“You must not talk against your governess, Sibyl,” said her mother from the other end of the table.
“Oh, let her speak out to us, my dear,” said the father. “What was Miss Winstead cross about to-day, Sibyl?”
“Spelling, as usual,” said Sibyl briefly, “but more special ’cos Lord Jesus made me pretty.”
“Hush!” said the mother again.
Sibyl glanced at her father. There was a twinkle of amusement in his eyes which he could scarcely keep back.
“My dear,” he said, addressing his wife, “do you think Miss Winstead is just the person——”
“I beg of you, Philip,” interrupted the mother, “not to speak of the child’s teacher before her face. Sibyl, I forbid you to make unkind remarks.”
“It’s ’cos they’re both so perfect,” thought Sibyl, “but it’s hard on me not to be able to ’splain things. If I can’t, what is to be done?”
She munched her biscuit sorrowfully, and looked with steadfast eyes across the room. She supposed she would have to endure Miss Winstead, crosspatch as she was, and she did not enjoy the task which mother and Lord Jesus had set her.