“I’ll never be brilliant,” she confided to Ellen, “though I do hope I won’t turn out to be an utter idiot. What are your favorite studies, Ellen?”
“Music and French,” Ellen answered promptly.
“Oh!” Carolyn looked surprised. “I must say that I’ve never aspired to be a musician. I hate to practise. I began lessons on the piano, but I was so unhappy over them that Father said it was foolish for me to keep on. I might like French if there were a chance to study it, but who in the world would teach me? It isn’t taught in this school. I’m afraid you’ll have to give it up, Ellen.”
“I don’t believe I need to. I have quite a number of French books, and I can keep on reading those, even if I have no one to talk to. It isn’t a bad plan to read aloud so as not to lose the accent.”
“Can you really read it?”
“Why, yes, not so very fluently, but I manage pretty well with a dictionary.”
“How smart you are. You could read aloud to me, couldn’t you?”
“But you wouldn’t understand it.”
“That wouldn’t matter. I’d like the sound.”
Ellen laughed. “You are very good to want to listen to my halting accents.”