"I don't know," she said, with a trembling lip.
"But I am your true friend. What difference can it make to me whether you grow up learned and accomplished, or as ignorant as your little servant, Fly?"
"A great deal, if she know but all," muttered Charley.
"But I hate school! I should die if I was kept in," said Georgia with a sort of cry.
"Nonsense! You would do no such thing! Do you remember the bird I caught for you and put in a cage? Yes! well, it struggled to get out, and beat its wings against the bars of the cage until you thought it would have beat itself to death, yet now it is a willing captive."
"Yes, it is like a wooden bird, without life; it lies in the bottom of the cage and hardly ever sings or moves; it isn't worth having now," said Georgia, her lip curling with a sort of scorn.
"Well, it will be different with you; you are ambitious, Georgia, and in trying to pass your schoolmates you will feel a delight and pride you never experienced before. A new world will be opened to you; you will like it. Do go, Georgia; if I were not your friend, if I did not like you very much, I should not ask you."
Charley, with his head bent down whistling "Yankee Doodle," was shaking with inward laughter.
"Oh, Georgia, do come," pleaded Emily.
Georgia, with her lips compressed, her glittering black eyes burning into the ground, stood silent, motionless, turned to iron.