“Do you really mind it so much?”
“I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more,” said the girl slowly. “Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but if I did—I should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. And if I just wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot of trouble. All the good things here seem—seem remedies!”
The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks—three weeks and no word!
“You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care,” she said lightly. “But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like you, your work is good; you ought to stay.”
The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of sympathy.
“You advise me to?” she asked quietly.
“I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother,” with a light hand on her shoulder. “You are so young—four years is very, little. Of course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you are not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as you.”
Three weeks—but he had waited seven years!
“I am very childish,” said the girl. “Of course I will stay. And some of it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd rather have come when mamma was a girl.”
“I see. I have thought that, too.”