"I don't know," was the sad reply. "We were separated when we were very young. I can just remember my sister, for we were both little girls in pinafores. I loved my sister very much, and I am sure she loved me, and, if she is alive, misses me quite as much as I do her."
"Oh, how sad that is!" murmured Tess. "I hope you will find her, ma'am."
"Not to be thought of in this big world—not to be thought of now," repeated the lady, more briskly. She picked up the history that Tess had dropped. "And which of you little tots studies this? Isn't English history rather far advanced for you?"
"Tess is nawful smart," Dot hastened to say. "Miss Andrews says so, though she's a nawful strict teacher, too. Isn't she, Tess?"
Her sister nodded soberly. Her mind reverted at once to the sovereigns of England and Miss Pepperill. "I—I'm afraid I'm not very quick to learn, after all. Miss Pepperill will think me an awful dunce when I can't learn the sovereigns."
"The sovereigns?" repeated the woman in gray, with interest. "What sovereigns?"
So Tess (of course, with Dot's valuable help) explained her difficulty, and all about the new teacher Tess expected to have.
"And she'll think I'm awfully dull," repeated Tess, sadly. "I just can't make my mind remember the succession of those kings and queens. It's the hardest thing I ever tried to learn. Do you s'pose all English children have to learn it?"
"I know they have an easy way of committing to memory the succession of their sovereigns, from William the Conqueror, down to the present time," said the lady, thoughtfully. "Or, they used to have."
"Oh, dear me!" wailed Tess. "I wish I knew how to remember the old things. But I don't."