"It is my unhappy fate to endeavor to instil a few brains and a good deal of information into the heads of sixty-one young females."
"And don't you like them?" queried Mariana, eagerly.
"I do not."
"Why?"
"What an inquisitor you are, to be sure!"
"But tell me," she pleaded.
"Why?" he demanded, in his turn.
She lowered her lashes, looking at her quiet hands.
"Because I want so much to know."
His smiling eyes were probing her. "Tell me why."