon.