'I should not be so ungrateful, now that I am come to the sense of my responsibility in teaching her to go alone.'
'But she has Aunt Catherine,' said Mary, thinking that he was putting the natural guardian out of the question as much now as in the days referred to.
'My grandmother never had to do with any girl before, and does not profess to understand them. She let Clara be regularly a boy in school, at first learning the same lessons, and then teaching; and whatever I tried to impress in the feminine line, naturally, all went for nothing. She is as wild as a hare, and has not a particle of a girl about her!'
'But she is very young.'
'There it is again! She grows so outrageously. She is not sixteen, and there she is taller than granny already. It is getting quite absurd.'
'What advice do you want on that head?'
'Seriously, it is a disadvantage, especially to that sort of girl, who can't afford to look like a woman before her time. Well, as she must probably depend on herself, I looked out for as good a school as could be had for the means, and thought I had succeeded, and that she would be brought into some sort of shape. Granny was ready to break her heart, but thought it quite right.'
'Then, does it not answer?'
'That is just what I can't tell. You have been used to schools: I wish you could tell me whether it is a necessary evil, or Clara's own idiosyncrasy, or peculiar to the place.'
'Whether what is?'