Sargent had forgotten the little girl beside him, lost in admiration of the strange old house, when he felt a cold hand slipped into his, and looking down, found her glowing eyes gazing timidly up at him.
"You like it?" she questioned quickly.
"It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen!"
She smiled contentedly, her hand still in his.
"It's mine—when I get grown up. If you hadn't liked it—I'd have hated you just like I did Miss Hampton who was our governess last year."
Sargent felt her hand clench in his and saw her eyes grow dark. Giving a tug at the book she carried, to get it more comfortably under her arm, she started on again.
"Did you hate her so," Sargent said, glancing at the book she held in her hand, "because she made you study such a big book as that?"
"This?—Oh no, I love to read this—only I don't understand it all. I just hated her because she said this was a lonesome old place, and I didn't like for her to say that, for the Spaniards built this house and my mother was Spanish—so am I." Then suddenly, "Are you going to teach me the three R's? Uncle Felix calls it that," smiling again. "Isn't it funny, because I know they don't begin with an R," putting her hand in Sargent's once more. "Won't you please leave out the 'Rithmetic?"
Sargent laughed down at her.
"Arithmetic—of course not. We all have to learn that."