“Bring one of your books to school to-morrow and read to me at recess, or, better still, come over to my house. Oh, no; I must call on you first, because you are the stranger here; then when you return the call you can bring the book and read to me. We can go into Dad’s office; he’s a doctor, you know, and when he is out making his visits we can have the office all to ourselves. I almost always study in there for it is nice and quiet and nobody disturbs me. What are you going to do about your music? Miss Rindy hasn’t a piano, has she?”
“I am going to take lessons from Mr. Todd on the organ. I can practise at the church, he says.”
“Really? Can you play at all?”
“Not on the organ, but on the piano. I used to play duets with my mother. We loved the old masters, Beethoven and Mozart and those. We studied some of their symphonies.”
“That highbrow stuff? Oh, dear, I’d never fall for that. Jazz is about all I can appreciate.”
“What do you like best to study?”
“I don’t like to study at all, not really, but if I’ve got to, I want to do my best and get somewhere. I wouldn’t disappoint Father and Mother for the world, particularly Father. He takes such pride in my reports when they’re good.” She did not explain that they were seldom anything else.
Here Florence Ives came up with her most insinuating lisp. “I wath jutht wondering what you two were talking about,” she began.
“We were talking about studying,” Carolyn told her. “Just think, Flo, Ellen can read French. This is Ellen North, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Florence gave Ellen a nod of recognition. “How pairfectly wonderful that she readth French. I wish I could. Thome day maybe I’ll learn. Mamma wanth me to go to Parith to finish. They thay one can learn a language better where they thpeak it all the time; ith much the eathietht way. I never mean to thudy any harder than I can help. Jutht enough to let me thlip through. Can’t you take a walk with me thith afternoon, Caro? We might meet thome boys who’d join uth. Thereth a real handthome new boy at Fuller’th.”