"Oh yes, of course; Dr. Gates would think any one very foolish who went to the Cure."
Lizzy coloured and her eyes flashed at this certainly not very civil remark.
After a minute's silence, however, she answered quietly, though not without a certain emphasis,—
"If you had taken time to hear me out, Marion, perhaps you would have understood the matter better. What I meant to say was that father said Miss Crocker was very foolish to try to keep round on her lame foot when it was first hurt. He says if she had been content to keep it up on the sofa for a week, it would never have troubled her, and he is glad she is going to the Cure, because Doctor Henry will make her keep still."
"Miss Tilly knows that herself now," said Therese. "But she didn't think it was anything."
"Just so, but she ought to have believed what father told her. She might have had some confidence in him."
"She knows that too," said Therese. "She said yesterday to Kitty and me, 'Take warning by me, girls, and don't think yourselves so much wiser than every one else.'"
"But honestly, now, Therese, wouldn't you like better to go to school as we do?" asked Marion, after a minute or two of mortified silence.
"Of course I should," answered Therese. "Who wouldn't? I don't pretend to enjoy washing dishes or ironing or running up and down stairs so much as I do studying and reading story-books, but what then? I have not my choice in the matter. Somebody must work, and work is no hardship so long as one is strong and well and does not have too much of it. I do not work nearly as hard as Aunt Lenore or Aunt Madelaine."
"Lenore likes her work, too; I heard her say so," answered Lizzy.