The girl turned toward her with a smile. "Not at all. Sometimes I used to try when no one heard, and once when I was in the hammock with my brother's little girl, I joined her in the song she was singing. She looked at me in a minute with a rueful countenance, and said, 'Aunt Helen, I can't sing when you are making such a noise!'" Bernice laughed. "I haven't tried much since," the tall girl added.
"We have singing lessons at school twice a week," Bernice said, presently, "but I like the every-day lessons better."
"Do you? I like mathematics, and sloyd, and a hammer and nails and saw.
Mama tells me I ought to be a carpenter."
"But you don't look like one," Bernice smiled, critically; and then continued: "We began physical geography this term. It is so interesting. And Miss Somers makes language beautiful; I can't help liking grammar!"
"I never understood it—it was always so blind!"
But Bernice was laughing again. The tall girl turned toward her inquiringly.
"I was thinking of what Johnny Weeks said down in the primary room the other day," Bernice began in explanation. "The teacher asked him what 'cat' was. I guess he was not paying attention. He looked all around, and finally said he did not know. She told him it was a noun. 'Then,' he said, after some deliberation, 'kitten must be a pronoun.'"
An hour afterward, all the lights but one in the house were out. Elizabeth sat with her cousin talking over the events of the evening.
"And how do you like Bernice Dahl?" she asked, and lent an eager ear; for
Helen's word could make or mar things irretrievably.
"Like her? I have never liked any one better. Perhaps I would not have noticed, had you not spoken particularly about her."