"Yes," says Reuben, "but I don't think I'll go very long."
"Why not?" says Adèle.
"I'm getting too big to go to a girls' school," said Reuben.
"Oh!"—and there was a little playful malice in the girl's observation that piqued the boy.
"Do the scholars like her?" continued Adèle.
"Pretty well," said Reuben; "but she hung up a little girl about as big as you, once, upon a nail in a corner of the school-room."
"Quelle bête!" exclaimed Adèle.
"That's French, isn't it?"
"Yes, and it means she's a bad woman to do such things."
In this way they prattled on, and grew into a certain familiarity: the boy entertaining an immense respect for her French, and for her knowledge of the sea and ships; but stubbornly determined to maintain the superiority which he thought justly to belong to his superior age and sex.