“My dear, you are far too good. I should like you to have a little will of your own.”
“Oh, yes, I have a will of my own. If you please, I do not wish to have any more lessons. I will read books; but they all said I never would play very well, and I can not draw at all. I can speak French a little, but it is very bad, and I have done about twenty German exercises,” Lucy said, with a shudder.
“Poor child! but I fear you must go on with these dreadful experiences. Perhaps a good German governess for a year—”
Lucy shuddered again. She thought of the Fraulein at the White House, with an inward prayer for deliverance. The Fraulein knew everything, all her own business, and other people’s special branches, even better than her own. Her very spectacles shone with knowledge.
“They can not be all like each other,” Lucy said, “and I will do whatever you like, Lady Randolph.”
There was never a girl so docile and obedient. Lady Randolph almost regretted the absence of all struggle, till her eyes fell upon little Jock in the corner, holding his book somewhat languidly. Jock did not care for this correct literature; the last thing in the world that he had any acquaintance with was the doings of children at school.
“Do you like your story-book, Jock?”
“No,” said Jock, concisely.
He let it drop from his hand; he did not even feel very deeply desirous of knowing what was the end.
“I am sorry for that; I hunted it up for you out of my old nursery. Nobody had touched the things for thirty years.”