"That isn't very hard work," I said.
"Oh, I don't know," she answered; "you'll find me a very tiresome child sometimes, and if you had been the brown alpaca dress, and grey curls, and spectacles, I would have led you such a life that in less than a week you would have said to papa, 'Sir William Trafford, I must beg to resign the charge of your flippant and wilful daughter.' Before you came, papa said we were to have some profitable reading in a morning, and story-books only after luncheon; but I hate profitable reading, and papa never makes me do what I hate."
"What kind of reading do you mean?" I inquired.
"Oh, history and geography, and all such things; I never could bear them. What is the good of knowing who Henry VIII.'s wives were, and which of them he beheaded; and nearly giving oneself brain fever in trying to remember what relation John of Gaunt was to everybody else."
"I am very fond of history," I said; "I think some parts are quite as interesting as a story-book."
"Oh dear, oh dear!" she said. "You are talking just like the brown alpaca dress! I shall expect you to pull the spectacles out of your pocket in a minute."
And then I could do nothing but laugh, and in a moment she had changed the conversation, and was rattling on about something else.
"There are not many visitors here just now," she said; "you'll see them all by and by. They generally pay me a visit after dinner. And mind you stop when they come; I want you to see them all. The brown alpaca dress always got up when any one came in, and made a very stiff bow, and went away and shut herself up in her bedroom. So mind you don't do the same; you must look at all the people well, and tell me what you think of them, when they are gone."
"Oh, I should not like to do that," I said.
"Why not?" she said, laughingly. "I don't mind telling you what I think of any one. There is Lady Eldridge; she is very grand and stately, and I don't like her a bit; and there is Lord Moreton—he never has a word to say, and is very stupid; but he has a quantity of money and a splendid estate, and papa is always saying what a nice young man he is. And so he may be, perhaps, in some ways; at least he is very harmless, but then he squints, and I never could marry any one who squinted—could you, Miss Lindsay?"