"Pshaw! How absurd!—as if you could really be afraid of anything," retorted Martine with a smile.
Now, interesting though Martine found her life under Brenda's roof, she soon realized that her winter was not to be one wholly of pleasure. Her studies had been carried on so irregularly for a year or two that she now perceived that she must settle down to regular work. School had been in session a week or two before she returned to Miss Crawdon's; this fact was not altogether in her favor, and she found herself a little behind the girls in her class. But Martine was resolute, and when she once set herself at a task in genuine earnest, she was likely to go ahead with a will. So, for the first month she studied diligently; it was to her advantage that she had not many Boston acquaintances.
Brenda, in her new position of guide and philosopher as well as friend, gave Martine much good advice. One day in a serious mood she expressed the hope that Martine would not think of ending her studies at Miss Crawdon's school.
"It's astonishing," she said, "how many girls are beginning to fit for college, though when I was in school many of us thought my cousin Julia queer because she studied Greek and wished to go to Radcliffe; yet really she wasn't queer at all, only rather more interesting than most people."
"I should like so much to see her, everyone seems so fond of her," responded Martine. "When will she come back from Europe?"
"Not before summer, I think. She worked so hard at the Mansion School last year that we all hope she'll get all she can out of this journey. She's studying, of course, for she never can be perfectly idle; but I am glad to say that she has gone back to her music, for that is the thing she has the most talent for."
"Oh, dear," sighed Martine, "how delightful it must be to know that you have a talent for anything. It seems to me sometimes that I haven't a particle of talent. I can do several things passably well, but no one thing better than another. Mother thinks that the Boston air is going to develop some special talent of mine, but which or what, nobody knows. For my own part, as I said before, I am sure that I have no talent."
"Don't be so severe toward yourself," expostulated Brenda. "I am sure of one thing—you have a talent for being pleasant and amusing."
"I'm not quite sure that that is exactly a compliment."
"But, really, I mean it to be one."