"Aren't we going to have school to-day?" she asked.
"Yes, Marjorie; this is school. Here are your books,—we'll each have one."
She gave them each a copy of a pretty looking book, and asked them to open it at a certain page.
Then Miss Hart read aloud a few pages, and the girls followed her in their own books. Then she asked Delight to read, and as she did so, Miss Hart stopped her occasionally to advise her about her manner of reading. But she did this so pleasantly and conversationally that it didn't seem at all like a reading-lesson, although that's really what it was.
Marjorie's turn came next, and by this time she had become so interested in the story, that she began at once, and read so fast, that she went helter-skelter, fairly tumbling over herself in her haste.
"Wait, Marjorie, wait!" cried Miss Hart, laughing at her. "The end of the story will keep; it isn't going to run away. Don't try so hard to catch it!"
Marjorie smiled herself, as she slowed down, and tried to read more as she should.
But Miss Hart had to correct her many times, for Midget was not a good reader, and did not do nearly so well as Delight.
And though Miss Hart's corrections were pleasantly and gently made, she was quite firm about them, and insisted that Marjorie should modulate her voice, and pronounce her words just as she was told.
"What a fine story!" exclaimed Delight, as they finished it.