Miss Drake smiled mischievously.
“Oh, very easily—very easily, indeed! I am accustomed to work among girls, and when I get a new pupil I know at once under which category she will fall. When I saw you I said to myself—‘Quick, ambitious, versatile!’ I have no fear that you will fail to do anything to which you persistently give your mind.”
“Ah!” groaned Dreda tragically, “but that’s just what I can never do. For a little time—yes! I’m a wonder to work when I first get a craze. But—it passes! I get—bored! I’ve never stuck persistently to one thing in my life. The boys call me ‘Etheldreda the Ready,’ because I’m always bubbling over with enthusiasm at the beginning, and willing to promise any mortal thing you like—and then,”—she snapped her fingers in illustration—“Snap! the balloon bursts, and I collapse into nothing. It will be the same thing with lessons!”
Miss Drake held up her hand imperatively.
“Stop!” she cried clearly. “Stop! Never say that again, never allow yourself to say it. You know your failing in your own heart, and that is enough! Every time that you put it into words, and talk about it to others, gives it added strength and power and makes it more difficult to fight. My dear girl, you are not a child—how feeble to take for granted that you are going to continue in your old baby failings! Take for granted instead that you are going to live them down, and trample them beneath your feet. You’ll have to fight for it, and to fight hard, but it will do you more good than any lessons I can teach. That’s the best education, isn’t it, to achieve the mastery over ourselves?”
Now, if meek Miss Bruce had delivered herself of similar sentiments, Dreda would have tilted her chin and wriggled contemptuously in her chair, muttering concerning “preaching,” and wishing to goodness that the tiresome old thing would stop talking and get on with her work, but Miss Drake wore such a young and gallant air, as she strode along the country lane with her head thrown back, and her uplifted hand waving aloft, that the girl’s ardent nature took flame; she tilted her own head, waved her own arm, and felt a tingling of martial zeal. Yes, she would work! Yes, she would fight! She would tread her enemies under foot and emerge from the conflict victorious, untrammelled, a paragon of virtues. She turned a dazzling smile upon her companion and heaved an ardent sigh.
“How beautifully you talk! Our old governess was so different! She did not understand my nature. I have wonderful ambitions, but I am so sensitive that I can’t work against difficulties. I need constant encouragement and appreciation. A sensitive plant—”
“Oh, Dreda, please spare me that worn-out simile! Not work against difficulties, indeed! What nonsense you talk! It is not work at all when everything is easy and smooth. Don’t deceive yourself, my dear—you are going to find plenty of difficulties, and to find them quickly, too. This very afternoon they will begin, when you tackle the new subjects and realise your own ignorance. You won’t enjoy being behind your companions.”
Dreda threw out her arms with a gesture of despair, but she made no further protest. Difficulties arising in the dim future she felt herself able to face resolutely enough, but the thought that they might begin that very afternoon dispelled her ardour. She listened to Miss Drake’s further utterances with so quelled and dispirited an air that that quick-sighted lady felt that enough
