“Surely,” whispered a young creature, who was none other than the young girl I had lost sight of before entering the dining-room, “she knows nothing about music; she has been practising that piece ever so long.”
“That is a fact,” said her mother, addressing herself to me; “my daughter went to the same school with her, they had the same masters, and, with the exception of trigonometry and astronomy, for which Susan never had any particular taste, she beat her in everything. My daughter can play ‘The Storm;’ and her music-master tells me, when a young lady can once do that she can do anything.”
I bowed assent.
“And as for trigonometry,” she continued, “I care not how little my daughter knows of that. It’s all arches, and angles, and compliments, as she tells me, which are of no use to a young lady except in society. But Susan knows a great deal more about magnetism and electricity,—don’t you, my child?”
Here the girl looked very bashful.
I congratulated the mother on possessing such a treasure; and was just thinking of something pretty to say to the girl, when I was interrupted by the old lady.
“Yes,” said she, “although I ought not to say it, being my own child, I was present at the last exhibition, when she explained the whole of the electrical machine. And she is doing just as well in history. How far have you got in that, Susan?”
“About two-thirds through with the book,” said Susan; “but how queer you talk, Ma!”
“And pray, madam, what boarding-school is it your daughter went to?” demanded I.
“It’s the first in the country, sir—kept by the Misses ***, at T***, three miles from A***.”