"Oh, I daresay something nice will be settled for the holidays," I said lightly.
In one way Haddie was very lucky. Mrs. Selwood had undertaken the whole charge of his education for the two years our parents were to be away. And after that "we shall see," she said.
She had great ideas about the necessity of giving a boy the very best schooling possible, but she had not at all the same opinion about girls' education. She was a clever woman in some ways, but very old-fashioned. Her own upbringing had been at a time when very little learning was considered needful or even advisable for our sex. And as she had good practical capacities, and had managed her own affairs sensibly, she always held herself up both in her own mind and to others as a specimen of an unlearned lady who had got on far better than if she had had all the "'ologies," as she called them, at her fingers' ends.
This, I think, was one reason why she approved of Miss Ledbury's school, which, as you will hear, was certainly not conducted in accordance with the modern ideas which even then were beginning to make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to spend ten times as much on their sons' education as on their daughters'.
"Teach a girl to write a good hand, to read aloud so that you can understand what she says, to make a shirt and make a pudding and to add up the butcher's book correctly, and she'll do," Mrs. Selwood used to say.
"And what about accomplishments?" some one might ask.
"She should be able to play a tune on the piano, and to sing a nice English song or two if she has a voice, and maybe to paint a wreath of flowers if her taste lies that way. That sort of thing would do no harm if she doesn't waste time over it," the old lady would allow, with great liberality, thinking over her own youthful acquirements no doubt.
I daresay there was a foundation of solid sense in the first part of her advice. I don't see but that girls nowadays might profit by some of it. And in many cases they do. It is quite in accordance with modern thought to be able to make a good many "puddings," though home-made shirts are not called for. But as far as the "accomplishments" go, I should prefer none to such a smattering of them as our old friend considered more than enough.
So far less thought on Mrs. Selwood's part was bestowed on Geraldine—that is myself, of course—than on Haddon, as regarded the school question. And mamma had to be guided by Mrs. Selwood's advice to a great extent just then. She had so much to do and so little time to do it in, that it would have been impossible for her to go hunting about for a school for me more in accordance with her own ideas. And she knew that personally Miss Ledbury was well worthy of all respect.
She went to see her once or twice to talk about me, and make the best arrangements possible. The first of these visits left a pleasanter impression on her mind than the second. For the first time she saw Miss Ledbury alone, and found her gentle and sympathising, and full of conscientious interest in her pupils, so that it seemed childish to take objection to some of the rules mentioned by the school-mistress which in her heart mamma did not approve of.