“Oh, yes,” said Lydia, astonished.
“There is reading and reading,” said the old man rather grimly. “If yours is very good you can read to me in the mornings, and save your Aunt Beryl.”
“We shall have to see about some lessons for her in the mornings,” said Aunt Beryl rather repressively.
“Eh, what’s that? You don’t want to go to school, do you, my dear?”
Lydia wanted to go to school very much, and had always resented her mother’s refusal to send her there, and the irregular, desultory lessons at home, from which she knew that she learnt nothing useful.
But already she felt certain that to say so would not advance her cause with Grandpapa.
“I have never been to school,” she said at last.
“A very good thing too. I don’t like all this business of girls trying to be like boys, and learning all sorts of rough ways.”
Old Raymond cast a malicious glance at his daughter Evelyn, whose two girls attended a high school.
“You’re tired, Grandpapa,” she said gently and unresentfully, although she coloured.