"Yes, Miss Maggie dear, and when it's forced unnatural it gets what I call over-ripe. I had a nephew once whose brain went like that—he died eventual of the same cause, for it filled with water."
Maggie's round blue eyes regarded her nurse with a certain gleam of horror and satisfaction. Miss Grey had now been in the house for three months, and certainly the progress Maggie had made in her studies was not sufficiently remarkable to induce any one to dread evil consequences to her little brain. She trotted down to dinner, and took her usual place opposite her governess. In one of the pauses of the meal, her clear voice was heard addressing Sir John Ascot.
"Father dear, did you ever hear nurse talk of her nephew?"
"No, Mag-Mag, I can't say I have. Nurse does not favor me with much news about her domestic concerns, and she has doubtless many nephews."
"Oh, but this is the one who was over-ripe," answered Maggie, "so you'd be sure to remember about him father."
"What an unpleasant description, little woman!" answered Sir John; "an over-ripe nephew! Don't let's think of him. Have a peach, little one. Here is one which I can promise you is not in that state of incipient decay."
Maggie received her peach with a little nod of thanks, but she was presently heard to murmur to herself:
"I'm over-ripe, too. I quite 'spect I'll soon fill with water."
"What is the child muttering?" asked Sir John of his wife; but Lady Ascot nodded to her husband to take no notice of Maggie, and presently she and her governess left the room.
"My dear," said Lady Ascot to Sir John, when they were alone, "Miss Grey says that our little girl is determined to grow up a dunce—she simply won't learn, and she won't obey her; and I often see Maggie crying now, and nurse is not at all happy about her."