"To tell you the truth, Betsy, I never half appreciated grandfather nor any of my other friends when I lived at home," said Marion sighing. "I was as full as I could be of all sorts of silly notions, and fancied I was very superior because I didn't take an interest in things about me. Oh dear! You don't know how I do want to see grandfather and Aunt Baby again!"
"There! Don't cry," said Betsy, alarmed.
"No, I won't, because I shall make my head ache and be more of a nuisance than I am now. But, Betsy, about your lessons. I don't believe but I might help you, or at least that we might help each other," said Marion, correcting herself. "I could read over the lessons to you—some of them, at least. We could go on with our English history and learn a French lesson every day, and that would be something."
"I should think it was," exclaimed Betsy, jumping up. "But about the Latin, Marie. Don't you hate to stop that? And yet I don't see how we could manage."
"I think I do. We will do our French one day, and the next we will learn some Latin by heart, or take a lesson in the grammar. Don't you know Harry says we are deficient in grammar, like all other girls?" said Marion, smiling as she repeated the remark with which Harry delighted to "aggravate" Betsy.
"Set him up, indeed! But on your sick days?"
"Well, on my sick days I shall have to be sick, I suppose; but they don't come nearly as often as they did."
"And won't it tire you, really? You are not doing it just because I have been making such a fuss or anything?"
"No, indeed; it is quite as much for my amusement as yours. I expect to learn a great deal."
"What a pity you can't go on with your drawing!" said Betsy. "Cousin Helen said you got on better than any pupil she ever had, and it was such a pity—Oh there, now! What have I done? Please don't cry, Marion."