'I never meant it to go beyond the study. I was obliged to write it down in self-defence, that I might know what he was talking of.'
'I believe he expects you to be even with Sydney Calcott after all. It is really very clever. Where did you get all those funny stories?'
'What! you have gone and read it!'
'Ah, ha! Mrs. Ponsonby gave us a pretty little literary soiree. Don't be too proud, it was only ourselves, except that Mary brought in Miss Conway. Jem tried to read it, but after he had made that Spanish Society into 'Hammer men dead,' Mary got it away from him, and read through as if it had been in print.'
'What an infliction!'
'It is very disrespectful to think us so frivolous. We only wished all reviews were as entertaining.'
'It is too bad, when I only wanted to mystify my father.'
'It serves you right for playing tricks. What have you been doing to him, Louis? You will turn him into a doting father before long.'
'What have you done with Clara?'
'She goes every day to read Italian with Miss Conway, and the governess is so kind as to give her drawing lessons. She is learning far more than at school, and they are so kind! I should hardly know how to accept it, but Jem does not object, and he is really very useful there, spends a great deal of time on the boy, and is teaching the young ladies Latin.'