"She is very pretty!" she said, with the same knitted brow, and in the same uncivil manner.
I assented with a smile.
"An orphan. Ain't she?"
"Yes."
"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and every thing?"
"No doubt," said I.
"I can't," she returned. "I can't do any thing hardly, except write. I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon, and see me able to do nothing else. It was like your ill-nature. Yet you think yourselves very fine, I dare say!"
MISS JELLYBY.
I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my chair without speaking, and looked at her (I hope), as mildly as I felt toward her.