“Now, Papa, please don’t tease! I’m sure you wouldn’t like to have a whole line of hard, two-syllabled words to learn, and rows and rows of dazzly figures to add up, would you?”
“I certainly should not; on such a morning as this, too. But if I were a little girl, two little girls, I’d go at those words and figures ‘slap bang!’ And I’d get them all tucked away inside of my cranium, so tight and sure that Ma’amselle would be obliged to say: ‘Really, young ladies, tres bien! and I will compensate you for your so hard labor, and give you leave at eleven of the clock, precisely, to go to the library of the father and look in.’”
“And, what then? What then, Papa?”
“Maybe, peanuts; maybe, horses. Different tastes need different rewards.”
To Steenie this was not as intelligible as to Beatrice, who readily translated for her new friend’s benefit Judge Courtenay’s meaning, which was: that he evidently wished to be let alone then; but that if they were studious they might leave off lessons at eleven o’clock, and come to the library, when he would take them to see the horses. “If anybody cares about those old things!”
Steenie cared so very much that she infected Beatrice with her own feeling; and her few weeks at a “really school” had been of such use to her, that once her books were opened, she allowed herself no respite till she had conquered the tasks set before her.
Which good example was, also, infectious to the untrained Beatrice, who surprised and pleased Ma’amselle by her sudden attention to duty.
It is true that bright glances were occasionally darted back and forth, and signs exchanged to mark the progress of learning on either side; but, in spite of this, when eleven o’clock came they not only had done their work with satisfaction to their teacher, but with real pleasure to themselves,—a cause of considerable astonishment, also.
“Now, for Papa and fun! My father’s a awful jolly man. You can’t ’most gen’ally tell if he’s teasing or earnest. But—he’s nice.”
“So’s mine. I guess fathers are always nice, aren’t they?”