“Oh, please yourself,” said Harriet. “Have you had enough breakfast?”
“Yes, thank you awfully, and it was so good. I suppose,” added Ralph, a little timidly, “we’d best begin my lessons now. I hate reading to myself, but I suppose I must learn.”
“You needn’t learn from me,” said Harriet. “I’m not going to give you any lessons.”
“Oh—but—oughtn’t you to?”
“Whether I ought to or not, I don’t mean to,” said Harriet. “Now, look here, what shall we do with ourselves?”
“I don’t know,” said Ralph, who was so excited and interested that he leaned up against Harriet, who would have given worlds to push him away, but did not dare.
“You’re very nice, really, truly,” he said, and he touched her lank hair with his little brown hand.
“Yes, am I not nice?” said Harriet, smiling at him. “Now, if you were to choose me for your school-mother, you would have a jolly time.”
“Am I to choose who I like?” said Ralph.
“Of course, you are. We are all trying our hands on you; but you are to make your own choice. Didn’t the other girls tell you?”