"Oh, I read and walked, and helped take care of Kitty," said Emily; "and then I spent four days with Abby Carson, which I enjoyed very much. On the whole, it was not so tiresome as I expected."
"Did you have any lessons?" asked Delia.
"Only reading Latin with Mr. Fletcher. He says I improve very fast, and I never took so much interest in it before. What an excellent teacher he is!"
"He is well enough," said Delia. "I never could discover any of the extraordinary things about him that the other girls see or imagine; but I confess to being a little afraid of those black eyes of his. But how do the girls like Mr. Hugo?"
"We have not had a recitation yet," replied Emily.
She had been dreading the introduction of this topic, for she had fully made up her mind that she ought to tell Delia that she would have nothing more to do with the matter. Unlike Annette, however, to acknowledge an obligation and to fulfil it were with Emily two very different things. To do her justice, she did make an effort, but instead of speaking boldly at once, she began by saying,—
"I wish you would not go on with that, Delia. I am sure you will be sorry some day, and then it will be too late."
"I will be the judge of that, my dear," returned Delia. "You know I told you that, before."
"But your father—"
"My father knows nothing about it, and need not know. It may very likely never come to anything, and then there will be no harm done. Moreover, my father has not been so very careful of my comfort or interest, that I should submit all my affairs implicitly to his will. He need not have brought a strange woman into the house to tyrannise over me, if he had wanted me to stay at home. She has trained Ron and Alice so that I cannot do anything with them, and Alice had the impudence to tell me that I had no business to speak so to my mother. Mother, indeed!"