"I don't know that I shall ever ride again," answered Violet with a shudder.
Could she ever forget that awful ride? Roderick hated himself for his foolish speech.
"Violet will have to devote herself to her studies very assiduously for the next two years," said Miss McCroke. "She is much more backwards than I like a pupil of mine to be at sixteen."
"Yes, I am going to grind at three or four foreign grammars, and to give my mind to latitude and longitude, and fractions, and decimals," said Vixen, with a bitter laugh. "Isn't that cheering?"
"Whatever you do, Vixen," cried Roderick earnestly, "don't be a paradigm."
"What's that?"
"An example, a model, a paragon, a perfect woman nobly planned, &c. Be anything but that, Vixen, if you love me."
"I don't think there is much fear of any of us being perfect," said Miss McCroke severely. "Imperfection is more in the line of humanity."
"Do you think so?" interrogated Rorie. "I find there is a great deal too much perfection in this world, too many faultless people—I hate them."
"Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your side?" suggested Miss McCroke.