"Wicked! it's no such thing. What do people dream for if they're not to come true?"
"So you believe you are destined to be burned up?" said Richmond.
"Yes," said Georgia, unhesitatingly.
"Oh, I haven't the slightest doubt of it," said Charley; "if you miss it in this world, you'll——"
"Now, Charley, be quiet," said Richmond, soothingly; "you have no experience in different sorts of worlds, so you are not capable of judging. Georgia, you are the most silly-wise child I ever met in all my life."
"What!" said Georgia, with a scowl.
"You are so unnaturally precocious in some ways, and so childishly simple in others. You know the most unexpected things, and are ignorant of the commonest facts that any infant almost comprehends. You are morbid and superstitious—but I knew that before. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Georgia, you ought to go to school."
Now, school was Georgia's pet abomination. Miss Jerusha, partly to be rid of her and partly for the propriety of the thing, had often wished to send her; but the idea of being cooped up a prisoner within the walls of a school-room, and obliged to obey every command, was abhorrent to the free, unfettered, untamed child. Go to school, indeed! Not she! She laughed at the notion. Richmond had never spoken of it before to her, and now, conscious of his power over her, and trembling for her threatened liberty, all the old spirit of daring and fierce defiance flashed up in her bold black eyes, and, springing to her feet, she confronted him.
"I won't! I'll never go to school! I hate it!"
Georgia never said "I can't" or "I don't like to," but her dauntless, defiant "I will" and "I won't," bespoke her nature. Emily said the former; Georgia, never.