“Jim,” began Frances after anxious cogitation, “would you like—would you care—to study with Austin and me?” The girl flushed a little as she went on hurriedly: “There are heaps of things I dare say you know far more about than we do; but there are some ... and Papa would have liked....”
Poor Frances stopped in awkward fear of hurting the lowly-reared brother.
She need not have paused. The words were hardly spoken when Jim’s face lighted up with eager pleasure.
“Missy—I’d love it! Oh, would you—could you—?”
“Of course we could,” interrupted Austin with a merry laugh. “Jim, old man, you are an eccentric. Fancy meeting a fellow who needn’t stew at lessons, and actually wants to! Come to the table this very minute!” Austin flew to drag up a third chair and force Jim into it. “Now then, what’s it to be first—classics or mathematics?”
“Austin, don’t worry, dear,” said Frances, seeing that Jim’s breath came fast from the excitement of what was to him a momentous opportunity. “Tell Jim the lessons we have at Woodbank, then he can choose what he would like best.”
Then Jim seized his chance and spoke.
“I’d like best to learn to speak right, Missy,” said the youth earnestly; “so as you’d have no need, some day, to feel shame of me.”
It was a hard thing to say, but Jim got through it.
Frances was on the point of disclaiming vehemently. She was checked by the certainty that her brother would not believe her. Had she not long ago proved him right?