”‘Hold up your head, turn out your toes,
Speak when you’re spoken to, mend your clo’es,’
“Aunt Mildred?” she said.
“Yes, I do,” said the old lady, testily. “There’s a medium in all things. I detest impertinent little chatterboxes of children. But you’re not a child now, Claudia, and you have plenty of sense and knowledge in your head; you are quite able to talk very intelligently and agreeably if you choose. I only hope you are not going to turn into a book-worm. Are you working too hard?”
“No, aunt, I don’t think so,” said Claudia. “And you know how I enjoy my lessons. And the teaching at Miss Lloyd’s is really very interesting.”
But she gave a very little sigh as she spoke.
“Then what’s the matter with you? Are you ill? I hope you’re not home-sick. Or do any of those girls at Miss Lloyd’s annoy you in any way? You can’t deny that you’re not in your usual spirits.”
“No,” Claudia allowed, “I don’t feel quite as merry as usual; but I’m sure I’m not ill. And I’m not home-sick: if I were it would be too silly, when I know that what you are doing for me now is to make it possible for me to be a real help to them all at home. Perhaps, however, I am just a very little what people call home-sick. It isn’t the girls at school—I have very little to do with them.”
“All the better,” said Lady Mildred. “They cannot be much worth knowing.”
“Perhaps most of them are rather commonplace,” Claudia allowed. “There is only one—the one I told you of, Charlotte Waldron—who interests me at all particularly. But I don’t think I interest her, so though we do all the same lessons we scarcely ever speak to each other,” and again Claudia sighed a little.
“You are a goose,” said her aunt. “I believe you would like to make friends with the girl, and have her adoring you and gushing over you.”