"And," said Gatty, "we can sit here and look out for ships all day long."
Mother.—"What, Gatty, are you tired of being here?"
Gatty.—"Tired, tired does not express what I think about this place. There is nothing to do. Nothing frightens Sybil now, and Serena is so busy learning Spanish, she won't listen to a word I say in English. Oscar makes me talk of home and Wales until I am ready to cry my eyes out at my own descriptions. And the three little girls are all so wise and womanly that they seem to reprove me if I do anything the least like play or fun. I have not had a bit of fun since Felix tried to teach his monkey to fish, that he might lazily read himself. I am quite done up with dullness" (heaving a sort of groan).
Mother.—"Indeed, I think you are badly used, especially since Madame has found out you really can be a good girl if you like."
Gatty.—"I could be as mischievous as ever, only nobody cares for it or scolds me."
Schillie.—"Mischievous! I should think so, you sphinx of plagues, I declare I am dripping, and you know I have a horror of being over damp."
Gatty.—"It is quite clean water, little Mother, and it is but a little stream, and has not been running long to you."
Schillie.—"But you know if it had not been for your great clumsy fingers making a channel, that stream would never have come to where I am sitting; and you did it on purpose you know, so that it should just dribble to my seat and not June's."
Gatty.—"Yes, I know I did, little Mother, because you know I would never have done so to her."
Schillie.—"Did any one ever hear such impudence. Now, I insist on it that you go back, and bring me some dry things. But it's no use, I must go myself. I am wet through and through. Well, you shall never catch me complaining again of Miss Gatty being stupidly good; and she knows so well I hate anything like damp."