"No," she replied shaking her head; "that would be promising too much. I shall be certain to quarrel with you again, and it does not do to break treaties. Do you know I was never, as a child, so much inclined to be naughty as when I had just promised to be very good. Let us content ourselves with a four hours' truce, renewable or not at the end of that time."
"Be it so," replied he laughing, "if you think that the safest proceeding or the most agreeable. So you were a naughty girl, were you, at school?"
"Oh, always in a scrape—the torment of my governess," said she laughing at the recollection. "They used gravely to shake their heads, and say they did not know what would become of me; I should never be good for anything; so idle—so rebellious—so mischievous—so saucy—and withal so merry and happy—I always got my own way with them all."
"And what did you learn at school, may I ask?"
"First to play at battledore and shuttle-cock, and repeat 'I love my love with an A,' &c.—then to dance—I liked that—then to do cross-stitch, tent and marking—I worked a magnificent sampler, which I will show you some day. Then I learnt my letters and to read, because they promised me some fairy tales if I would try. The next accomplishment I acquired was to do a sum in the rule of three, for which I was rewarded with 'Sir Charles Grandison,' in seven volumes. I do not know that I learnt anything else, except the way to govern all my companions, coax my superiors—oh, and write a letter."
"Well, I think it must have been a very good school, and if ever I have daughters they shall be sent there too. I admire the system exceedingly."
"Yes, I think it was a very good school," replied Annie; "to be sure, I learnt nothing worth knowing, and a great deal which I had better have let alone: one sees a prodigious deal of meanness, and manœuvring, and artful conduct when thirty or forty girls are assembled together; but I suppose it is all right, since it has gone on for so many generations, and I do not know that women are worse than they used to be before they ever pretended to learn. We do not expect to rival Lady Jane Grey, or Queen Elizabeth, or the daughters of Evelyn, and I dare say if we did, we should only be disliked and ridiculed. No doubt it is quite right that women should be idle and frivolous; it keeps us in our right places in the world."
She spoke with something in her tone between jest and bitterness, to which Sam hardly knew how to answer.
"I protest against your giving the conversation such a turn; it is breaking our truce," said he, "you must either speak in complete jest, or serious earnest. I shall be getting into a scrape again with you, if I answer now, for I do not know which you mean."
"Let it pass for a jest then, lest you should think me seriously discontented with my position in society," replied she, "and in the meantime, give me Miss Bridge's teacup to replenish!"