"Gone home! and I don't want to stay in this nasty, mean place. I don't want to go to school no more—nowhar!"
To hint at the obvious propriety of the deprecated measure was a temptation policy bade her resist, and Ida was actually nonplussed in casting about in her mind for appropriate consolation.
"You will like us better than you expect," she said, rather awkwardly; "and your father will come soon to see you again—will he not?"
"Yes; he's comin' next week. He is a representative!" mouthing the word magniloquently.
"A—what?"
"He belongs to the legislater. Lor! didn't you know that?"
"No," replied Ida, humbly; "I am so little conversant with State affairs. You will be glad to have him so near."
"I don't care much about it; I want to go home and stay with ma!" beginning to sob. Neither her unpolished manners, nor her accent, combining, as it did, the most vicious of Virginia provincialisms, with the gutturals of the African; nor her noisy grief, could make Ida forget that she was a home-sick child—weeping for her mother! She too had mourned, and "refused to be comforted, because hers was not." Miss Pratt's sorrow, however, was very garrulous.
"Now, at home," she continued, "I did jest as I pleased; I lay down most all day. Ma said reading was bad for my head; and so 'tis; it makes me as stupid as I don't know what; and ain't no use besides. I can play on the pianny; gentlemen don't care for nothing else when they go to see the ladies. You all don't have no beaux while you're at school, do you?"
Ida smiled at this unlooked for query. "We do not have much leisure for amusements," she rejoined.